By George, It’s a Wonderful Life!
Well, it’s that time of the year again…the most wonderful time of the year.
Houses are covered in strings of brightly colored lights. Trees burdened with sparkly ornaments fill living rooms around the world. Millions of people will once again listening to Christmas songs and watching their favorite Christmas movies. Most of them will include at least one viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life.
If you are like the majority Americans, you’ve seen that movie, which stars Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed, and Lionel Barrymore, so many times that you know every part and every scene by heart. You probably feel like you know everything there is to know about the movie.
Well, with the movie turning 75 years old this year, let’s just see if I can tell you something you don’t know about It’s a Wonderful Life.
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It started out as a dream…and a Christmas card. One night in the 1930s Philip Van Doren Stern had a dream that stuck with him. He thought it would make a good story. Stern was a historical author so he knew how to write. He molded his dream into a short story about a man named George who finds himself tested to the limits. George is about to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge when a stranger happens along and engages him in conversation. When George says he wishes he had never been born, the stranger grants his wish.
Sound familiar?
Yup.
Stern named his story The Greatest Gift. He tried to sell the short story he loved but nobody seemed to want to buy it. As 1943 wound down and the story was still unsold he had it printed up into a Christmas card. He mailed 200 copies out to friends and loved ones.
Somehow one of those cards wound up in the hands of David Hempstead, a producer for RKO Pictures. Hempstead liked it and bought the movie rights from Stern for $10,000 (about $124,000 today).
Eventually it was written and rewritten and sold to Frank Capra’s production company in 1945. They changed the name from The Greatest Gift to It’s a Wonderful Life and released it to theaters in 1947, in direct competition with another future Christmas Classic, Miracle on 34th Street.
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Jimmy Stewart was not originally going to play George Bailey.
Can you imagine the movie without the tall lanky Jimmy Stewart as George? Stewart had fought in World War II and felt like it was still too soon after his war experiences to take on a family movie. In fact, he was seriously considering giving up his acting career entirely because of the horrors he had experienced.
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If Jimmy Stewart wasn’t going to play George originally, who was?
Cary Grant was going to play George at first, until Stewart was finally convinced to take on the role.
Who convinced Jimmy Stewart to reconsider taking on the role?
Bailey’s antagonist in the movie is a bitter old man named Henry Potter played by Lionel Barrymore. It was Barrymore who talked the much younger Stewart into taking the part.
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Why was Mr. Potter in the wheelchair?
Fans remember Mr. Potter being pushed around in his wheelchair by a man who never speaks. Well, the character Mr. Potter was not originally wheelchair-bound in the script. No, actor Lionel Barrymore had a bad hip and severe rheumatoid arthritis which made getting around very painful. They explained it in the movie as the result of polio.
So the wheelchair was for the actor, not the character. The man who pushed Potter’s wheelchair (played to perfection by former professional boxer Frank S. Hagney) didn’t speak in the movie because he wasn’t even in the earlier versions of the script.
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Did Thomas Mitchell (the actor who played George’s Uncle Billy) really trip over the trashcans when he left the party while intoxicated?
As Mitchell walked away from George, the cameras were still rolling to show George go back into the house. At that moment one of the crew slipped and dropped some equipment which crashed loudly. Thinking fast, Mitchell called out, “I’m all right! I’m a-a-all right!” It was a brilliant bit of ad lib that really added to the movie.
Next time you watch It’s a Wonderful Life and this scene comes on, watch Jimmy Stewart closely and you’ll see him trying to stifle a laugh after Mitchell’s exclamation. Stewart was waiting for the director to yell, “Cut!” before breaking character.
By the way, the stagehand who dropped the equipment was given a $10 bonus for his lucky accident.
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Thomas Mitchell really seemed drunk during that scene. Was he really?
Nope, but actor H.B. Warner, who played Mr. Gower (the pharmacist) actually was drunk during the scene when he smacked the young George Bailey (played by Bobby Anderson) around in the drug store. As far as I could find, the young actor was uninjured.
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Donna Reed had a good arm.
Remember the scene where George and Mary (Donna Reed) are walking along together and stop to throw rocks at the old Granville mansion; you know, the house they eventually buy and move into? The windows are almost completely broken out by kids, because they believed, if they could hit some glass, they would be granted a wish. A man with a good arm had been hired to break some glass when Donna threw her rock. Well, he did get paid, but it was just for standing around, as Ms. Reed hit glass on her first throw.
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One of the actors was a little rascal. I mean he really was a Little Rascal.
Remember the wiseacre high school kid who was trying to impress Mary at the dance with his manliness. When George came along and “stole” Mary, the disappointed youth turned the key that caused the dance floor to open to reveal a swimming pool. His name in the movie was Freddie Othello. He was played by none other than Carl “Alalfa” Switzer, from the old Our Gang shorts, commonly known now as The Little Rascals.
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The Waltons were represented too.
Remember the scene where the savings and loan is on the verge of closing and George is handing out his honeymoon money to keep the doors open? One little lady asks for such a small and precise amount that George leans across the counter and kisses her on the top of the head. That lady was Ellen Corby, who would later play Grandma Walton on the long-running TV series, The Waltons.
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As if having a Little Rascal and Grandma Walton in the movie wasn’t enough, there were a couple muppets too…kind of.
The Bedford Falls policeman, Bert (Ward Bond), and taxi driver, Ernie (Frank Faylen), were good friends in the movie. Fans of the show often claim the two were the inspiration for two of the original Muppets, roommates and best friends, Bert and Ernie. It has been generally denied by those close to Jim Henson and Frank Oz, who originated the two Muppet characters, but, hey, it sounds almost too good to be coincidental.
Who am I not to mention some good trivia just because it isn’t true?
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The Christmas season of 1947 must have been a fantastically profitable one for Hollywood, with two such incredible Christmas Classics as It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street in theaters at the same time.
Nope.
It’s a Wonderful Life was considered a flop by much of the movie industry in 1947. It cost $3.7 million to make, and fell short of breaking even in its initial run by almost half-a-million dollars. It ranked only 26th best out of all the movies released that year. Frank Capra’s production company was forced into bankruptcy and Jimmy Stewart doubted his return to acting even more.
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Although not originally considered a Christmas movie (even by Frank Capra himself) the viewing public saw the obvious and It’s a Wonderful Life gradually gained a strong following. The American Film Institute eventually declared It’s a Wonderful Life to be one of the 100 greatest American films of all time. Moreover, they named it the number one most inspirational movie ever made in this country.
Jimmy Stewart, despite his early misgivings, grew to consider it his favorite of all the movies he made in his long career.
Oh, remember when I said It’s a Wonderful Life was released in direct competition with Miracle on 34th Street. Well, It’s a Wonderful Life may have ranked only 26th among movies released in 1947, but it still beat out Miracle on 34th Street which came in 27th.
Yeah, that’s one of my favorites too.
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Great movie and interesting tid bits sir. Thanks for sharing!!
Thanks! Your mom and I just finished rewatching It’s a Wonderful Life a few minutes ago. She was crying with happiness by the end. Glad you liked the post.