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        IT IS A WONDERFUL LIFE

           by Jimmy Stewart

        Guideposts, Dec. 1987



    A friend told me recently that
seeing a movie I made more than 40
years ago is a holiday tradition in
his family, "Like putting up the
Christmas tree." That movie is [It's]
[a Wonderful Life], and out of all the
80 films I've made, it's my favorite.
But it has an odd history.

    When the war was over in 1945, I
came back home to California from
three year's service in the Air Force.
I had been away from the film
business, my MGM contract had run out,
and frankly, not knowing how to get
started again, I was just a little bit
scared. Hank Fonda was in the same
boat, and we sort of wandered around
together, talking, flying kites, and
stuff. But nothing much was happening.

    Then one day Frank Capra phoned
me. The great director had also been
away in service, making the Why We
Fight documentary for the military,
and he admitted to being a little
frightened, too. But he had a movie in
mind. We met in his office to talk
about it.

    He said the idea came from a
Christmas story written by Philip Van
Doren Stern. Stern couldn't sell the
story anywhere, but he finally had 200
twenty-four-page pamphlets printed up
at his own expense, and he sent them
to his friends as a greeting card.

    "Now listen," Frank began
hesitantly. He seemed a little
embarrassed about what he was going to
say. "The story starts in heaven, and
it's sort of the Lord telling somebody
to go down to earth because there's a
fellow who's in trouble, and this
heavenly being goes to a small town,
and...."

    Frank swallowed and took a deep
breath. "Well, what it boils down to
is, this fella who thinks he's a
failure in life jumps off a bridge.
The Lord sends down an angel named
Clarence, who hasn't earned his wings
yet, and Clarence jumps into the water
to save the guy. But the angel can't
swim, so the guy has to save him, and
then...."

    Frank stopped and wiped his brow.
"This doesn't tell very well, does
it?"

    I jumped up. "Frank, if you want
to do a picture about a guy who jumps
off a bridge and an angel named
Clarence who hasn't won his wings yet
coming down to save him., well, I'm
your man!"

    Production of [It's a Wonderful]
[Life] started April 15, 1946, and
from the beginning there was a certain
something special about the film. Even
the set was special. Two months had
been spent creating the town of
Bedford Falls, New York. For the
winter scenes, the special effects
department invented a new kind of
realistic snow instead of using the
traditional white cornflakes. As one
of the longest American movie sets
ever made until then, Bedford Falls
has 75 stores and buildings on four
acres with a three-block main street
lined with 20 full-grown oak tress.

    As I walked down that shady street
the morning we started work, it
reminded me of my hometown, Indiana,
Pennsylvania. I almost expected to
hear the bells of the Presbyterian
Church, where Mother played the organ
and Dad sang in the choir. I chuckled,
remembering how the fire siren would
go off, and Dad, a volunteer fireman,
would slip out of the choir loft. If
it was a false alarm, Dad would sneak
back and sort of give a nod to
everyone to assure them that none of
their houses was in danger.

    I remembered how, after I got
started in Pictures, Dad, who'd come
to California for a visit, asked,
"Where do you go to church around
here?"

    "Well," I stammered, "I haven't
been going - there's none around
here."

    Dad disappeared and came back with
four men. "You must not have looked
very hard, Jim," he said, "because
there's a Presbyterian church just
three blocks from here, and these are
the elders. They're building a new
building now, and I told them you were
a movie star and you would help them."
And so Brentwood Presbyterian was the
first church I belonged to out there.

    It wasn't the elaborate movie set,
however, that made [It's a Wonderful]
[Life] so different; much of it was
the story. The character I played was
George Bailey, an ordinary kind of
fella who thinks he's never
accomplished anything in life. His
dreams of becoming a famous architect,
of traveling the world and living
adventurously, have not been
fulfilled.

    Instead he feels trapped in a
humdrum job in a small town. And when
faced with a crisis in which he feels
he has failed everyone, he breaks
under the strain and flees to the
bridge. That's when his guardian
angel, Clarence, comes down on
Christmas Eve to show him what his
community would be like without him.
The angel takes him back through his
life to show how our ordinary everyday
efforts are really big achievements.

    Clarence reveals how George
Bailey's loyalty to his job at the
building-and-loan office has saved
families and homes, how his little
kindnesses have changed the lives of
others, and how the ripples of his
love will spread through the world,
helping make it a better place.

    Good as the script was, there was
still something else about the movie
that made it different. it's hard to
explain. I, for one, had things happen
to me during the filming that never
happened in any other picture I've
made.

    In one scene, for example, George
Bailey is faced with unjust criminal
charges and, not knowing where to
turn, ends up in a little roadside
restaurant. He is unaware most of the
people in town are arduously praying
for him. In this scene, at the lowest
point in George Bailey's life, Frank
Capra was shooting a long shot of me
slumped in despair.

    In agony I raise my eyes and,
following the script, plead,
"God...God...dear Father in heaven,
I'm not a praying man, but if You're
up there and You can hear me, show me
the way. I'm at the end of my rope.
Show me the way, God."

    As I said these words, I felt the
loneliness, the hopelessness of people
who had nowhere to turn, and my eyes
filled with tears. I broke down
sobbing. This was not planned at all,
but the power of that prayer, the
realization that our Father in heaven
is there to help the hopeless, had
reduced me to tears.

    Frank, who loved spontaneity in
his films, was ecstatic. He wanted a
close-up of me saying that prayer, but
was sensitive enough to know that my
breaking down was real and repeating
it in another way was unlikely. But
Frank got his close-up anyway.

    The following week he worked long
hours in the film laboratory, again
and again enlarging the frames of that
scene so eventually it would appear as
a close-up on the screen. I believe
nothing like this had ever been done
before. It involved thousands of
individual enlargements with extra
time and money. But he felt it was
worth it.

    There was a growing excitement
among all of us as we strove day and
night through the early summer of
1946. We threw everything we had into
our work. Finally, after three months,
shooting some 68 miles of 35
-millimeter film, we completed the
filming and had a big wrap-up party
for everyone. It was an outdoor picnic
with three-legged races and burlap-bag
sprints, just like the picnics back
home in Pennsylvania.

    At the outing, Frank talked
enthusiastically about the picture. He
felt the film as well as the actors
would be up for Academy Awards. Both
of us wanted it to win, not only
because we believed in its message,
but also for the reassurance we needed
in this time of starting over. But
life doesn't always work out the way
we want it to.

    The movie came out in December
1946, and from the beginning we could
tell it was not going to be the
success we'd hoped for. The critics
had mixed reactions. Some liked it: "a
human drama of essential truth".
Others felt it was "too sentimental
...a figment of simple Pollyanna
platitudes."

    As more reviews came out, our
hopes sank lower and lower. During
early February 1947, eight other
current films including [Sinbad the]
[Sailor] and Betty Grable's [The]
[Shocking Miss Pilgrim], out ranked it
in box-office income. The postwar
public seemed to prefer lighthearted
fare. At the end of 1947 [It's a]
[Wonderful Life] ranked 27th in
earnings among the other releases that
season.

    And although it earned several
Oscar nominations, despite our high
hopes it won nothing. "Best picture
for 1946" went to [The Best Years of]
[Our Lives]. By the end of 1947 the
film was quietly put on the shelf.

    But a curious thing happened. The
movie simply refused to stay on the
shelf. Those who loved it loved it a
lot, and they must have told others.
They wouldn't let it die any more than
the angel Clarence would let George
Bailey die. When it began to be shown
on television, a whole new audience
fell in love with it.

    Today [in 1987], after some 40
years, I've heard the filmed called
"an American cultural phenomenon."
Well, maybe so, but it seems to me
there is nothing phenomenal about the
movie itself. It's simply about an
ordinary man who discovers living each
ordinary day honorably, with faith in
God and selfless concern for others,
can make for a truly wonderful life.

 JS


DAVE'S RAVES

    Jimmy Stewart did something else
on screen that was fantastic. At the
end of the scene when George's brother
comes home, he discovers that his
brother is getting married and will
work for his new father-in-law. And
George will be stuck at the old
savings and loan job. And the look on
Stewart's face is exactly the
expression of someone swallowing
disappointment. I often stop the tape
at that moment -- for there is the
expression of the human condition. I
cannot put it into words.

    This article lifts up that there
was more to that movie -- even in its
creation -- than a jaded Hollywood
could notice. And, sure it's sappy.
That is because we KNOW it is true. We
just want to keeps our hopes in the
false promises of our cultural
religion. We want to not have that
expression on our faces.

DMM