Frank Capra

The title tells it all. It’s a Wonderful Life was first released back in December 1946, in the same week that President Truman was issuing Proclamation 2714, which officially ended hostilities in World War Two, and for that matter prefiguring Donald Trump by proposing that the US buy Greenland. The movie may be seventy-eight years old, but it’s one of those timeless classics, like Casablanca or The Searchers, that actually improve with familiarity. It’s also long since woven its essential message of good cheer into the fabric of our festive season. It’s an unusual plot for a film synonymous with feel-good family entertainment.

Frank Capra was almost too embarrassed to pitch his greatest film to Jimmy Stewart. At the time, both men were veterans in a post-war slump. Capra was losing his first confidence in a shelved Cary Grant vehicle-that-wasn’t, a script that had been torturously adapted from a short story by a fractious committee of writers. He stumbled through the premise for Stewart, trying to explain that the story starts in Heaven, and it’s about this fellow who thinks he’s a failure in life, so an angel named Clarence has to come down and stop him from jumping off a bridge, except Clarence can’t swim so the fellow has to save him… Here Capra paused, mopping his brow to confess, “This doesn’t tell very well, does it?