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ARTICLE | It’s a Wonderful Life is one of the best movies America has ever made about itself
Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life celebrates its 73rd birthday on December 20, 2019.
Sure, there are better-made films. And, yes, there are far more influential ones. It’s a Wonderful Life’s status as an American classic is owed largely to a quirk of paperwork — after National Telefilm Associates, which owned the film after a long, convoluted chain of corporate sales, failed to renew its copyright in 1974, the movie fell into the public domain. Local TV stations found it to be a good way to paper over the long winter afternoons of December, their viewers discovered how good it is, and it became the classic it is today.
But if you were to tell Capra back in the late ’40s that his film would go on to become a perennial favorite, he might have scoffed at you. Upon release, It’s a Wonderful Life was greeted with weak box office earnings and reviews. Though the film was nominated for a handful of Oscars (thanks mainly to Capra’s prestige within the industry at the time), it lost to William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives.
Weirdly, It’s a Wonderful Life seems to be slipping back into the mists of time. It’ll never be as forgotten as it was before that paperwork mishap, of course, but in recent years it’s been replaced in popular discourse by a new series of Christmas movies, like A Christmas Story and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Now that NBC owns the exclusive rights to broadcast the film, it’s less ubiquitous, just another annual tradition.
It would be too bad if the film lost its cachet, though. It’s a Wonderful Life is one of the best films America has ever made about itself, and that’s why it is loved so much:
it belongs to a very specific subgenre of popular American art
the film is a not-so-subtle argument for New Deal values
It’s a Wonderful Life is a message in a bottle
Take a deeper dive here.
RELATED PROGRAMMING: IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE | DEC 06-21
SOURCE: Vox
ARTICLE | 25 Wonderful Facts About "It’s a Wonderful Life"
Mary Owen wasn’t welcomed into the world until more than a decade after Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life made its premiere in 1946. But she grew up cherishing the film and getting the inside scoop on its making from its star, Donna Reed—who just so happens to be her mom. Though Reed passed away in 1986, Owen has stood as one of the film’s most dedicated historians, regularly introducing screenings of the ultimate holiday classic, including during its annual run at New York City’s IFC Center. She shared some of her mom’s memories to help reveal 25 things you might not have known about It’s a Wonderful Life.
1. IT ALL BEGAN WITH A CHRISTMAS CARD.
After years of unsuccessfully trying to shop his short story, The Greatest Gift, to publishers, Philip Van Doren Stern decided to give the gift of words to his closest friends for the holidays when he printed up 200 copies of the story and sent them out as a 21-page Christmas card. David Hempstead, a producer at RKO Pictures, ended up getting a hold of it, and purchased the movie rights for $10,000.
2. CARY GRANT WAS SET TO STAR IN THE ADAPTATION.
When RKO purchased the rights, they did so with the plan of having Cary Grant in the lead. But, as happens so often in Hollywood, the project went through some ups and downs in the development process. In 1945, after a number of rewrites, RKO sold the movie rights to Frank Capra, who quickly recruited Jimmy Stewart to play George Bailey.
3. DOROTHY PARKER WORKED ON THE SCRIPT.
By the time It’s a Wonderful Life made it into theaters, the story was much different from Stern’s original tale. That’s because more than a half-dozen people contributed to the screenplay, including some of the most acclaimed writers of the time—Dorothy Parker, Dalton Trumbo, Marc Connelly, and Clifford Odets among them.
4. SCREENWRITERS FRANCES GOODRICH AND ALBERT HACKETT WALKED OUT.
Though they’re credited as the film’s screenwriters with Capra, the husband and wife writing duo were not pleased with the treatment they received from Capra. “Frank Capra could be condescending,” Hackett said in an interview, “and you just didn't address Frances as ‘my dear woman.’ When we were pretty far along in the script but not done, our agent called and said, ‘Capra wants to know how soon you'll be finished.’ Frances said, ‘We're finished right now.’ We put our pens down and never went back to it.”
5. CAPRA DIDN’T DO THE BEST JOB OF SELLING THE FILM TO JIMMY STEWART.
After laying out the plot line of the film for Jimmy Stewart in a meeting, Capra realized that, “This really doesn’t sound so good, does it?” Stewart recalled in an interview. Stewart’s reply? “Frank: If you want me to be in a picture about a guy that wants to kill himself and an angel comes down named Clarence who can’t swim and I save him, when do we start?”
6. IT WAS DONNA REED’S FIRST STARRING ROLE.
Though Donna Reed was hardly a newcomer when It’s a Wonderful Life rolled around, having appeared in nearly 20 projects previously, the film did mark her first starring role. It’s difficult to imagine anyone else in the role today, but Reed had some serious competition from Jean Arthur. “[Frank Capra] had seen mom in They Were Expendable and liked her,” Mary Owen told Mental Floss. “When Capra met my mother at MGM, he knew she'd be just right for Mary Bailey.”
7. MARY OWEN IS NOT NAMED AFTER MARY BAILEY.
Before you ask whether Owen was named after her mom’s much beloved It’s a Wonderful Life character, “The answer is no,” says Owen. “I was named after my great grandmother, Mary Mullenger.”
8. BEULAH BONDI WAS A PRO AT PLAYING STEWART’S MOM.
Beulah Bondi, who plays Mrs. Bailey, didn’t need a lot of rehearsal to play Jimmy Stewart’s mom. She had done it three times previously—in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Of Human Hearts, and Vivacious Lady—and once later on The Jimmy Stewart Show: The Identity Crisis.
9. CAPRA, REED, AND STEWART HAVE ALL CALLED IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE THEIR FAVORITE MOVIE.
Though their collective filmographies consist of a couple hundred movies, Capra, Reed, and Stewart have all cited It’s a Wonderful Life as their favorite movie. In his autobiography, The Name Above the Title, Capra took that praise even one step further, writing: “I thought it was the greatest film I ever made. Better yet, I thought it was the greatest film anybody ever made.”
10. THE MOVIE BOMBED AT THE BOX OFFICE.
Though it has become a quintessential American classic, It’s a Wonderful Life was not an immediate hit with audiences. In fact, it put Capra $525,000 in the hole, which left him scrambling to finance his production company’s next picture, State of the Union.
Continue reading here.
SOURCE: Mental Floss
RELATED PROGRAMMING
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE | DEC 06-21
ARTICLE | "The Immortality Of Mae West"
“When Mae West showed a trusted friend the manuscript of her 1970 autobiography, “Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It,” he complained that the book lacked any mention of her struggles, failures, and disappointments. She scoffed. ‘Her fans don’t want Mae West to have problems and have to struggle,’ she declared in confident third person. ‘Mae West always triumphs.’
And so she does. Embraced by the public the moment she hit the movie screen in 1933 at the amazingly advanced age of 40, she still hasn’t lost her grip on the American consciousness. Two decades after her death, she continues to be a source of fascination and controversy, one of the most powerful sexual and cultural figures of our— as well as our grandparents’—time.
Her impact was immediate. She cropped up in Betty Boop and Walt Disney cartoons and in Cole Porter’s song lyrics. She came in for some ridicule—critics called her ‘the first female leading man,’ ‘the greatest female impersonator’—but major writers championed her. F. Scott Fitzgerald thought her ‘the only Hollywood actress with an ironic edge and comic spark,’ and the immensely popular British novelist Hugh Walpole wrote that only she and Charlie Chaplin ‘dare to directly attack with their mockery the fraying morals and manners of a dreary world.’ Colette praised her independent spirit: "‘She alone, out of an enormous and dull catalog of heroines, does not get married at the end of the film, does not gaze sadly at her declining youth … does not experience the bitterness of the abandoned older woman… She alone has no parents, no children, no husband.’ Nine of her witticisms appear in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, and she herself has been a dictionary entry since World War II, when RAF pilots named their full-chested, inflatable life preservers after her… more.
SOURCE: American Heritage
RELATED PROGRAMMING
SEX | OCT 11-26, 2019
BIOGRAPHY | MAE WEST
Mae West, whose career began at 38, is a symbol of charm and self-assurance. But her movie career might have never been, coming only after battling with opposition from her own family. In fact, she didn’t hit the big time until she was in her late 30s.
West was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1893, to John and Matilda West. She was originally named Mary, but her family called her Mae, a moniker she kept as her stage name.
She was passionate about acting and stardom from a very young age. At three-years-old she was already mimicking friends and relatives, and fell in love with the vaudeville performances that her mother took her to see from a young age.
West first stepped onto the stage herself in 1907, at the tender age of 14, according to Biography.com. She signed up with Hal Clarendon’s stock company, working the vaudeville and burlesque circuit. Her first taste of Broadway came in 1911 with a minor part in A La Broadway.
While the show was a failure, West’s performance revealed a very promising actress, leading to a part in Vera Violetta and opening the door to roles in off-Broadway productions. Despite the success of Sometime in 1918, in which she famously danced the shimmy, West remained a feature in vaudeville up until 1926 when she came to notoriety with her self-penned play, SEX.
Despite her clear talent for acting, West’s family was not supportive of her career path. Her father, in particular, struggled to embrace West’s fame and controversial image.
Her mother was more supportive — having had a career in modelling she was able to relate to the experience her oldest daughter was living.
As a sexy and outspoken actress who loved attention, West decided to make her personality and charm her main asset. In the 1920s, she began writing and producing her own plays.
A pair of “trick” platform shoes worn by Mae West in films to make her look taller, which also contributed to her unique walk.
Using word-play to carry sexual jokes, West became at the same time very popular and a public figure with a contested image, one that was considered by some a “bad” role model.
In 1926, West wrote and starred in the Broadway play SEX. The play was an immediate success, but was sanctioned as obscene, and resulted in West being sent to jail for ten days.
Because of her good behavior, she was released after only eight days. The whole affair was an effective career-booster for West, proving the rule that no publicity is bad publicity.
This sulfurous and sexy image would become intrinsic to West’s career. She kept writing plays for several years, and had actors learn two scrips. One of the scripts would contain her original writing, while the other would have a more prude version for a more reserved audience.
It was during that time that West wrote Diamond Lil. The show was a massive hit, with more than 300 performances on Broadway alone.
Her success on stage slowed down with the Great Depression, as the global economy took a hit. Eager to remain on the top, West decided to leave New York and relocated to Los Angeles.
The success West had endured as an actress and play writer had not gone unnoticed. In 1933 she starred as Lady Lou in She Done Him Wrong, Paramount Pictures’ adaptation of her Diamond Lil.
Mae West was finally offered a motion picture contract in 1932 by Paramount Pictures, when she was already 38-years-old. This contract not only launched her cinema career, but saved Paramount from bankruptcy.
Despite the fact that the Hays Offices had designed a clause stipulating that the plays could never be turned into movies for moral reasons, Paramount still made a very profitable decision. The company indeed grossed more than $2 million at the box office.
From this moment, West went on to be a sex symbol, having honed her persona as a controversial and liberated woman. Her rare beauty inspired the design of the perfume “Shocking” by Elsa Schiaparelli. She even the famous painter Salvador Dali to design a sofa based on her lips, known as “West Lips’ Sofa”.
The image of a woman owning her charming beauty and sexuality became the key to her success. Mae West challenged societies’ norms, and brought a different perception to sexual matters. Having been challenged herself by her family, West used her own experiences to influence the world around her.
SOURCE: The Vintage News
RELATED PROGRAMMING
SEX | OCT 11-26, 2019
DIRECTOR'S NOTE | "SEX"
“Once upon a time, I was hired to write the American adaptation of an Oscar-nominated Dutch film. On the eve of starting work, I received an unsettling email from the original writer/director warning me not to turn her movie into an ‘Edward Jordon thing.’ This wasn’t exactly the warm welcoming I dreamed of for my first big Hollywood gig. Although Mae West is sadly missed, I’m relieved she won’t be sending me an email. But If I could magically drop her an email, I would say, ‘Don’t worry, Ms. West. Despite my tinkering, your show is – and always will be – a Mae West thing.’
And what exactly was Mae’s thing?
Most of us can put a hand on one hip and imitate some of her classic one-liners. But Mae West was so much more than ‘Come up and see me sometime.’ Throughout her life, she was light years ahead of the times, fearlessly speaking about taboo subjects; date rape, white privilege, criminal justice reform, prostitution, police corruption, suicide, drug addiction and, of course, sexuality in all its glorious orientations.
SEX was written in 1926, but on many levels, its plots could have been ripped from today’s headlines. Mae’s themes are serious, but they’re handled in patented Westian style. We laugh at the show’s despicable Rocky character, because Mae knew that an effective way to effect social change is with humor. But she also makes sure Rocky is humiliated in the end, proving that crime just doesn’t pay, unless, of course, it’s consensual sex for pay in a brothel in Montreal… the setting for Mae’s timeless and wickedly funny satire.
And what about Edward Jordon’s part in all this?
I simply typed my adaptation with one hand on the keyboard and one hand on my hip.” — Edward Jordon
RELATED PROGRAMMING
SEX | OCT 11-26, 2019