It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Header Photo: Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey from
It's a Wonderful Life (1947)
© Paramount
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It's a Wonderful Life (Promo Poster)
© Paramount
It's a Wonderful Life ~ Cast & Credits
directed:
Frank Capra, 1946
produced:
Frank Capra
running time:
129 minutes, B&W
scr:
Capra, Francis Goodrich, Albert Hackett
phot:
Joseph Walker, Joseph Biroc
mus:
Dmitri Tiomkin
main cast:
01/ James Stewart
02/ Henry Travers
03/ Donna Reed
04/ Lionel Barrymore
05/ Thomas Mitchell
06/ Beulah Bondi
07/ Gloria Grahame
08/ Ward Bond
oscar nominations:
01/ best film
02/ best actor (Stewart)
03/ best director
04/ best sound recording (John Aalberg)
05/ best film editing (William Hornbeck)
© Paramount
It's a Wonderful Life ~ Making Of
This is a film that people either love or hate. Depending on your point of view it's an unashamed statement to the innate goodness of humanity or alternatively it's sentimental goo.
Cynics take the latter view and I'm sorry for them. James Stewart is the small-town philanthropist whose loan company has gone bust and who is saved from suicide by an elderly angel (Henry Travers), desperately trying to earn his wings. Stewart wishes he had never been born; Travers shows him what a hellhole his home town would have become without him.
Capra is splendidly in control of his material throughout. Of course, such a story of supernatural intervention in the affairs of man could easily have tumbled into sentimentality - or worse - but it never does. An occasional, unexpected hard edge - Stewart railing furiously, illogically against his own family, for instance - makes a timely appearance to cut the sweetness.
Capra's belief in the values of small-town America shines through but he never turns an entirely unblinkered gaze upon them. Greed is the villian of the piece and there's at least a tacit acknowledgement that greed is one of the less desirable by-products of the American Dream, so the warm emotion of the film is tempered by some of the social consciousness that the director brought to Mr Deeds Goes to Town and Mr Smith Goes to Washington. It's a Wonderful Life is certainly simplistic and, if you like, naive, but the doggedly optimistic message of the title is put across by both director and cast with such conviction as to to be irresistible.
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Most famous photo still from the movie
© Paramount
Links
It's a Wonderful Life: All the Facts >> Cast & Credits >> Making of >> UK Colour/B&W 2 Dvd Set >> UK Colour/B&W 2 Dvd Set + Poster + Postcards >> Canvas Print >> >> Screen Legend 4 Dvd UK Boxset >> Frank Capra 4 Dvd UK Boxset >> Search Site
James Stewart: Biog. >>
Key Dates >>
Filmography >>
Interred
>>
Glenn Miller Story UK Dvd >>
Rear Window >> Vertigo
>>
Advertise >>
James Stewart Books and Dvds available @ amazon.com
It's a Wonderful Life: All the Facts >> Cast & Credits >> Making of >> UK Colour/B&W 2 Dvd Set - Dec. 14: Special Offer >> UK Colour/B&W 2 Dvd Set + Poster + Postcards - All Scanned >> Canvas Print >> >> Screen Legend 4 Dvd UK Boxset >> Frank Capra 4 Dvd UK Boxset >> Repro. Movie Promo Poster Gallery
