Sat., December 23rd, 8 p.m.
Frank Capra
US 1946
129 min.
35mm
Frank Capra, the director of It’s A Wonderful Life lived a Horatio Alger type life, prompting director John Ford to call him “an inspiration to those who believe in the American dream.” Capra’s Southern Italian peasant parents brought him to America when he was six years old—he lived through a scrappy childhood; as a young man, he freight-hopped, sold books door-to-door, and wandered the country after WWI, gathering experiences and meeting his ultimate audience—who he called “the common man.”
Capra wound up in Hollywood in the 30s—props man, gag writer for Hal Roach movies, lab man, editor—then directing. First small features and talkies, then finally, successes like Meet John Doe and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington confirmed Capra as a serious director and some say, the first Hollywood “auteur.” World War II saw patriotic volunteer Major Frank Capra serving his country by making the influential “Why We Fight” WWII orientation films. Frank comes back to Hollywood a changed man, worried about the rise of fascism and the dehumanizing effects of business and doubting that he could make serious movies as a part of the big studio systems. With partners George Stevens and William Wyler, he started Liberty Films and found a script—developed from a Christmas card pamphlet—about a despairing small town man for Liberty Films’ first (and as it turned out, only) production. It had all the elements Capra loved: a chance to portray the common man as good and decent and show that every life had meaning. Capra rewrote key scenes himself and started casting.
Only one man could play George Bailey for Capra—but it had been 6 years since Bomber Squadron Commander Jimmy Stewart had been on the big screen, and Stewart said that he’d “lost all sense of judgment. I was uncertain.” Even Sheldon Leonard, who plays Nick the Bartender, noticed. “He was not as smoothly professional as I expected…”
Stewart’s personal angels were Capra, who never lost faith in Stewart’s abilities, and Lionel Barrymore (the hateful Mr. Potter), who told him “Acting, young fella, is a noble profession. Now just do what you’re doing!” Stewart said these words helped him, as did the willingness of his young co-star, Donna Reed, to do their intense by-the-phone love scene in one take. In fact, that scene was so convincing that the more passionate parts of the embrace were clipped in fear of the censors. Jimmy Stewart’s post-war angst contributed to the film’s powerful emotional impact—he said that he’d been genuinely overcome with a sense of hopelessness and started to actually sob in the scene where George prays outside of the bar. Capra let the cameras roll, later reframing the shot to catch the genuine emotion on Stewart’s face. Jimmy Hawkins, who played little Tommy Bailey, and who has just written a children’s version of this story said, “Jimmy Stewart and George Bailey are basically one and the same.”
It’s A Wonderful Life didn’t win any Oscars. It lost money at the box office. It was ridiculed by some critics for its “Pollyanna” outlook. But Capra didn’t care. He said in his autobiography: “I thought it was the greatest film I had ever made. It wasn’t made for oh-so-bored critic or the oh-so-jaded literati…it was my kind of film for my kind of people. A film to tell the weary, the disheartened, and the disillusioned that no man is a failure…that each man’s life touches so many other lives…that you are the salt of the earth. And It’s a Wonderful Life is my memorial to you. There’s more to it than we thought we had. It’s the picture I waited all my life to make.”
~Karen Noske, George Eastman House volunteer
