IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

'''It's a Wonderful Life''' is a 1946 American film produced and directed by Frank Capra and based on the short story, "The Greatest Gift" written by Philip Van Doren Stern.
The film takes place in the fictional town of Bedford Falls shortly after World War II and stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man whose attempted suicide on Christmas Eve gains the attention of a guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (or Oddbody) (Henry Travers) who is sent to help him in his hour of need. Most of the film is told through flashbacks spanning George's entire life and narrated by Franklin and Joseph, unseen Angels who are preparing Clarence for his mission to save George. Through these flashbacks we see all the people whose lives have been touched by George and the difference he has made to the community in which he lives.
The film is regarded as a classic and is a staple of Christmas TV around the world, although due to its high production costs and high standard of competition at the box office it failed to return a profit on release and financially was considered a flop.^[2] Although not an Oscar winner at the time it has been since named by the American Film Institute one of the best films ever made and was placed number one on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers list of the most inspirational American films of all time.

Contents

Plot

Production

Background

Filming

Featured cast

Reception

Awards and nominations

Ownership and copyright issues

Belated success

Colorization

Popular culture

References

External links

Plot

It is Christmas Eve, 1946 and George Bailey is in a dark place. Faced with the loss of his business, the scandal of bankruptcy and wanted by the police for misappropriation of funds, he is on the verge of suicide. The prayers of his family and friends alert Heaven to George’s state of mind and Clarence Odbody, an Angel Second Class, is sent to Earth to save George. Clarence later reveals that he is also being tested; after over 200 years of trying, he has still not earned his wings.
In preparing for his mission, Clarence sees a review of George's life. Subsequently, most of the film is in flashbacks spanning George Bailey's entire life and highlighting all the good he has done for others. As a child, George saved his brother Harry’s life in a ice sledding accident, a heroic act that cost him hearing in his left ear. About six months later, George is working for Mr. Gower, the local pharmacist, (H.B. Warner), and prevents him from accidentally killing a child when he inadvertently puts poison in the child’s medicine bottle. George's most compelling ambition is to see the whole world; he is a member of the National Geographic Society. He plans to become an architect, and design magnificent bridges and skyscrapers in cities around the world.
As George grows and matures he continues to extend help to whoever needs it. He puts off going to college until Harry graduates from high school so that Harry can take his place in the family business, the Bailey Building and Loan Association, on which many of the people of Bedford Falls depend to keep a roof over their heads. But on Harry's graduation night, their father suddenly dies and George is left with no choice but to stay. The avaricious and opportunistic owner of the bank (and most of the town), Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore), is on the board of directors of the Building and Loan, and intent on gaining control of it and putting an end to the "nonsense" of home loans for the working poor. George is the only hope the company has of staying independent. Harry goes on to college, and George's hopes of being able to leave Bedford Falls on Harry's return are dashed when Harry unexpectedly brings home his new wife Ruth, whose father has given Harry a well-paying job in his company. School friend Sam Wainwright has also gone on to wealth and success in the plastics industry, and is doing much of the traveling George always wanted to do.

George marries his childhood sweetheart Mary Hatch (Donna Reed) but on the day of their wedding, a run on the bank leaves the Building and Loan in serious danger of going under. George and Mary offer money from their own honeymoon fund, and lending the townspeople enough to sustain them. As time passes, George and Mary have four children, and he starts an affordable-housing project. He is unable to fight in the war due to his bad ear, but stays at home to play a minor role in the war effort – while his brother Harry becomes a Navy pilot and is awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for shooting down fifteen enemy planes, saving the lives of many men on a transport aircraft.
On Christmas Eve, entering the bank lobby to make an $8000 deposit for the Building and Loan, absent-minded Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) encounters Mr. Potter and, bursting with pride, shows him the newspaper article about his nephew Harry, who is to be honored by the President. Absent-mindedly, he leaves the deposit money in the newspaper he drops in Potter's lap, who finds it minutes later but does not tell anyone. This is also the day the bank examiner has come to inspect the Building and Loan's records, and arrives to find the money missing and George and Billy ransacking the place looking for it. George even appeals to Mr. Potter, telling him ''he'' (not Billy) lost the money; Potter asks if he has any collateral, and on hearing that he has a $10,000 life insurance policy, Potter laughs mockingly and says ''"You're worth more dead than alive!"''
Returning home, almost out of his mind with fear and anger, George perceives his entire life as a massive failure. His children, exuberantly preparing for the evening's festivities, send him into a rage against himself. He leaves the house and goes to the river, intending to commit suicide.
Seeing someone jump in, George jumps in after him, and helps save Clarence Odbody, who soon reveals himself to be George's guardian angel. Clarence pleads with George to allow him to help, since he is only a second-class angel and has no wings; if he succeeds with George, he'll have earned them. Upon hearing George proclaiming that he wishes that he had never been born, Clarence allows George to see life as it would have been. Bedford Falls is called Pottersville and is in most parts a slum. The main road is dominated by XXX theatres, pawn shops, and bars. George sees the people he knows and loves but none of them recognize him. George sees that their lives are hard and grim. Among other things, Mary (instead a spinster librarian) and his mother (instead a widow eking out an existence from running her house as a room-and-board) are both lonely, embittered women, Uncle Billy died in an insane asylum, and Harry has been dead since he fell through the ice in childhood, since George wasn't there to save him (Harry's tombstone reads 1911-1919, which disagrees with Clarence's statement that Harry died at the age of nine). His friend Violet has become a dancer whom George sees when she is arrested for pickpocketing. In this alternative world, Mr. Gower was convicted of poisoning the child that George had saved and is now a pan-handler. Ernie and Bert are much darker characters, and suspicious of George, thinking he is insane when he claims to know them. Bailey Park was never built and remains a desolate cemetery. George's home is still an abandoned mansion.
George flees to the bridge over the river once more and calls upon Clarence, and God, to save him. He is transported back to Bedford Falls on the same night, where his friends and family have rallied to collect money to save the Building and Loan and George from scandal and ruin. Mr. Gower has telegraphed Sam Wainwright in London, who sends an additional $25,000; in the midst of the festivities, Harry returns. Seeing how many lives he has touched, and the difference he has made to the town is enough for George Bailey to realize that despite his problems he has a wonderful life. The film ends with his daughter Zuzu hearing a bell on their Christmas tree, exclaiming that, "Teacher says, every time a bell rings, an Angel gets his wings".^[3] "Auld Lang Syne" rings out. (Original edits ended with "Ode to Joy", not "Auld Lang Syne".)

Production

Background

The original story "The Greatest Gift" was written by Philip Van Doren Stern in November 1939. After being unsuccessful in getting the story published, he decided to make it into a Christmas card, and mailed 200 copies to family and friends in December 1943.^[4][5] The story came to the attention of RKO producer David Hempstead, who showed it to Cary Grant's Hollywood agent and, in April 1944, RKO Pictures bought the rights to the story for $10,000 hoping to turn the story into a vehicle for Grant.^[6] RKO created three unsatisfactory scripts before shelving the planned movie with Grant going on to make another Christmas picture in ''The Bishop's Wife''.^[7] At the suggestion of RKO studio chief Charles Koerner, Frank Capra read "The Greatest Gift" and immediately saw its potential. RKO, anxious to unload the project, sold the rights in 1945 to Capra's production company, Liberty Films, which had a nine-film distribution agreement with RKO, for $10,000,^[8] and threw in the three scripts for free. Capra along with writers Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (Jo Swerling, Michael Wilson and Dorothy Parker were also brought in to "polish" the script)^[9] turned the story and what was worth using from the three scripts into a screenplay that Capra would rename "It's a Wonderful Life."

Filming

''It's a Wonderful Life'' was shot at the RKO studio in Culver City, California and the RKO Ranch in Encino, where Bedford Falls was a set covering four acres assembled from three separate parts with a main street stretching 300 yards, three city blocks with 75 stores and buildings, a tree-lined center parkway and 20 full grown oak trees. Due to the requirement to film in an "alternate universe" setting as well as during different seasons, the set was extremely adaptable.^[10] Filming started on April 15, 1946 and ended on July 27, 1946 (exactly on schedule for the 90-day principal photography schedule).
During filming, in the scene where Uncle Billy gets drunk at Harry and Ruth's engagement party, George points him in the right direction home. As the camera focuses on George, smiling at his uncle staggering away, you hear a crash and hear Uncle Billy say, "I'm all right! I'm all right!" However, this was actually a crash on the set; Thomas Mitchell's comedic ad lib was left in.
The full extent of Mr. Potter's deviousness is never revealed to the other characters in the film, and he is never brought to account for sequestering the $8000, although Capra filmed an alternate ending that was subsequently cut wherein Potter receives a "comeuppance." wreath on his arm, and sets it on a desk. Moments later, when he picks up the telephone, the wreath re-appears on his arm.

Featured cast

George Bailey (James Stewart), Mary Bailey (Donna Reed) and their youngest child Zuzu (Karolyn Grimes).

★ James Stewart as George Bailey^[11]

★ Donna Reed as Mary Hatch Lionel Barrymore as Mr. Potter (Henry F. Potter)Karolyn Grimes as Zuzu Bailey

★ Thomas Mitchell as Uncle Billy

★ Henry Travers as the Angel Clarence Odbody, AS2

★ Todd Karns as Harry Bailey

★ Samuel S. Hinds as Peter Bailey

★ Charles Halton as Carter, Bank Examiner

★ Ward Bond as Bert

★ Beulah Bondi as Mrs. Bailey

★ Gloria Grahame as Violet Bick

★ H.B. Warner as Mr. Gower

★ Frank Faylen as Ernie Bishop

★ Charles Lane as the Rent Collector

★ Sheldon Leonard as Nick the Bartender

★ William Edmunds as Mr. Martini

★ Frank Albertson as Sam Wainwright

★ Joseph Kearns as Angel Joseph (voice, uncredited)

★ Jimmy the Raven as Uncle Billy's pet raven. Jimmy appeared in ''You Can't Take it With You'' and each subsequent Capra film.^[12]

Reception

''It's a Wonderful Life'' premiered in New York on December 20, 1946 at the Globe Theatre^[13] and opened to mixed reviews ^[14]. ''Time'' magazine said, "''It's a Wonderful Life'' is a pretty wonderful movie. It has only one formidable rival (Goldwyn's ''The Best Years of Our Lives'') as Hollywood's best picture of the year... Director Capra's inventiveness, humor and affection for human beings keep it glowing with life and excitement." ^[15] Bosley Crowther, writing for ''The New York Times'', complimented some of the actors, including Stewart and Reed, but concluded that "the weakness of this picture, from this reviewer's point of view, is the sentimentality of it — its illusory concept of life. Mr. Capra's nice people are charming, his small town is a quite beguiling place and his pattern for solving problems is most optimistic and facile. But somehow they all resemble theatrical attitudes rather than average realities." ^[16]
The film, which went into general release on January 7, 1947, placed 26th in box office revenues for the year (out of more than 400 features released), one place ahead of another Christmas movie, ''Miracle on 34th Street''. It received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. Uncharacteristically, the film was not well received by the FBI who deemed it as "Communist propaganda" in 1947.^[17]

Awards and nominations

Prior to the Los Angeles release of ''It's a Wonderful Life'', Liberty Films mounted an extensive promotional campaign which included a daily advertisement highlighting one of the film's players, along with comments from reviewers. Jimmy Starr wrote, "If I were an Oscar, I'd elope with ''It's a Wonderful Life'' lock, stock and barrel on the night of the Academy Awards". The ''New York Daily Times'' also wrote an editorial in which it declared the film and James Stewart's performance, to be worthy of Academy Award consideration. ^[18]
''It's a Wonderful Life'' received five Academy Award nominations:

★ Best Actor for James Stewart

★ Best Editing for William Hornbeck

★ Best Director for Frank Capra

★ Best Sound Recording for John Aalberg

★ Best Picture for Frank Capra
''The Best Years of Our Lives'', a gritty and topical drama about servicemen attempting to return to their pre-World War II lives, won most of the awards that year, including four of the five for which ''It's a Wonderful Life'' was nominated. (The award for "Best Sound Recording" was won by ''The Jolson Story''). ''The Best Years of Our Lives'' was also an outstanding commercial success, ultimately becoming the highest grossing film of the decade, in contrast to the more modest box office returns of ''It's a Wonderful Life''. ^[19]
Capra won the "Best Motion Picture Director" award from the Golden Globes, and a "CEC Award" from the Cinema Writers Circle in Spain, for ''Mejor Película Extranjera'' (Best Foreign Film). Jimmy Hawkins won a "Former Child Star Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Young Artist Awards in 1994; the award recognized his role as Tommy Bailey as igniting his career which lasted until the mid-1960s.

Ownership and copyright issues

The copyright for the film was accidentally allowed to lapse in 1974. Liberty Films was purchased by Paramount Pictures, and remained a subsidiary until 1951. Paramount owned the film until 1955, when they sold a few of their features and most of their cartoons and shorts to television distributor U.M.&M. T.V. Corporation. This included key rights to ''It's a Wonderful Life'', including the original television syndication rights, the original nitrate film elements, the music score and the story on which the film is based, "The Greatest Gift".^[20] National Telefilm Associates (NTA) took over the rights to the U.M.&M. library soon afterward. However, a clerical error at NTA prevented the copyright from being renewed properly in 1974.
Despite the lapse in copyright, television stations that aired it still were required to pay royalties. Although the film's images had entered the public domain, the film's story was still protected by virtue of it being a derivative work of the published story "The Greatest Gift," whose copyright was properly renewed by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1971. By coincidence, the film became a perennial holiday favorite in the 1980's, possibly due to the advent of the home video era. It was sometimes mentioned during the deliberations on the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998.
In 1993, Republic Pictures, which was the successor to NTA, relied on the 1990 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in ''Stewart v. Abend'' (which involved the movie ''Rear Window'') to enforce its claim of copyright. While the film's copyright had not been renewed, it was a derivative work of various works that were still copyrighted. As a result, the film is no longer shown as much on television. (NBC is currently licensed to show the film on U.S. network television, and only shows it traditionally twice during the holidays, with one showing primarily on Christmas Eve from 8-11 Eastern time) and now Paramount (via parent company Viacom's 1998 acquisition of Republic's then-parent, Spelling Entertainment) once again has ancillary rights for the first time since 1955. Artisan Entertainment (under license from Republic) took over home video rights in the mid-1990s. Artisan was later sold to Lions Gate Entertainment, which continued to hold home video rights until late 2005 when they reverted to Paramount.

Belated success

The film's success decades after its release came as a welcome but unexpected surprise to those who worked on it, including Frank Capra. "It's the damnedest thing I've ever seen," he told the Wall Street Journal in 1984. "The film has a life of its own now and I can look at it like I had nothing to do with it. I'm like a parent whose kid grows up to be president. I'm proud… but it's the kid who did the work. I didn't even think of it as a Christmas story when I first ran across it. I just liked the idea."^[21]

Colorization

Two colorized versions have been produced. The first, by Hal Roach Studios in 1986, was poorly received. The second was authorized and produced by the film's permanent owner Republic Pictures in 1989, with better results. They are widely considered by some as inferior to the black and white original, and are often held up by opponents of colorization as examples of the flaws associated with the process. In the scene of the dinner table chat between George and Peter Bailey, for example, James Stewart's shirt is conspicuously pink. For many years, some television stations paid substantial royalties to show a colorized version, figuring that color would attract more viewers. Both colorized versions of the film have since been withdrawn, and the only version shown on TV and available on DVD is the original black and white version. On November 13, 2007, Paramount will release a two disc special edition DVD of the film that will have both the original theatrical black and white version and also, for the first time, a colorized version. It will likely be the 1989 version, to which Republic/Paramount owns the home video rights.

Popular culture

''It's a Wonderful Life'' has been popularized in modern cultural references in many of the mainstream media. Due to the proliferation of these references, only a few examples will suffice to show the impact of this iconic film.

★ Other alternate reality films include Bruce Almighty and The Family Man where main characters have to struggle and reconcile with a past life.

★ One of the curious allusions to the film is the Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie. Series creator Jim Henson and others involved with its production denied a connection and said it was just a coincidence. The Capra-esque episode ''Elmo Saves Christmas'' (1996), which featured a clip from the film, pokes fun at the persistent reports of a connection.^[22][23]

References

1. Cox 2003, p. 27. Note: The original budget had been set at million.
2. Eliot 2006, p. 206. Mark Eliot writes, "Although it was not the complete box-office failure that today everyone believes, ...it was a major disappointment and confirmed, at least to the studios, that Capra was no longer capable of turning out the populist features that made his films the must-see money-making events they once were." Note: The film failed to turn a profit in its initial release due to its high production costs. The film's break-even point was actually .3 millions, approximately twice the production cost, a figure it never came close to achieving in its initial release.
3. Goodrich, Hackett and Capra 1986, p. 215.
4. Ervin, Kathleen. ''Some Kind of Wonderful''. Failure Magazine. [1]. Access date: 2 June 2007.
5. Cox 2003, p. 29-31. Note: It was not a true "Christmas card" but rather, a 24-page manuscript sent as a pamphlet.
6. "Tempest in Hollywood." ''New York Times'' April 23, 1944, p. X3.
7. Cox 2003, p. 26. The project went through many hands including Howard Hughes who reportedly was interested.
8. Capra 1971, p. 376. Capra claims the script was purchased for ,000.00.
9. Cox 2003, p. 23.
10. Cox 2003, p. 23-24. RKO created "chemical snow" for the film in order to preclude the use of dubbed dialogue when actors walked across the earlier type of movie snow, made up of crushed cornflakes.
11. ''Blockbuster MediaRoom It's a Wonderful Life''. Blockbuster Inc. [2] Access date: June 2, 2007.
12. Cox 2003, p. 24. For months prior to principal photography, the mammoth set was populated by pigeons, cats and dogs in order to give the "town" a lived-in feel.
13. Weems, Eric. ''Frank Capra online''. [3], Access date June 2, 2007.
14. Capra 1971, p. 372-373. Note: Capra considered the contemporary critical reviews to be either universally negative or at best dismissive.
15. Time, New Picture
16. The New York Times, Screen in Review
17. Chen, Will. "FBI considered 'It's A Wonderful Life' Communist Propaganda". ''Living Large on a Small Budget (blog)''. FBI considered "It's A Wonderful Life" Communist Propaganda, December 24, 2006, Access date: June 8, 1007 .
18. Wiley and Bona 1987, p. 163.
19. Finler 1988, p. 177.
20. Cox 2003, p. 12- 14. Capra's re-editing of the original score by Dimitri Tiomkin was restored to the Tiomkin version by Willard Carroll in the 1980s and released in a CD in 1988.
21. Cox 2003, p. 11. In a 1946 interview, Capra described the film's motif as "the individual's belief in himself" and to "combat a modern trend toward atheism."
22. Bert and Ernie: It's a Wonderful Life Connection
23. Carroll, Jon. "A Few Tiny Errors." ''The San Francisco Chronicle'' January 3, 2000.

----

★ Capra, Frank. ''Frank Capra, The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography''. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1971. ISBN 0-30680-771-8.

★ Cox, Stephen. ''It's a Wonderful Life: A Memory Book''. Nashville, Tennessee: Cumberland House, 2003. ISBN 1-58182-337-1.

★ Eliot, Mark. ''Jimmy Stewart: A Biography''. New York: Random House, 2006. ISBN 1-4000-5221-1.

★ Finler, Joel W. ''The Hollywood Story: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the American Movie Business But Didn't Know Where to Look''. London: Pyramid Books, 1988. ISBN 1-855-10009-6.

★ Goodrich, Francis, Hackett, Albert and Capra, Frank. ''It's a Wonderful Life: The Complete Script in its Original Form''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986. ISBN 0-312-43911-3.

★ Jones, Ken D., McClure, Arthur F. and Twomey, Alfred E. ''The Films of James Stewart''. New York: Castle Books, 1970.

★ Michael, Paul, ed. ''The Great Movie Book: A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference Guide to the Best-loved Films of the Sound Era''. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1980. ISBN 0-13-363663-1.

★ Wiley, Mason and Bona, Damien. ''Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards''. New York: Ballantine Books, 1987. ISBN 0-345-34453-7.

External links

★

★ Essay on the deeper meaning of It's a Wonderful Life

★ Official website run by Karolyn Grimes, who played 'Zuzu' in the film

★ In-depth defense of the film from its critics

★ Excerpts from Ray Carney's analysis of the film.

★ It's a Wonderful Life ''Ruining Your Holiday....Why the FBI Thought "It's a Wonderful Life" was a Subversive Film''

★ Filmsite.org's extended review

★ "Some Kind of Wonderful" Frank Capra Examines Failure (from Failure Magazine, March 2001)

★ "It's A Wonderful Movie" ''YoursDaily.com''

★ The Making of "It's A Wonderful Life" Frank Capra Online

★ It's Still a Wonderful Life by Paul Greenberg — 1998 editorial refuting a critical book

★ ''The Making of'' It's a Wonderful Life'' a documentary hosted by Tom Bosley featured in the Forty-fifth Anniversary Edition on home video

★ On a wing and a prayer Los Angeles Times: "'It's a Wonderful Life' is a film classic, but the production wasn't always angelic."