It's a Wonderful Life is an American Christmas drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra, that was based on the short story "The Greatest Gift", written by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1939, and privately published by the author in 1945.The film is considered one of the most best loved movies in American cinema, and has become traditional viewing during the Christmas season.
 

Released in 1946, the film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has given up his dreams in order to help others, and whose imminent suicide on Christmas Eve brings about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers). Clarence shows George all the lives he has touched and how different life in his community would be had he never been born.
 

Despite initially being considered a box office flop due to high production costs and stiff competition at the time of its release, the film has come to be regarded as a classic and is a staple of Christmas television around the world.Theatrically, the film's break-even point was actually $6.3 million, approximately twice the production cost, a figure it never came close to achieving in its initial release. An appraisal in 2006 reported: "Although it was not the complete box-office failure that today everyone believes ... it was initially 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."

 

The film was nominated for five Oscars and has been recognized by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 best American films ever made,placing number 11 on its initial 1998 greatest movie list, and would also place number one on its list of the most inspirational American films of all time.

 

Plot

 

Donna Reed and James Stewart
 

In Bedford Falls, New York[N 2] on Christmas Eve, George Bailey (James Stewart) is deeply troubled. Prayers for his well-being from friends and family reach Heaven. Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers), Angel Second Class, is assigned to save George and earn his wings. Franklin and Joseph, the head angels, review George's life with Clarence. At the age of 12, George (Bobby Anderson) saved his younger brother Harry (George Nokes), who had fallen through the ice on a frozen pond, though, because of this heroic action, George lost the hearing in his left ear. Later, working in the local pharmacy, George noticed that the druggist, Mr. Gower (H. B. Warner), despondent over his son's death, had mistakenly filled a child's prescription with poison, and saved Gower from killing the child and irrevocably ruining his own life.

 

George repeatedly sacrifices his dream to travel the world. He waits for Harry (Todd Karns) to graduate from high school and replace him at the Bailey Building and Loan Association, vital to the townspeople. On Harry's graduation night, George, now 21, discusses his future with Mary Hatch (Donna Reed), who has long had a crush on him. Later that evening, George's absent-minded Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) interrupts them to tell George that his father has had a stroke, which proves fatal. A few months later, Mr. Henry F. Potter (Lionel Barrymore), a slumlord and majority shareholder in the Building and Loan, tries to persuade the board of directors to stop providing home loans for the working poor. George talks them into rejecting Potter's proposal, but they agree only on condition that George run the Building and Loan. Giving his college money to Harry, George delays his plans with the understanding that Harry will take over upon graduation.

 

When Harry graduates from college, he unexpectedly brings home a wife, whose father has offered Harry an excellent job. Although Harry vows to decline the offer out of respect for his brother, George cannot deny Harry such a fine opportunity and decides to keep full ownership of the Building and Loan, knowing that this will kill his dream to travel the world.

 

George calls on Mary, who has recently returned home from college. After several arguments, they reveal their love for each other, and marry soon after. As they depart for their honeymoon, they witness a run on the bank that leaves the Building and Loan in danger of collapse. The couple quells the panic by using the $2,000 earmarked for their honeymoon to satisfy the depositors' immediate needs. Mary enlists the help of George's two best friends, Bert, a policeman, and Ernie, a cab driver, to create a faux tropical setting for a substitute honeymoon. The couple embrace while Bert and Ernie sing in the background.

 

George and Mary raise four children: Pete, Janie, Tommy and Zuzu. George starts Bailey Park, an affordable housing project. Potter tries to hire him away, offering him a $20,000 salary, along with the promise of distant business trips, something that George always wanted to do. George, initially tempted, turns Potter down after realizing that Potter intends to close down the Building and Loan and take full control of Bedford Falls.

 

When World War II erupts, George is unable to enlist, due to his bad ear. Harry becomes a Navy fighter pilot and shoots down 15 enemy planes, two of which were targeting a ship full of troops in the Pacific. For his bravery, Harry is awarded the Medal of Honor.

 

On Christmas Eve morning, Uncle Billy is on his way to Potter's bank to deposit $8,000 of the Building and Loan's cash funds. He greets Potter (who has the newspaper reporting Harry's heroics) and taunts him by reading the headlines aloud. Potter angrily snatches the paper, but Billy inattentively allows the money to be snatched with it. Potter opens the paper, notices the money and keeps it, knowing that displacement of bank money would result in bankruptcy for the Building and Loan and criminal charges for George. When a frantic search turns up with nothing, and with a bank examiner due that day, George takes his anger and frustrations out on his family.

 

A desperate George appeals to Potter for a loan. Potter mockingly and coldly turns George down, and then swears out a warrant for his arrest for bank fraud. George, now completely depressed, gets drunk at the bar owned by his friend, Giuseppe Martini (Bill Edmunds), where he silently prays for help. After crashing his car into a tree, George staggers to a bridge, intending to commit suicide, feeling he is "worth more dead than alive" because of a life insurance policy. Before he can leap, Clarence jumps in first and pretends to be drowning. After George rescues him, Clarence reveals himself to be George's guardian angel.

 

George does not believe him, but when he bitterly wishes he had never been born, Clarence shows George what the town would have been like without him. Bedford Falls, named Pottersville, is home to sleazy nightclubs, pawn shops and amoral people. Bailey Park is never built. Mr. Gower was sent to prison for poisoning the child and is a despised derelict. Martini does not own the bar, and is nowhere to be found. George's friend Violet Bick (Gloria Grahame) is a strip-dancer and gets arrested as a pickpocket. Ernie is helplessly poor with his family having left him. Uncle Billy has been in an insane asylum for years. Harry is dead as a result of George not being there to save him from drowning, and the servicemen he would have saved also died. Ma Bailey is a bitter widow, and Mary a single spinster librarian.

 

George runs back to the bridge and begs to be allowed to live again. His prayer is answered, and he runs home joyously, where the authorities are waiting to arrest him. Mary, Uncle Billy, and a flood of townspeople arrive with more than enough donations to save George and the Building and Loan. George's friend Sam Wainwright sends him a $25,000 line of credit by telegram. Harry also arrives to support his brother, who is now "The richest man in town". George finds a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer with the inscription, "Dear George: Remember no man is a failure who has friends. P.S. Thanks for the wings! Love, Clarence." A bell rings, and his daughter Zuzu remembers that it means an angel has earned his wings. George realizes that he truly has a wonderful life.

 

Cast

• James Stewart as George Bailey

• Donna Reed as Mary Hatch Bailey

• Henry Travers as Clarence Odbody

• Lionel Barrymore as Mr. Henry F. Potter

• Thomas Mitchell as Uncle Billy Bailey

• Beulah Bondi as Ma Bailey

• Frank Faylen as Ernie Bishop

• Ward Bond as Bert, the cop

• Gloria Grahame as Violet Bick

• H. B. Warner as Mr. Gower

• Todd Karns as Harry Bailey

• Samuel S. Hinds as Peter "Pop" Bailey

• Lillian Randolph as Annie

• Mary Treen as Cousin Tilly

• Frank Albertson as Sam Wainwright

• Virginia Patton as Ruth Dakin Bailey

• Charles Williams as Cousin Eustace

• Sarah Edwards as Mrs. Hatch

• William Edmunds as Giuseppe Martini

• Argentina Brunetti as Mrs. Martini

• Bobby Anderson as Little George Bailey

• Ronnie Ralph as Little Sam Wainwright

• Jean Gale as Little Mary Hatch

• Jeanine Ann Roose as Little Violet Bick

• George Nokes as Little Harry Bailey

• Danny Mummert as Little Marty Hatch

• Sheldon Leonard as Nick, the bartender

• Frank Hagney as Potter's mute aide

• Charles Lane as The rent collector

• Jimmy Hawkins as Tommy Bailey

• Karolyn Grimes as Zuzu Bailey

• Larry Simms as Pete Bailey

• Carol Coomes (AKA Carol Coombs) as Janie Bailey

• Charles Halton as Carter, bank examiner (uncredited)

• Joseph Kearns as Angel Joseph (voice, uncredited)

• Evelyn Moriarty as Girl in the bar (uncredited)

• Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer as Freddie (Mary's annoying high school suitor)

• Max Wagner as Cashier/Bouncer at Nick's Bar

• Tom Fadden as Bridge Caretaker (uncredited)

• Stanley Andrews as Mr. Welch (uncredited)

• Adriana Caselotti as the singer in Martini's Bar (uncredited)

 

Casting

The contention that James Stewart is often referred to as Capra's only choice to play George Bailey is disputed by film historian Stephen Cox, who indicates that "Henry Fonda was in the running."

 

Although it was stated that Jean Arthur, Ann Dvorak and Ginger Rogers were all considered for the role of Mary before Donna Reed won the part, this list is also disputed by Cox as he indicates that Jean Arthur was first offered the part but had to turn it down for a prior commitment on Broadway before Capra turned to Olivia de Havilland, Martha Scott and Ann Dvorak. Ginger Rogers was offered the female lead, but turned it down because she considered it "too bland". In Chapter 26 of her autobiography Ginger: My Story, she questioned her decision by asking her readers: "Foolish, you say?"

 

A long list of actors were considered for the role of Potter (originally named Herbert Potter): Edward Arnold, Charles Bickford, Edgar Buchanan, Louis Calhern, Victor Jory, Raymond Massey, Vincent Price and even Thomas Mitchell. However, Lionel Barrymore, who eventually won the role, was a famous Ebenezer Scrooge in radio dramatizations of A Christmas Carol at the time and was a natural choice for the role. Barrymore had also worked with Capra on his 1938 Best Picture Oscar winner, You Can't Take It with You.
 

H. B. Warner, who was cast as the drugstore owner Mr. Gower, actually studied medicine before going into acting. He was also in some of Capra's other films, including Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, You Can't Take It with You, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.The name Gower came from Capra's employer Columbia Pictures, which had been located on Gower St. for many years. Also on Gower St. was a drugstore that was a favorite for the studio's employees.

 

Charles Williams, who was cast as Eustace Bailey, and Mary Treen, who was cast as Matilda "Tilly" Bailey, were both B-list actors, as they both had appeared in 90 films each before filming It's a Wonderful Life.

 

Jimmy the Raven (Uncle Billy's pet) appeared in You Can't Take It with You and each subsequent Capra film.

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. 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. RKO created three unsatisfactory scripts before shelving the planned movie, and Grant went on to make another Christmas movie staple, The Bishop's Wife.

 

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, in 1945 sold the rights to Capra's production company, Liberty Films, which had a nine-film distribution agreement with RKO, for $10,000, and threw in the three scripts for free. Capra, along with writers Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, with Jo Swerling, Michael Wilson, and Dorothy Parker brought in to "polish" the script, turned the story and what was worth using from the three scripts into a screenplay that Capra would rename It's a Wonderful Life. The script underwent many revisions throughout pre-production and during filming.Final screenplay credit went to Goodrich, Hackett and Capra, with "additional scenes" by Jo Swerling.

 

Seneca Falls, New York claims that when Frank Capra visited their town in 1945, he was inspired to model Bedford Falls after it. The town has an annual "It's a Wonderful Life festival" in December. In mid-2009, The Hotel Clarence opened in Seneca Falls, named for George Bailey's guardian angel. On December 10, 2010, the "It's a Wonderful Life" Museum opened in Seneca Falls, with Karolyn Grimes, who played Zuzu in the movie, cutting the ribbon.

 

Both James Stewart, (from Indiana, Pennsylvania), and Donna Reed, (from Denison, Iowa), came from small towns. Stewart's father ran a small hardware store where James worked for years. Reed demonstrated her rural roots by winning an impromptu bet with Lionel Barrymore when he challenged her to milk a cow on set.

 

Filming

It's a Wonderful Life was shot at the RKO studio in Culver City, California, and the RKO Movie Ranch in Encino, where "Bedford Falls" was a redressed set originally built for the 1931 epic film "Cimmaron" that covered 4 acres (1.6 ha), 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. 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. Due to the requirement to film in an "alternate universe" setting as well as during different seasons, the set was extremely adaptable. RKO created "chemical snow" for the film in order to avoid the need for dubbed dialogue when actors walked across the earlier type of movie snow, made up of crushed cornflakes.Filming started on April 15, 1946 and ended on July 27, 1946, exactly on deadline for the 90-day principal photography schedule.

 

The RKO ranch in Encino, the filming location of "Bedford Falls", was razed in the mid-1950s.[N 8] There are only two surviving locations from the film. The first is the swimming pool that was unveiled during the famous dance scene where George courts Mary. It is located in the gymnasium at Beverly Hills High School and is still in operation as of 2008. The second is the "Martini home", at 4587 Viro Road in La Cañada Flintridge, California.

 

During filming, in the scene where Uncle Billy gets drunk at Harry and Ruth's welcome home/newlyweds' party, George points him in the right direction home. As the camera focuses on George, smiling at his uncle staggering away, a crash is heard in the distance and Uncle Billy yells, "I'm all right! I'm all right!" Equipment on the set had actually been accidentally knocked over — Capra left in Thomas Mitchell's impromptu ad lib (although the "crashing" noise was augmented with added sound effects).

 

Dimitri Tiomkin had written Death Telegram and Gower's Deliverance for the drugstore scenes, but in the editing room Capra elected to go with no music for those scenes. Those changes, along with others, led to a falling out between Tiomkin and Capra. Tiomkin had worked on a lot of Capra's previous films, and was saddened that Capra decided to have the music pared or toned down, moved, or cut entirely. He felt as though his work was being seen as a mere suggestion. In his autobiography Please Don't Hate Me, he said of the incident, "an all around scissors job".

 

The products and advertisements featured in Mr. Gower's drugstore include Coca-Cola, Paterson tobacco pipes, La Unica cigars, Camel cigarettes, Lucky Strike cigarettes, Chesterfield cigarettes, Vaseline hair tonic, Penetro cough syrup, Pepto-Bismol, Bayer Aspirin ("for colds and influenza"), and The Saturday Evening Post.

 

In an earlier draft of the script, the scene where George saves his brother Harry as a child was different. The scene had the boys playing hockey on the river (which is on Potter's property) as Potter watches with disdain. George shoots the puck, but it goes astray and breaks the "No Trespassing" sign and lands in Potter's yard. Potter becomes irate, and the gardener releases the attack dogs, which causes the boys to flee. Harry falls in the ice, and George saves him with the same results.

 

Another scene that was in an earlier version was where young George visits his father at his work. After George tells off Mr. Potter and closes the door, he considers asking Uncle Billy about his drugstore dilemma. Billy is talking on the phone to the bank examiner, and lights his cigar and throws his match in the wastebasket. This scene explains that Tilly (short for Matilda) and Eustace are both his cousins (not Billy's kids though), and Tilly is on the phone with her friend Martha and says, "Potter's here, the bank examiner's coming. It's a day of judgment." As George is about to interrupt Tilly on the phone, Billy cried for help and Tilly runs in and puts the fire out with a pot of coffee. George decides he is probably better off dealing with the situation by himself.

 

Capra had filmed a number of sequences that were subsequently cut, the only remnants remaining being rare stills that have been unearthed. A number of alternative endings were considered, with Capra's first script having Bailey falling to his knees reciting The Lord's Prayer (the script also called for an opening scene with the townspeople in prayer). Feeling that an overly religious tone did not have the emotional impact of the family and friends rushing to rescue George Bailey, the closing scenes were rewritten.

 

Reception

It's a Wonderful Life premiered at the Globe Theatre in New York on December 20, 1946, to mixed reviews. While Capra considered the contemporary critical reviews to be either universally negative or at best dismissive,Time 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."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."

 

The film, which went into general release on January 7, 1947, placed 26th ($3.3 million) in box office revenues for 1947 (out of more than 400 features released), one place ahead of another Christmas movie, Miracle on 34th Street. The film was supposed to be released in January 1947, but was moved up to December 1946 to make it eligible for the 1946 Academy Awards. This move was seen as worse for the movie, as 1947 did not have quite the stiff competition as 1946. If it had entered the 1947 Awards, its biggest competition would have been Miracle On 34th Street. The number one grossing movie of 1947, The Best Years of Our Lives, made $11.5 million.

 

The film recorded a loss of $525,000 at the box office for RKO.

 

On May 26, 1947, the FBI issued a memo stating "With regard to the picture "It's a Wonderful Life", stated in substance that the film represented rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a 'scrooge-type' so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists. [In] addition, [redacted] stated that, in his opinion, this picture deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters."

 

In an interview with Michael Parkinson in 1973, Jimmy Stewart declared that out of all the movies he had made, It's a Wonderful Life was his favorite.

 

In 1990, It's a Wonderful Life was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in their National Film Registry.

 

In 2002, Britain's Channel 4 ranked It's a Wonderful Life as the seventh greatest film ever made in its poll "The 100 Greatest Films" and in 2006, the film reached #37 in the same channel's "100 Greatest Family Films".

 

In June 2008, AFI revealed its 10 Top 10, the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres, after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. It's a Wonderful Life was acknowledged as the third-best film in the fantasy genre.

 

Somewhat more iconoclastic views of the film and its content are occasionally expressed. In 1947, film critic Manny Farber wrote, "To make his points [Capra] always takes an easy, simple-minded path that doesn't give much credit to the intelligence of the audience", and adds that there are only a "few unsentimental moments here and there." Wendell Jamieson, in a 2008 article for The New York Times which was otherwise positive in its analysis of the film, posited that it "is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time, of living among bitter, small-minded people. It is a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away, of becoming so filled with rage that you verbally abuse your children, their teacher and your oppressively perfect wife."

 

In a 2010 Salon.com piece, Richard Cohen described It's a Wonderful Life as "the most terrifying Hollywood film ever made"; in the "Pottersville" sequence, he wrote, George is not "seeing the world that would exist had he never been born", but rather "the world as it does exist, in his time and also in our own." Nine years earlier, another Salon writer, Gary Kamiya, had expressed the opposing view that "Pottersville rocks!", adding, "The gauzy, Currier-and-Ives veil Capra drapes over Bedford Falls has prevented viewers from grasping what a tiresome and, frankly, toxic environment it is."

 

The film's elevation to the status of a beloved classic came decades after its initial release, when it became a television staple during 1970s and 1980s Christmas seasons. This came as a welcome surprise to Frank Capra and others involved with its production. "It's the damnedest thing I've ever seen," Capra 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." In a 1946 interview, Capra described the film's theme as "the individual's belief in himself" and that he made it "to combat a modern trend toward atheism".

 

The film's popularity continues, and it currently holds an 8.7 out of 10 rating on the IMDb consumer reviews and a 93% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

 

Awards and honors

Prior to the Los Angeles release of It's a Wonderful Life, Liberty Films mounted an extensive promotional campaign that 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 offered an editorial in which it declared the film and James Stewart's performance to be worthy of Academy Award consideration.

 

It's a Wonderful Life received five Academy Award nominations:

 

• Best Picture for Frank Capra

• Best Director for Frank Capra

• Best Actor for James Stewart

• Best Editing for William Hornbeck

• Best Sound Recording for John Aalberg

 

The Best Years of Our Lives, a 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 initial box office returns of It's a Wonderful Life.

 

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.