How a Christmas Card started a holiday tradition
As Christmas approaches many people get movies that fit the season – any number of adaptations of A Christmas Carol, the more recent A Christmas Story, and of course, It’s as Wonderful Life. But did you know that It’s as Wonderful Life started out as just a Christmas card?
On February 12, 1938, writer Philip Van Doran was shaving when an idea for a story came to him in a sudden flash. The work would tell the story of a man disillusioned with his life and getting to see what it would be like if he hadn’t been born. Van Doran, a primarily non-fiction author, later remembered, “I was just learning to write fiction, so the first version was pretty terrible.” Still, he thought of a title that fit the main point of story: The Greatest Gift. Van Doran finished a second draft in 1943 with better results and gave it to his agent. Van Doran’s daughter later wrote, “After [his agent] tried everything from the Saturday Evening Post to farm journals it was evident that no magazine would touch it.” So Van Doran decided to rewrite it once again and release it as a twenty page Christmas card to his family and friends. A copy of one of the cards was shown to Charles Koerner, the head of RKO Studios, who immediately paid the incredible amount of $50,000 for the copy. Van Doran’s agent sold the movie rights to the story to RKO Studios for $10,000 soon after.
In spite of its appeal, the story proved difficult to mold into a screenplay, and after three failed scripts the studio decided to drop the project for the immediate future. Van Doran’s creation, like so many story ideas before and after it, may well have died there. However on a visit to the studio, Frank Capra happened to being talking to Koerner, who was eager to unload the troublesome project. Koerner talked about the wasted scripts and told Capra that they had failed to capture the original story. Capra was no stranger behind the camera and had directed such films as It Happened One Night, You Can’t Take it with You, and Mr. Smith goes to Washington. During World War II he had gone into the Signal Corps and directed a series of documentary films about the war. Still Capra was nervous about his working on his first major film in several years. “I was scared to death,” he later remembered. Despite his misgivings, Capra jumped at the chance to buy movie rights, re-titling the story, It’s a Wonderful Life. Capra later said, “It was the story I had been looking for all my life!” Capra hired new writers, who were finally able to turn out a version worthy of being produced. He also determined that only one man could play the role of George Bailey.
Jimmy Stuart and Capra had worked together on Mr. Smith goes to Washington and You Can’t Take it with You. Stuart, who had spent the last four years flying bombing missions over Nazi Germany and had just been discharged, was reluctant to take the role, but Capra talked him into it. Capra now turned to filling in the role of Mary Bailey. Initially, Capra wanted Jean Arthur, but ultimately chose Donna Reed. For the town of Bedford Falls, a three block set was constructed, complete with specially produced fake snow – it was one of the largest sets ever constructed at the time. Stuart and Reed immediately generated on-camera chemistry, best featured in the phone scene where George tells Mary he loves her. In the scene, Stuart actually forgot a page of lines, but Capra was so impressed that he used the first take.
After its long journey to the screen, It’s a Wonderful Life proved a modest box office success, making enough money to rank as twenty-sixth most profitable film of the year of four hundred released. It was also nominated for five Academy Awards but failed to win any and was quickly forgotten. The film was put into a studio vault for almost ten years. Then in 1951, the new medium of television began broadcasting this forgotten picture. In the ensuing decades that followed, It’s a Wonderful Life became a traditional, if not vital part of the holiday season for hundreds of thousands of TV viewers. Fan mail poured into Stuart and Capra, and the movie became one of the most critically acclaimed of all time. As recently as 2007, the American Film Institute placed it at number 20 on the 100 Greatest Films list. Its theme has been the plot for dozens of movies, books, stories and television shows, and it’s been referenced, honored and even parodied on programs like The Simpsons and South Park. Every TV fan knows a few of the famous lines from the now classic film.
Still, the visionary directing by Capra and the brilliant performances by Stuart, Reed, and the rest of the cast would never have happened, had it not been for a simple Christmas card.
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