This is not the feel good film that makes you cry at the end like Capra's other movie "it's a wonderful life" was. Glenn Ford is hard to believe as a top gangster of nyc. He has a "hickish" boyish look to him and looks to be from a farm land state not nyc. Bette Davis is annoying to look at she has a few snarky lines in the film . You never really grow to like her character or to root for her. Peter Falk was ok but a little over done with the Italian accent but much more believable as a gangster than was Glenn Ford. When I saw all the top ratings on imdb I gave this movie a try. I'll never do that again. The last 3 movies with great user reviews have let me down. You'll wait all through the film for something great to happen but it'll never come.

. . . may just see this flick as Peter Falk's chance to pick up an Oscar Nod for inventing the Bob De Niro\Al Pacino\Sylvester Stallone Branch of Italian Stallion Acting. The Deplorable Products of U.S. Strongman Vlad "The Mad Russian" Putin's American Secretary of Miseducation (Billionairess Betsy "Amway Calling" DeVos and her chains of For-Profit Charter Brainwashing Shacks) won't know the rest of the POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES story. POCKETFUL marks the final stages of Director Frank Capra's schizophrenic break with Reality. After an early Tinseltown career focused upon championing the Little Guy for low-rent movie studios (culminating with IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE), Capra signed a pact with Satan to destroy most of Hollywood by starring himself in IT'S A WEASEL's LIFE. Joining forces with fellow rat finks and closet KGB-controlled thugs such as John Ford, Elia Kazan, Ronald Reagan, Charlton Heston, Ward Bond, and the latter's sidekick Marion Mitchell "Il Duce" Morrison, Capra helped to jail or assassinate countless film giants including Dalton Trumbo, John Garfield, Errol Flynn, Anne Revere, Kirk Douglas, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz. POCKETFUL represents the victims of Capra's Cabal through "Apple Annie's" Beggars Guild. Capra anticipates Putin's successful U.S. Putsch through the Fat Cat One Per Centers threatening Annie's Family. His hurried POCKETFUL conclusion implying that these two groups can cooperate toward a common goal reeks of the Real Life insanity tearing apart Capra's mind by the 1960s as it dawned upon him that his Younger Self would have committed suicide in a heartbeat rather than willingly allow the Geriatric Witch Hunter he'd become to irrevocably tarnish his formerly Good Name.

A bevy of stars highlight this silly film about a bootlegger Dave the Dude (Glen Ford) who is convinced that the apples he buys from Apple Annie (Bette Davis)-a street peddler- bring him luck. His right hand man, Joy Boy (Peter Falk), gives an Academy Award Nominated performance, which, according to Frank Capra, was "a bright spot in this 'miserable film'"Annie's daughter Louise (Ann-Margaret), believing the lie that her mother is a well-to-do socialite, sends a letter that she is engaged to marry into royalty and is on her way to New York to introduce her intended and his father, a Count to her.

Frank Capra's final feature film is a remake of his earlier movie Lady for a Day, one of my favorite movies from the '30s. The story is about an elderly street peddler named Apple Annie who is turned into a society matron by a gangster named Dave the Dude. The original movie starred May Robson and Warren William, both largely forgotten today except among classic film fans. This one has more well-known stars, Bette Davis and Glenn Ford, but isn't as good. It just isn't as much fun and doesn't have the same heartwarming quality the original did. Davis and Ford are okay but represent a change in the times I'd say. Davis' Annie is ghoulish and Ford's Dave is hard to like. The charm of the previous film, made in a much different era for filmmaking, is gone. Also the original movie was made during the period it was set in, which gave it a feeling of authenticity this one doesn't have. On the plus side, Peter Falk and Hope Lange are good in supporting parts, Ann-Margret is fine in her screen debut, and reliable vet Thomas Mitchell enjoyable as ever in his final film. Lots of old familiar faces like Sheldon Leonard, Edward Everett Horton, Barton MacLane, and Jerome Cowan is another plus. It's overlong and not among Capra's best but certainly something fans will want to see. I recommend seeking out the 1933 classic first, though.