‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ turns 75 this year. It’s still a testament to America’s promise.

“It’s A Wonderful Life” first hit theaters in 1946. Seventy-five years later, the Christmas classic remains a magnificent testament to America’s promise.

Frank Capra created the film as the first production of his new independent film company, Liberty Films. The choice was surely no coincidence for the famously patriotic, Italian-born director. He was known for making movies such as “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” unabashed love poems to his adopted homeland. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, making a series of esteemed films titled “Why We Fight” that explained to troops why the United States was at war.

That helps explain the subtle patriotism of “It’s A Wonderful Life.” Prewar America was defined by its racial and religious divisions. The war, to some extent, was the first truly shared experience among these warring groups, as they fought and died on behalf of the same cause. In Capra’s hands, the movie promoted the idea of a united nation filled with equal citizens from every race, creed and color.

We can see this in the movie’s main clash between the rich and greedy Henry Potter and the altruistic Bailey family, serving as an allegory about the meaning of equality in America.

This becomes clear in the speeches Potter and George Bailey give at the board meeting of the Bailey Bros. Building and Loan after the death of George’s father. Potter moves to dissolve the shakily financed firm, saying that the late father “was not a businessman. He was a man of high ideals, so-called, but ideals without common sense can ruin a town.” In Potter’s view, people were equal in the sense that they competed with one another for resources. Those who merely worked for a living were a “discontented rabble” who deserved to be in servitude to those who owned their homes and businesses.

Bailey rebukes Potter, noting that his “rabble ... do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community.” His father built the homes on credit because it would help them afford a decent life as well as help make them more independent. “People were human beings to him,” George tells Potter, “but to you, they’re cattle.”

These views are borne out by the characters’ deeds. Potter rents homes to them in a development archly called “Potter’s Field” – a reference to the plot of land the high priests of Israel bought using the money paid to Judas to betray Jesus. Bailey meanwhile, develops “Bailey’s Park” and loans his working-class clients money so they can own their own homes and build new lives.

Capra casts a specifically American light on the moral themes of the film. For instance, most of the heroes have obviously ethnic surnames, such as Bailey (Irish), Martini (Italian) and Gower (Welsh). This was not true of the short story that Capra adapted to write the screenplay, which used English names such as Pratt, Biddle and Thatcher. Potter even makes reference to the ethnic differences, telling George that he’s “frittering his life away playing nursemaid to a bunch of garlic-eaters,” using a then-common anti-Italian slur.

Note also that the theater in the film’s town, Bedford Falls, plays “The Bells of St. Mary’s,” a film about a Catholic priest and nun working at a Catholic school, and that the headline on the newspaper Bert the cop is reading when George pays his father a final visit is “Smith Wins Nomination.” This refers to Al Smith, the first Catholic nominated for president by a major party. This is unimportant to the rest of the film, but it makes a subtle, but clear, point that America, then dominated by Protestants, is religiously diverse.

Capra even makes racial equality part of his message. While the film’s few Black characters are depicted as maids, railroad porters or piano players, a Black woman appears in the famous final scene to help bail out George from his financial woes. The clear implication is that she, too, got a loan for a Bailey Park home, making it an integrated community. Black people are part of this nation, too, Capra tells his audience.

The film’s use of the war also drives this point home. Capra depicts the conflict as a community effort, as every town person had their part to play. Some, such as George’s younger brother Harry, served overseas and became war heroes; others volunteered at home. Potter even pitches in as head of the local draft board, where he labels every person as “1-A,” meaning fit to be drafted. This contrast – one man using others, everyone else helping each other – cannot be more striking.

Much of the movie takes place on Christmas Eve 1945, the first Christmas after the war’s end. Bailey’s triumph, defeating Potter’s efforts to close the Building and Loan, implies that Potter’s time is over. It’s therefore no coincidence that the final shot closes in on the Liberty Bell, wordlessly celebrating the new American order. Bedford Falls would henceforth be a community of true, free equals.

Capra’s classic reminds us that Christmas in America has both secular and religious significance. Let us remember his noble vision and use this holiday season as fellow citizens to “proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all inhabitants.”