Why It's A Wonderful Life is a significant film

Here is everything you need to know about the film It's A Wonderful Life, which recently turned 75 years old.Show more

Watch the film for free: https://www.nbc.com/its-a-wonderful-life
Produced by Matt Beat. All images/video by Matt Beat, found in the public domain, or used under fair use guidelines. Music by E's Jammy Jams.

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Sources/further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_...
https://www.democratandchronicle.com/...
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/swi...
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038650
https://screenrant.com/its-a-wonderfu...
https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a30...
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/9...
https://www.life.com/arts-entertainme...

#itsawonderfullife #christmasmovies #filmhistory

Not only do many consider it the greatest Christmas film of all time, but many consider it one of the greatest FILMS of all time, period. Even though it debuted 75 years ago, it still holds up amazingly well. Here is everything you need to know about It’s a Wonderful Life.

November 1939
Philip Van Doren Stern begins writing a short story loosely based on the classic Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol. He didn’t finish it until 1943 and sent it to a bunch of publishers, none of which were interested in publishing it. So he just printed a bunch and mailed them to friends and family members instead. Well somehow, the story, called The Greatest Gift, got into the hands of David Hempstead, a film producer who worked for RKO Pictures, and he got the story to the actor Cary Grant. Well Grant loved it and said if RKO Pictures turned it into a film, he’d want to play the lead role. RKO bought the rights to turn it into a movie for $10,000.

However, RKO Pictures hesitated on moving forward, not satisfied with different scripts that different screenwriters came up with. Enter director Frank Capra, whose new production company, Liberty Films, had just entered a long-term deal with RKO. After Capra read it he immediately wanted it for his first Hollywood film. Capra hired his own team to help him write a screenplay from it. The main folks who contributed were Frances Goodrich, Albert Hacket, and Jo Swerling, although Capra apparently didn’t get along well with the team.

Though this has never been fully verified, Capra was likely inspired to model the setting for the film after Seneca Falls, New York, after he visited the town in 1945, although the original author, Stern, had Califon, New Jersey in mind.

Anyway, Cary Grant had moved on, so now Capra needed to find someone for the lead role. He found James Stewart, who had just returned home from his heroic military service during World War Two. Stewart had worked with Capra on Mr. Smith Goes to Washington before the war. Now that the war was over, Stewart was looking at returning to acting, and gladly accepted the leading role of George Bailey. Capra considered MANY actors for the rest of the roles, but ultimately went with Donna Reed to play George’s wife, Mary Bailey. He chose Lionel Barrymore to play Potter, which was kind of fitting since Barrymore had famously played Ebenezer Scrooge in radio presentations of A Christmas Carol a few years prior. The dude who Capra picked to play Mr. Gower, the drugstore owner was H.B. Warner, who actually studied medicine before going into acting. An English actor named Henry Travers played Clarence, the angel. Though he was an accomplished actor, this would easily be his most famous role.

Capra would not only direct the film, but produce the whole thing as well. Filming began on April 15, 1946 and ended on July 27th, and no, they didn’t film it in New York or New Jersey. They filmed it in California, of course, mostly on a giant set. Yep, Bedford Falls was a fake town built on four acres at the RKO Studios in Culver City, California, with additional scenes shot on their 89-acre ranch in Encino. For the snow scenes, special effects artist Russell Shearman had developed a brand new compound mixing water, soap flakes, foamite, and sugar. Before that movie snow was usually made from untoasted cornflakes, believe it or not. The famous high school dance scenes were filmed at a REAL location, at Beverly Hills High School, which you can still visit.

It’s a Wonderful Life premiered on December 20, 1946 at the Globe Theatre in New York City. It wouldn’t be released nationwide until January 7th, which probably hurt its performance. Critics were mixed about it and it actually underperformed at the box office, with RKO losing $525,000. The FBI officially didn’t like it, either, issuing a memo that said the film secretly had a pro-Communist agenda.