One of the best loved and most important (in my opinion) of all the holiday movies is “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Now a seasonal classic, it’s message of how important each of us are, not only today, but to the future of those around us, is powerful and profound.
However, the film met with one obstacle after another from beginning to release. It was director Frank Capra’s first film and Jimmy’ Stewart’s first time in front of the camera after several years as the pilot of a B-17 bomber flying 20 combat missions during World War II. Stewart had been a major star before the war, but his long absence from acting during his service, and his experiences in combat, had eroded his confidence.
As for the story itself, the idea didn’t come from a book or a play but a very short story (4,000 words), “The Greatest Gift,” that couldn’t find an author, so author Phillip Van Doren Stern decide to distribute in the form of a Holiday greeting card of which only 200 copies were made. The card found its way to a Hollywood producer who bought the rights from Stern for $175,000 in today’s money. Even then, three different script writers tried and failed to craft a compelling story for the big screen before Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett made the story work its magic on the big screen.
The movie, released in 1946, was not well received by the public or critics and flopped at the box office. It was only due to a clerical error that the copyright expired prematurely in the early 1970s; allowing TV stations to freely air it….and only since then has it become the beloved holiday classic we enjoy today.
There is something magical (if not miraculous) that a movie with so many early trials, obstacles, setbacks, and being a commercial failure, ultimately became such an enduring classic. If you’d like a little more of the backstory to this wonderful file, click here for a little more about the making of a wonderful movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
