 | ||||||
| ||||||
I have my own rules and adhere to them. The rule is simple but inflexible. A James Stewart picture must have two vital ingredients: it will be clean and it will involve the triumph of the underdog over the bully.
James Stewart
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.
It's a Wonderful Life
| ||||||
7 January 1947
| ||||||
| ||||||
| ||||||
| ||||||
It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra and loosely based on the short story "The Greatest Gift" written by Philip Van Doren Stern.
The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man 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 the contributions he has made to his community.
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 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."
It's a Wonderful Life was nominated for five Oscars without winning any, but the film has since been recognized by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 best American films ever made, and placed number one on their list of the most inspirational American films of all time.
| ||||||
Christmas Eve finds George Bailey (James Stewart) deeply troubled, and repeated prayers for his wellbeing from numerous friends and family members reach Heaven. Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers), Angel Second Class, is assigned to save him and earn his wings. Joseph, the head angel, reviews George's life with Clarence. At the age of 12, George (Bobby Anderson) saved the life of his younger brother Harry (Todd Karns) who had fallen through the ice on a pond, though George lost the hearing in one ear. Later, as an errand boy in a pharmacy, George saved his grief-stricken boss, druggist Mr. Gower (H.B. Warner), from mistakenly filling a child's prescription with poison.
George's dream has been to see the world. Selfless to a fault, he repeatedly sacrifices his dreams for the well-being of others until Harry graduates from high school and can replace him at the Bailey Building and Loan Association, vital to the people of Bedford Falls. On Harry's graduation night in 1928, George discusses his future with Mary Hatch (Donna Reed), who has had a crush on him since she was a little girl. Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) and Harry break the news to George his father has had a stroke, which proves fatal. Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore), a heartless 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 persuades them to reject Potter's proposal, but they agree only on the condition that George himself run the Building and Loan. He gives his college money to his brother with the understanding that when Harry returns he will take over the Building and Loan.
When Harry graduates from college, he unexpectedly brings home a wife, whose father has offered Harry an excellent job in his company. While Harry is still aware of his prior commitment and is more than willing to take over the Building and Loan, George cannot deny his brother such a fine opportunity. Once more, George has to set aside his ambitions.
After their wedding, as George and Mary leave town for their honeymoon, they witness a run on the bank that leaves the Building and Loan in danger of collapse. Potter offers George's clients "50 cents on the dollar," but George and Mary quell the panic by using the $2,000 earmarked for their honeymoon to satisfy the depositors' needs until confidence in the Building and Loan is restored. Mary enlists the help of Bert the Policeman and Ernie the Cab Driver to create a tropical honeymoon for George in Bedford Falls.
Years pass and George and Mary raise a growing family. George starts up Bailey Park, an affordable housing project. They and the other residents no longer have to pay Potter's high rents. When World War II erupts, George is unable to enlist, due to his bad ear. Harry becomes a fighter pilot and is awarded the Medal of Honor for shooting down 15 enemy aircraft, including one that would have slammed into a U.S. transport ship full of troops.
On Christmas Eve, 1946, Uncle Billy is on his way to deposit $8,000 for the Building and Loan when he runs into Mr. Potter. He proudly shows Potter the front-page article about Harry receiving the Medal of Honor. Potter grabs the newspaper angrily and later discovers the money inside; he keeps it. When Uncle Billy goes to deposit the money, he finally realizes it is missing. Frantic searching fails to turn it up. In desperation, George appeals to Potter for a loan to save the company, but Potter turns him down and swears out a warrant for his arrest for bank fraud.
George wanders home, stressed and broken down, and inadvertently takes his frustrations out on his family; verbally abusing his wife and children before storming off. George gets drunk to escape his woes. Driving wildly in a snowstorm, he crashes his car into a tree near a river. George staggers to a bridge that spans the river, intending to commit suicide, and feeling he is "worth more dead than alive" because of a $15,000 life insurance policy. Before George can leap in, however, Clarence jumps in first and pretends to be drowning. After George rescues him, he reveals himself to be George's guardian angel.
George responds skeptically to this revelation and bitterly wishes he had never been born, so Clarence shows him what the town would have been like if he had never existed. In this alternate reality, Bedford Falls is called Pottersville and is home to nightclubs and pawn shops; Bailey Park was never built; Mr. Gower was convicted of poisoning the child and spent many years in prison; Martini (William Edmunds) no longer owns the bar; Violet (Gloria Grahame) is a dancer who gets arrested as a pickpocket; Uncle Billy has been in an insane asylum for years; Harry is dead, since George was not around to save him, and the soldiers Harry would have saved also died; Mrs. Bailey is a hardened widow running a boarding house, and Mary is a spinster librarian.
When George becomes agitated by the whole situation, Bert the policeman has to intervene. They tussle. George flees to the bridge and begs God to let him live again. His wish granted, a jubilant George runs home to happily greet the men waiting to arrest him. A flood of people enter with donations to save George and the Building and Loan. George's friend Sam Wainwright sends him a line of credit for $25,000 via telegram. In the middle of the impromptu celebration, the newly arrived Harry proposes a toast to his big brother, "the richest man in town." Seeing how many lives he has touched, George Bailey finally realizes that he truly has a wonderful life. As the group sings "Auld Lang Syne", George finds Clarence's copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer with a note thanking George for helping him get his wings.
| ||||||
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 the decline of the role 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.
Jimmy the Raven (Uncle Billy's pet) appeared in You Can't Take it With You and each subsequent Capra film.
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 with Grant going on to make another Christmas picture, 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, sold the rights in 1945 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.
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 4 acres (16,000 m2), 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 raised in the mid-1950s. 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 Canada 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.
Capra filmed an alternate ending that was subsequently cut wherein Uncle Billy remembers misplacing the money in the newspaper when he unties a string, and Potter receives a "comeuppance".
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). Recognizing 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.
Lionel Barrymore convinced James Stewart to take the role of George, despite his feeling that he was not up to it so soon after World War II.
Originally ended with "Ode to Joy", not "Auld Lang Syne".
Films made prior to this one used cornflakes painted white for the falling snow effect. Because the cornflakes were so loud, dialogue had to be dubbed in later. Frank Capra wanted to record the sound live, so a new snow effect was developed using foamite (a fire-fighting chemical) and soap and water. This mixture was then pumped at high pressure through a wind machine to create the silent, falling snow. 6000 gallons of the new snow were used in the film. The RKO Effects Department received a Class III Scientific or Technical Award from the Motion Picture Academy for the development of the new film snow.
As Uncle Billy is leaving George's house drunk, it sounds as if he stumbles over some trash cans on the sidewalk. In fact, a crew member dropped some equipment right after Uncle Billy left the screen. Both actors continued with the scene ("I'm all right, I'm all right!") and director Frank Capra decided to use it in the final cut. He gave the clumsy stagehand a $10 bonus for "improving the sound."
For the scene that required Donna Reed to throw a rock into the window of the Granville House, Frank Capra hired a marksman to shoot it out for her on cue. To everyone's amazement, Donna Reed broke the window with true aim and heft without the assistance of the hired marksman!
James Stewart was nervous about the phone scene kiss because it was his first screen kiss since his return to Hollywood after the war. Under Frank Capra's watchful eye, Stewart filmed the scene in only one unrehearsed take, and it worked so well that part of the embrace was cut because it was too passionate to pass the censors.
Jean Arthur was Frank Capra's first choice for the part of Mary. However, she declined the role since she was already committed to a Broadway play.
When composer Dimitri Tiomkin's original score for the finale (featuring "Ode To Joy") was eliminated, tracks of Alfred Newman's score from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) were used instead, most notably the chorus singing "Hallelujah".
In 1947, an FBI analyst submitted, without comment, an addition to a running memo on "Communist infiltration of the motion picture industry," recording the opinion of an industry source who said that the film's "obvious" attempt to discredit bankers "is a common trick used by Communists."
The gym floor that opens up to reveal a swimming pool was real and was located at Beverly Hills High School in Los Angeles.
In 2004 the BBC TV listings magazine "Radio Times" conducted a poll into the Best Film Never to Have Won an Oscar. It's a Wonderful Life (1946) came second ( The Shawshank Redemption (1994) was first).
This was the first and last time that Frank Capra produced, financed, directed and co-wrote one of his films.
At $3.7 million, this was a very expensive independent production. In its initial box office run, it only earned $3.3 million.
Vincent Price was considered for the part of Mr. Potter.
Donna Reed's first starring role.
After the war Frank Capra set up Liberty Films with George Stevens and William Wyler to make more serious, soul-searching films. This and State of the Union (1948) were Liberty's only productions.
350,000 feet of film were used.
The instant that George says "God" on the bridge, it starts snowing, showing that he is back in the real world.
James Stewart repeated his role in a one-hour radio version for NBC Radio Theater in 1949.
The set for Bedford Falls was constructed in two months and was one of the longest sets that had ever been made for an American movie. It covered four acres of the RKO's Encino Ranch. It included 75 stores and buildings, main street, factory district and a large residential and slum area. The Main Street was 300 yards long, three whole city blocks!
The Bailey Park scenes were filmed in La Crescenta, California.
Dalton Trumbo, Dorothy Parker, and Clifford Odets all did uncredited work on the script.
Two of "Sesame Street" (1969)'s Muppets, Bert and Ernie, share their names with the film's cop and cab driver, respectively, but it's believed to be just a coincidence. While Karolyn Grimes, who played Zuzu, claimed that the two Muppets were named after the characters because the movie was Jim Henson's favorite, according to longtime Muppets head writer Jerry Juhl in an interview with The San Francisco Chronicle, Ernie and Bert were not named after the movie's characters. Juhl said, "I was not present at the naming, but I was always positive [the rumor] was incorrect. Despite his many talents, Jim [Henson] had no memory for details like this. He knew the movie, of course, but would not have remembered the cop and the cabdriver. I was not able to confirm this with Jim before he died, but shortly thereafter I spoke to Jon Stone, Sesame Street's first producer and head writer and a man largely responsible for the show's format. He assured me that Ernie and Bert were named one day when he and Jim were studying the prototype puppets. They decided that one of them looked like an Ernie, and the other one looked like a Bert. The movie character names are purely coincidental."
While filming the scene where George prays in the bar, James Stewart has said that he was so overcome that he began to sob right then and there. Later, Frank Capra reframed the shot so it looked like a much closer shot than was actually filmed because he wanted to catch that expression on Stewart's face.
James Stewart and Donna Reed reprised their roles in 1947 on radio, first on "The Lux Radio Theatre" and then on "Camel Screen Guild Theatre." In the Lux version, instead of putting Zuzu's petals in his pocket, George has a bell that Zuzu likes to play with. The "Lux" version aired in March; the "Screen Guild" version aired December 29th.
Actor and producer Sheldon Leonard said in an interview that the only reason he agreed to play Nick the bartender in this film was so that he would have money to buy Dodger baseball tickets.
The film has two lines of "secret dialog" - spoken quietly through a door. (They can be heard when amplifying the volume, and are also explicitly depicted in the closed-captioning.) The lines occur at the end of the scene set in Bailey's private office with Bailey and his son George, and Potter and his goon present. After George raves to Potter that "you can't say that about my father", he is ushered out of the room by his father, then George is shown standing outside the office door. At that moment, George overhears the following two lines of dialog through the glass pane of the door behind him: POTTER: What's the answer? BAILEY: Potter, you just humiliated me in front of my son.
Pharmacist Gower's son's death at college is attributed to "Influenza" in the telegram that Young George reads, dated May 3, 1919. Around that time, there was the "Spanish Flu" worldwide epidemic that claimed millions of lives.
The name of Bedford Falls was combined from Bedford Hills, in Westchester County, New York, and Seneca Falls, a small town midway between Rochester and Syracuse. The town of Elmira, mentioned by the bank examiner, is a real town in New York, not that far from the actual Seneca Falls.
The scene on the bridge where Clarence saves George was filmed on a back lot on a day where the temperature was 90 degrees Fahrenheit. This is why James Stewart is visibly sweating in a few scenes.
Frank Capra often said that this was his favorite of all his films.
James Stewart's performance as George Bailey is ranked #8 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
Voted the #1 inspirational film of all time in AFI's "100 Years, 100 Cheers" (June 14th, 2006)
Ranked as the #1 Most Powerful Movie of All Time by the American Film Institute (2006).
In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #20 Greatest Movie of All Time.
Ranked #3 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Fantasy" in June 2008.
Debuted a week after William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), which explained why this movie was a disappointment at the box office and at the Academy Awards.
When Officer Bert shoots at George, the "s", the "v" and the "i" in the electric "Pottersville" sign far away in the distance, go out.
Despite being set around Christmas, it was filmed during a heat wave. It got to be so hot that Frank Capra gave everyone a day off to recuperate.
According to an interview with Karolyn Grimes, the actress who played Zuzu, the name Zuzu comes from Zu Zu Ginger Snaps. George makes reference to this near the end of the movie when he says to Zu Zu at the top of the stairs, "Zuzu my little Ginger Snap!"
Ginger Rogers was offered the role of Mary, but turned it down.
At one stage when George is walking down the street, someone calls out "Hey Captain Cook, got your sea legs yet?". Captain James Cook (1728-1779) was an English sailor renowned as a navigator.
James Stewart said that of all the films he made, this was his favorite.
This film is one of five times Beulah Bondi portrayed James Stewart's mother, The others are: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Of Human Hearts (1938) and Vivacious Lady (1938), and once on his television series, "The Jimmy Stewart Show" (1971).
The movie was originally slated for 1947 release, but when Technicolor was unable to deliver prints in time for RKO's Christmastime 1946 release of Sinbad the Sailor (1947), Frank Capra's film was rushed into theaters. The titles were not reshot, and thus bear a 1947 copyright.
Frank Capra strove to make scenes as real as he could for actors. Thus the first kiss between Stewart and Reed was shot at the same time as the other end of the phone conversation, with Sam Wainwright (Frank Albertson) on a different set (Wainwright's New York office) at RKO's Pathe studio.
Although credited as merely "Mr. Potter," it is revealed on the back of the glass on Mr. Potter's office door that his name is Henry F. Potter.
"Smith Wins Nomination", the newspaper headline, has nothing to do with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). It refers instead to Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York, the "Happy Warrior" who ran for President as a Democrat in 1928. Republican Herbert Hoover defeated Smith.
"Screen Director's Playhouse" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on May 8, 1949 with James Stewart reprising his film role.
| ||||||
| ||||||
Ol' Man Gower's cigar disappears when he sends young George to deliver a prescription.
Just before George speaks to Harry on the phone, George removes a wreath from his arm and places it on a table. The wreath immediately reappears on his arm.
George's pipe disappears when talking to Violet in his office.
George and Clarence swap sides as they are thrown out of Nick's.
George jumps into the river to save Clarence. As he is rescuing him Clarence is screaming "help" but his mouth is not moving.
After George storms out of Uncle Billy's house, Uncle Billy lays his head on his arms. At first he has his arms crossed right over left, then immediately they are crossed left over right.
When George and Clarence are drying off in the bridge keeper's shack the postcard hanging by the thermometer on the wall, next to the door repeatedly disappears and reappears between shots. When Mr. Potter offers George a job, the chain on the the skull and chain on Mr. Potter's desk changes positions repeatedly between shots.
When everyone is jumping into the pool during the dance, the same person jumps in twice.
As George approaches Bert and Ernie by Ernie's taxi, and then all three ogle Violet as she walks down the street, the same woman in a print dress, holding the brim of her hat, walks by five times in 30 seconds.
As Violet walks away from George, Ernie, and Bert, Ernie watches her out the window of his taxi. He stops watching and moves away from the window. In the next shot, he is watching from the window again.
Snow on Ernie's taxi disappears and reappears when arriving at George's dilapidated house.
When Mary (Donna Reed) throws her rock at an upstairs window of the dilapidated old house, the rock disappears a split-second after leaving her hand, and then reappears in the distance just before crashing through the glass. The roof of the house was a matte painting, added after principal photography by the visual effects department. When Ms Reed threw her rock (and it was her throwing it, not a stand-in), the arc of its flight was a bit too high, and it crossed the matte line for most of it's travel. Consequently, it was covered up by the painting, which was added later. Appartently the live-action crew did not notice the potential problem when filming the shot.
As George and Mary prepare to drive Martini's family to their new home, Mary (in a close up) is holding the goat's horn/antler. The scene cuts to an extreme long shot in which her hand is nowhere near the goat.
When George wanders across the street (soon to be joined by Violet), the man approaching him with the pipe suddenly becomes a woman.
After Clarence disappears while being wrestled by Bert the Cop, you can see the shadow of Ernie the Cabdriver, shaking his finger. However, when the camera shows Ernie, he has both hands on the tree, and then he begins to shake his finger.
During the run inside the Building & Loan, the hat changes position on the coat stand outside George's office.
A hat being held by someone donating money in the Bailey house first has a little snow then a lot of snow then no snow.
When George crashes his car into the tree, there's not much snow on it, when he gets out of the car to have a look at the damage, there's lots of snow on the car
When George and Mary are throwing rocks at the dilapidated house on the way home from the dance, when George throw his rock, the window that Mary is supposed to throw a rock at is missing. Then when Mary gets ready to throw her rock the window is there.
Young George Bailey is shown working in a drugstore in 1919, but he's standing next to a Coca-Cola Silhouette Girl Thermometer which wasn't produced until 1938.
When George visits his father in his office and finds him arguing with Potter, his father is standing behind his desk talking to Potter. There is a cut away form this but upon return George's father is now on the same side of the desk as Potter.
In the scene where George saves Clarence on the bridge (or Clarence saved him), he is seen to be visibly sweating even though it is supposedly winter. This is because the scene was shot in warm weather.
1919: No National Geographic Magazine mentions "Fiji" and "coconuts" in the same subject.
At the scene showing the new houses at Bailey Park, California hills are visible beyond the houses. The film is set in New York state, which only has much gentler, rolling hills.
When George Bailey is arguing with Mr. Potter in the board room after Peter Bailey's death, George says to Potter: "What'd you say just a minute ago? They had to wait and save their money before they even ought to think of a decent home." But Mr. Potter never said this line.
The medal is frequently, albeit incorrectly, called the Congressional Medal of Honor, stemming from its award by the Department of Defense "in the name of Congress". It is correctly the "Medal of Honor".
When Mary puts on "Buffalo Gals" on the phonograph, she starts a ten-inch, yellow-labeled record, but in the next shot, a dark-labeled record is playing. Also, when Mary breaks the record after the conversation with George, she breaks a twelve-inch, yellow-labeled record instead of the original ten-inch record.
In the drugstore when Mary leans over the counter to whisper in George's ear, a piece of tape suddenly appears on the edge of the counter between George's and Mary's heads. This was most likely done as a reference mark for the young actors so the focus puller could accurately pull focus.
| ||||||
| ||||||
| ||||||
| ||||||
| ||||||
| ||||||
| ||||||
| ||||||
| ||||||
