Of the thousands of films that Hollywood turned out during the golden age of the studio system, a few hundred are fondly remembered by the general public. Of those, even fewer have reached the status of It’s A Wonderful Life. Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane, Singin’ in the Rain and a small list of others can be revived anywhere, anytime, and count on a happy audience, but none have the consistent, seasonal, “it’s that time of year” guarantee that It’s A Wonderful Life can claim.

Why? What drew Americans to It’s A Wonderful Life year after year, Christmas after Christmas? Why do people who have already seen it once, twice, even ten times, want to watch it again? What is its magic, its power, its apparently timeless appeal?

Some answers are simple. Frank Capra is a great film director who knows how to reach and please audiences, and James Stewart is a great film actor who knows how to create screen characters people believe in. More than that, the screenwriters, Francis Goodrich and ALbert Hackett, are a successful team who really knew what a movie was and how to write a good one. The supporting cast is outstanding. Even minor roles are played by such heavyweights as Thomas Mitchell, Frank Faylen, and Ward Bond, while major support is provided by Lionel Barrymore, Beulah Bondi, Gloria Grahame and Henry Travers. Opposite Stewart, as his leading lady, is the fresh and lovely Donna Reed at the beginning of a long and varied career.

The entire collaborative team of It’s A Wonderful Life is a roster of great names. Three of Hollywood’s greatest cinematographers worked on the film: Victor Milner (uncredited), and the talented Joseph Walker, who shared final credit with the up-and-coming Joseph Biroc, who developed into another big name. The film was edited by the man many considered to be the most influential cutter in Hollywood’s history, William Hornbeck, whose career stretches from the days of Mack Sennett through the years with Korda in England and on to other classics movies such as A Place in the Sun, Shane, and Giant.

With additional scenes written by Jo Swerling, music by Dimitri Tiomkin, and contributions from a roster of first-rate technicians, it might be said that, as is true for other beloved Hollywood movies, the collaborative combination for It’s A Wonderful Life was just right. Capra had a lot of talented help.

It’s A Wonderful Life was not just another feature from the Hollywood movie factory. When director Frank Capra returned to film-making from his World War II service in the Office of War Information, it was the fall of 1945 and he had not made a commercial feature film for the duration of the war. Behind him he had a record of outstanding critical and commercial success – films such as It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, You Can’t Take It With You, and more. He had won three Oscars for Best Direction for such films ( a fourth Oscar for Prelude to War, a part of the Why We Fight series for the U. S. Army was also to his credit), and he was anxious – even a bit frightened – to know if he still had the old magic touch with films and audiences.

From the beginning, he wanted a property that would be outstanding in every way possible. To achieve his goals, he formed his own independent production company, Liberty Films, in partnership with Samuel Briskin, William Wyler, and George Stevens, Sr., and he took his time searching for just the right story. He found it on the shelves of RKO Pictures – a neglected little tale called “The Greatest Gift,” by Philip Van Doren Stern, which RKO had originally planned to turn into a film for Cary Grant. So far, no one had been able to adapt the story, which was about a man given a chance to see what the world would have been like if he had never lived, into a successful screenplay. Capra took on the job and, needless to say, he succeeded.

Everyone has their own explanation of the film’s continued success. In determining what makes audiences want to look at one film more than another, one has to consider the basic story itself. The story of George Bailey is the story of an American Everyman. He is an ordinary guy, with dreams of excitement and success. He wants to travel, see the world, make something of himself – goals that almost anyone watching the movie can identify with and understand. He wants to shake off his small town and experience the glamour and excitement of the big city. However, simple events, not earthquakes or bubonic plagues but family responsibilities, keep interfering with his departure. Suddenly, a lot of years have passed, and he’s still living in Bedford Falls, the town he was born in. Maybe it wouldn’t be so awful, but a crisis occurs, a shortage of money, another thing the average person can identify with … and George is forced to question everything. What has his life been worth? What is the point of going on?

It’s A Wonderful Life becomes accessible to everyone because it asks the basic question: What is an average man’s contribution to his world? Rich or poor, failure or success, the question applies. After seeing the film one has a sense that one’s life counts, that every person’s life counts, and that friendship is the only true wealth anyone has.

Besides all that, philosophizing and analyzing set aside, It’s A Wonderful Life is full of laughs. As Frank Capra summed up, “It’s my kind of film for my kind of people” … and that turned out to be almost everyone.

–Jeanine Basinger

Criterion Collection Spine #LD-018

dir. Frank Capra