I'm from a small town in Virginia, so I've always related to the film "It's A Wonderful Life." I even had a girlfriend in high school that I thought I might marry some day named Mary. Plus, my family owned and operated the local newspaper in an office building somewhat similar to the old savings and loan right downtown. Since this is the holiday season now (10 days to Christmas Eve), I figured I would share some of the trivia on IMDB.com about this holiday movie that some people are probably getting a little tired of, but that I really think captures something intangible and, yes, wonderful, about small-town American life.
Trivia:
-Films made prior to this one used cornflakes painted white for the falling snow effect. Because the cornflakes were so loud, dialogue had to be dubbed in later. Frank Capra wanted to record the sound live, so a new snow effect was developed using foamite (a fire-fighting chemical) and soap and water. This mixture was then pumped at high pressure through a wind machine to create the silent, falling snow. 6000 gallons of the new snow were used in the film. The RKO Effects Department received a special award from the Motion Picture Academy for the development of the new film snow.
-For the scene that required Donna Reed to throw a rock into the window of the Granville House, Frank Capra hired a marksman to shoot it out for her on cue. To everyone's amazement, Donna Reed broke the window with true aim and heft without the assistance of the hired marksman!
-Jimmy Stewart was nervous about the phone scene kiss (with Donna Reed) because it was his first screen kiss since his return to Hollywood after the war. Under Capra's watchful eye, Stewart filmed the scene in only one unrehearsed take, and it worked so well that part of the embrace was cut because it was too passionate to pass the censors.
-Dalton Trumbo, Dorothy Parker, and Clifford Odets all did uncredited work on the script!! (I can't believe Dorothy Parker worked on this particular film.)
-Very few viewers are aware of two lines in the film of "secret dialog" - spoken quietly through a door. (They can be heard when amplifying the volume, and are also explicitly depicted in the closed-captioning.) The lines occur at the end of the scene set in Bailey's private office with Bailey and his son George, and Potter and his goon present. After George raves to Potter that "you can't say that about my father", he is ushered out of the room by his father, then George is shown standing outside the office door. At that moment, George overhears the following two lines of dialog through the glass pane of the door behind him: POTTER: What's the answer? BAILEY: Potter, you just humiliated me in front of my son.
-Lionel Barrymore convinced Jimmy Stewart to take the role of George, despite his feeling that he was not up to it so soon after World War II.
-Originally ended with "Ode to Joy", not "Auld Lang Syne".
-Ironically, after the initial flop of the film at the box office, its popularity grew after its copyright expired due to a clerical error and it was shown repeatedly on American television (especially at Christmas) without any royalties going to Frank Capra.
Goofs:
-Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Mary and George are walking down the street after the dance, she asks him, "Well, why don't you say it?" The next shot George is heard saying, "I don't know. Maybe I will say it," but his mouth is not moving at all.
-Continuity: When George wanders across the street (soon to be joined by Violet), the man approaching him with the pipe suddenly becomes a woman.
-Continuity: In the first scene where George finds his brother Harry's grave, the year of death (1919) is clearly visible. The next scene, it is obscured by snow and George has to dig it out to find the year his brother died.
-Continuity: At one point George calls Violet (played by Gloria Grahame), Gloria.
Quotes:
-George Bailey: [yelling at Uncle Billy] Where's that money, you silly stupid old fool? Where's that money? Do you realize what this means? It means bankruptcy and scandal and prison. That's what it means. One of us is going to jail - well, it's not gonna be me.
-Uncle Billy: After all, Potter, some people like George HAD to stay at home. Not every heel was in Germany and Japan.
-George Bailey: What do you want, Mary? Do you want the moon? If you want it, I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down for you. Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon, Mary.
Mary: I'll take it. Then what?
George Bailey: Well, then you can swallow it, and it'll all dissolve, see... and the moonbeams would shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair... am I talking too much?
-Clarence: One man's life touches so many others, when he's not there it leaves an awfully big hole.
-George Bailey: You call this a happy family? Why do we have to have all these kids? (Perhaps written by Dorothy Parker?)
-Clarence: You've been given a great gift, George: A chance to see what the world would be like without you.
-Annie: I been savin' this money for a de-vorce, if ever I get a husban'.
-George Bailey: Now you listen to me. I don't want any plastics and I don't want any ground floors. And I don't want to get married *ever* to anyone! You understand that? I want to do what I want to do.
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