It's a Wonderful Life (1946) or, The Big, Marvelous, Sappy Christmas Miracle for George Bailey

8/10/2024

It's a Wonderful Life (1946) or, The Big, Marvelous, Sappy Christmas Miracle for George Bailey

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Images of family and rapturous love make up this bright, uplifting poster for Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life

George Bailey has been a good person, who put his own ambitions aside in order to run a little town's loan's bank, when his father passed away, but now, due to a kind of accident, he is falling on his heels and considers ending things. Guardian angel Clarence must attempt to salvage him.

It's a Wonderful Life is written by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett (A Certain Smile (1958), both) and Italian-American master filmmaker Frank Capra (The Strong Man (1926)), whose 32th feature it was. Jo Swerling (Thunder in the East (1952)) and Michael Wilson (Friendly Persuasion (1956)) made screenplay contributions. It is based on the short story The Greatest Gift (1943) by Philip Von Doren Stern (They Were There (1959)), in turn inspired by Charles Dickens' novella A Christmas Carol (1843).

Capra's grand Christmas narrative quickly conquers one's heart and plays American football with it until its end. There are wonderful performances from James Stewart (Rope (1948)) and Lionel Barrymore (The Tender Hearted Boy (1913)) as the dastardly Potter. Stewart's Bailey is a matter of taste. I actually find him fairly intolerable both at his peak of positivity and when he hits bottom, as well as after this.

But It's a Wonderful Life is also a very funny picture, which always elects 'the high road': More is better here in the thick tale; Bailey does not get romance; all the townspeople bring buckets of cash to help out their fellow man etc. It is childishly sentimental in the extreme, yet also inventive and highly memorable. There are continuity issues and a high count of jump cuts. But a bona fide classic it is.

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 3.18 mil. $

Box office: In excess of 16.4 mil. $ (projected original release and post 2000 re-releases only)

= Initial flop, later hit (projected original return of 2.10 times its cost; later grown to more than 5.15 times its cost)

[It's a Wonderful Life premiered 20 December (New York) and runs 131 minutes. Capra claimed to have paid 50k $ for the rights to the story from RKO Pictures, who claimed it was 10k $, the same amount they had paid for it before also paying for screenplays written. Husband and wife writing team Goodrich and Hackett soured over Capra's involvement with the script, and Hackett summed up that the filmmaker was "a very arrogant son of a bitch." Shooting took place from April - July 1946 in New York and California, including in Los Angeles. The fictional Bedford Falls town was a massive movie set. Composer Dmitri Tiomkin also fell out with Capra over the film, as his work was left out or cut needlessly, in his opinion. Capra also had issues with the cinematographer Victor Milner, and once he fell ill had him replaced, until the replacement also needed to be replaced. The film was the year's 26th highest-grossing domestically of the year (out of +400 released pictures) but reportedly resulted in a 525k $ loss for distributor RKO. We may from this presume a total original gross around 6.7 mil. $. Box Office Mojo records post 2000 re-release earnings of 9.7 mil. $, especially from North America and the UK, where the film is extremely popular. It was nominated for 5 Oscars, winning none: It lost Best Actor (Stewart) to Fredric March for The Best Years of Our Lives, Director to William Wyler for the same film, Editing and Picture also to The Best Years of Our Lives, and Sound, Recording to The Jolson Story. It won a Golden Globe and a National Board of Review award, among other honors. It was Capra's favorite of all his films, and he was thrilled to experience how its popularity blossomed, as it became grew into a Christmas stable on TV decades after its release. IMDb's users have rated the film in at #21 on the site's Top 250 list, sitting between Se7en (1995) and Seven Samurai (1954). Capra returned with State of the Union (1948). Stewart returned in Magic Town (1947). It's a Wonderful Life is certified fresh at 94 % with a 9.00/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of It's a Wonderful Life?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

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8/10/2024

It's a Wonderful Life (1946) or, The Big, Marvelous, Sappy Christmas Miracle for George Bailey

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