5 facts you (probably) didn't know about "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946).
Christmas time is coming, and even though everyone's got their favorite holiday classic movie, none has more staying power than Frank Capra's "It's A Wonderful Life." Even if you have seen it a dozen times (or more), what you don't see in the movie is even more interesting than what you do...Here are 5 curious facts about this "feelm" ;) :
1. A "little" adventure...
The film's set in Encino, California, was very expensive and one of the most showy ever. It stretched over 4 acres and included more than 75 buildings (plus 20 giant oak trees). To enhance its natural feel, producers allowed birds, cats and dogs to wander the set for months before shooting.
2. The mistery of the town's name: Bedford Falls.
The name of the fictional town of Bedford Falls is popularly thought to be a combination of Bedford Hills, a hamlet within the corny Westchester County, New York, and Seneca Falls, a more working-class village in New York’s Fingers Lakes region near Rochester. But which town, Bedford Hills or Seneca Falls, is the true inspiration for Bedford Falls?The tourism bureau of Seneca Falls is banking on the fact that they’re the real deal. In fact, Seneca Falls has an entire website, The Real Bedford Falls, dedicated to pointing out the numerous similitudes between the two towns. Frank Capra reportedly visited Seneca Falls in 1945 although no solid proof of this exists; the film references nearby cities like Elmira, Rochester and Buffalo; both are mill towns; and both sport large Italian populations and an abundance of Victorian homes.
Whatever the case, Seneca Falls has certainly embraced its supposed alter ego with the year-old "It’s A Wonderful Life" Museum and the annual "It’s A Wonderful Life" Festival with special appearances by the “Bailey Sisters” themselves. Visitors can book a room at the Hotel Clarence, a recently restored boutique hotel named after, of course, George Bailey’s guardian angel. And it should be pointed out that the actual filming location of Bedford Falls was not anywhere near either Bedford Hills or Seneca Falls: the entire town was erected as an elaborate set at the RKO Ranch in California, as we have mentioned before.
3. Heavy snow in California? Well, that IS a real miracle!
Now that we’ve established that the town of Bedford Falls was not filmed on location in some New York burg during the winter but on a massive studio backlot in the San Fernando Valley during the middle of the summer, you’re probably wondering how Frank Capra made his fictional town look so darned wintry — fake snow and lots of it. Prior to “It’s a Wonderful Life,” most productions used cornflakes painted white to simulate snowflakes but, as you can imagine, this was a rather loud way to go about it and the dialogue during snowy scenes was usually dubbed in during post-production due to actors stepping on crunchy snowflakes. Capra insisted on recording the sound live during the film’s snow-filled scenes so a new, less disruptive snow made from water, soap and a fire-fighting chemical called Foamite was invented and pumped through a wind machine. A total of 6,000 gallons of this new faux snow solution was used in the film. And although “It’s a Wonderful Life” may have performed poorly at the Academy Awards, the RKO Effects Department received a technical recognition from the Academy for the innovative stunt snow. Here's an interesting video from the Academy on "How they made the snow" for the movie.
4. Propaganda?
The year after the film was released, an FBI agent named it in a memo, calling its "obvious attemps to discredit bankers" a sign of Communist leanings.
Reads a section of a 1947 FBI memo titled “Communist Infiltration of the Motion Picture Industry”:
With regard to the picture "It's a Wonderful Life", [redacted] stated in substance that the film represented rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a "scrooge-type" so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists. In addition, [redacted] stated that, in his opinion, this picture deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters. [redacted] related that if he made this picture portraying the banker, he would have shown this individual to have been following the rules as laid down by the State Bank Examiner in connection with making loans. Further, [redacted] stated that the scene wouldn't have "suffered at all" in portraying the banker as a man who was protecting funds put in his care by private individuals and adhering to the rules governing the loan of that money rather than portraying the part as it was shown. In summary, [redacted] stated that it was not necessary to make the banker such a mean character and "I would never have done it that way."
Despite the FBI suspicions, Frank Capra and the film’s screenwriters were not among those blacklisted in 1947 by Hollywood as a result of cinema-centric activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
5. Not a wonderful box office return (originally).
In its original theatrical run, in December 1946, the film received generally mixed reviews and was somewhat of a box-office flop. It didn't break even, failing to recoup its $3.7 million cost (it made $3.3 million during its initial run). This didn't mean an epic failure, but it was a disappointment nonetheless.
In the years following its release, “It’s a Wonderful Life” fell somewhat into obscurity only to re-emerge on the scene and receive some serious loving during the 1970s and '80s when it began appearing, somewhat relentlessly, on television during the holiday season (and here we have another odd story). In 1990, the nearly 45-year-old film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the US Library of Congress.