Kitty Hollywood - It's A Wonderful Life - 1946

Ten years ago, I made a seven-year-old child watch this movie. I said 'We're going to watch a Christmas movie and it's black and white and you're going to like it'.
Fortunately, I was right on all counts.

It's A Wonderful Life is, infact, a wonderful film. There is so much to this film that I could have gasbagged on for at least another twenty minutes in the review. So, what didn't I tell you?

This film was honest to God investigated by the FBI. A number of writers who were blacklisted, at least four, worked on this film (without credit). Marc Connelly, Clifford Odets, Dalton Trumbo and Dorothy Parker all contributed towards the film script and the FBI, who had watched Frank Capra and his 'if we all just band together and work out our problems we'll triumph over all ills' viewpoint of the world with increasing scepticism, reported on this film.

The report says at one point 'this picture deliberately maligned the upper class attempting to show that people who had money were mean and despicable characters'. Oh dear. I mean, you can scoff now, but people were taking this deadly seriously and careers were ruined. The fear of Communism, or at the very least, the fear of being thought you were a Communist was so all pervasive that it led individuals act in ways that are still being judged today. It wasn't that long ago that a number of contemporary Hollywood actors refused to acknowledge Elia Kazan when he won the Lifetime Achievement Academy Award because he had named names at the HUAC hearings. (Actually, there is this amazing documentary - 'American Masters - None Without Sin' about Arthur Miller and Elia Kazan and this whole period - well worth a watch) 

Enough Tangentialism.Back to the film at hand. So - yes, originally this was a package with RKO Radio Pictures and Cary Grant, but that fell through and they sold the rights to Frank Capra and his newly established company, Liberty Films. He and a number of other directors had set up this company because they disliked being under the thumb of the major studios and wanted to have more say in the stories they told and how they told them. Aside from Capra, they were Samuel J. Briskin, William Wyler and George Stevens. In a weird twist of everything, it was 'It's A Wonderful Life' that ruined everything for Liberty Films. It cost a great deal of money to make. The set was incredibly detailed. A huge section of the RKO backlot was dedicated to it, and the set also had to be extremely adaptable as it needed to change from Bedford Falls to Pottersville, and also to age a number of years into the bargain. When Life did not break even at the box-office, they offered Liberty Films to any major studio rather than have the bank foreclose on them. The other kick in the teeth is that the 1947 Oscars (which had Life nominated for a few things but winning none of them) were dominated by William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives, a magnificent film and utterly deserving of everything that it won - but it must have gone pretty hard for Capra.

http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/capra_liberty.htm

Such a deal of technical work went into this film. Not only the film enlarging from long shot to close up and the set flexibility, as I have mentioned, but they also pioneered a new method of making filmic snow for this movie. Prior to this, snow had been made by painting cornflakes white, but as you can imagine that was a fairly arduous and noisy solution. They were already spending a lot of time and money on the fancy set, they did not want to have to re-record the sound due to the extremely crunchy footsteps that would be ever present.So, they came up with a mxture of foamite, sugar and water that was NOT noisy, and could be sprayed all over the place. It has been reported that they won a Technical Achievement Academy Award for this, but I couldn't find anything on the Academy Award database about that so I remain uncertain. Check out Life Magazine's article on it - it has some amazing behind-the-scenes photos of the process: http://life.time.com/culture/its-a-wonderful-life-rare-photos-from-set-of-a-holiday-classic/#4

http://mentalfloss.com/article/23522/quick-10-its-wonderful-life

The fact that there was a heatwave going on at the same time can't have made things easy. Nothing like a massive heatwave to add verisimilitude to your performance as an imminent sucidee, is there?

http://karenmaezenmiller.com/tag/fear/

Other stuff. Did the bartender Nick from Martini's Bar look familiar to you? He did to me. So I Googled him. His name is Sheldon Leonard. ("Do it to me Sheldon, you're an animal Sheldon, ride me big Sheldon" - name the film). He made a career out of playing heavies - and in particular he was in 'To Have and Have Not' (Bogart and Bacall) and he was Harry the Horse in 'Guys and Dolls'.

http://pyxurz.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/its-wonderful-life-page-5-of-5.html

And, according to Wikipedia, but don't quote me on this - two of the leads on The Big Bang Theory are called Sheldon and Leonard because the writers of the show love his work. Interconnectness, my friends, interconnectedness.

Robert Anderson, who played Young George Bailey in the film (and is an extremely personable juvenile actor, in my opinion) has said of that really quite remarkable scene between him and Mr Gower the pharmacist, played by H.B. Warner, that Warner was really drunk the day that scene was shot. He smacked him around quite a bit and then subsequently apologised profusely. If, as Anderson has said, Warner was drunk and really laying into Young George then I don't wonder at all at the believability of the scene. 

A number of women were suggested for the role of Mary ahead of Donna Reed. Donna, of course, was yet to reach great stardom with 'From Here to Eternity' and later 'The Donna Reed Show' and she was still having to fight for every role. Jean Arthur, who Capra had worked with so effectively in 'Mr Smith Goes to Washington' 'You Can't Take It With You' and 'Mr Deeds Goes to Town' was the first choice, but she was either doing a Broadway play or didn't want to work with Jimmy Stewart again (both versions of the story exist) and so she was out.

http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/classic-movies/images/9262594/title/jean-arthur-photo

Ginger Rogers and Olivia De Havilland were also suggested, amongst others. Rogers turned it down, as she thought it was 'too bland' - and then went on to question her wisdom in her autobiography. De Havilland, well, I know she is capable of playing humour and can have a lovely twinkle in her eye, but quite honestly I simply cannot imagine anyone other than Reed in this role. Go Reed.

https://alisonkerr.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/style-file-ginger-rogers-hair/

http://galleryhip.com/olivia-de-havilland.html

And finally, the location of Jimmy Stewart's Oscar. He won it for 'The Philadelphia Story' and being the unassuming homespun guy that he was, he gave it to his Dad. For years, his Dad had it on display in a cabinet in his hardware store in his hometown in Pennsylvania, along with all the war medals. Nice one Jimmy.

http://www.film-actually.com/2013/09/oldie-goldies-philadelphia-story-1940.html

It is truly A Wonderful Life. And just like J.M Barrie's suggestion about believing in fairies, I think it is just as valid to believe in the bell-ringing and Angel Wing Getting thing. Why not?