10 Things You Didn't Know about It's A Wonderful Life

 

Get into the holiday spirit! It’s A Wonderful Life: Live from WVL Radio comes to the American Theatre on Sunday, November 29 at 2:30pm.

You have seen this classic motion picture but did you know there is more to the film than what you see? Here are 10 things you didn’t know 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. 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. Though it’s difficult to imagine anyone else in the role today, she did have some competition from Jean Arthur. “[Frank Capra] had seen mom in They Were Expendable and liked her,” Mary Owen says. “When Capra met my mother at MGM, he knew she'd be just right for Mary Bailey.”

3. The rock that broke the window of the Granville house was all real.

Though Capra had a stuntman at the ready in order to shoot out the window of the Granville House in a scene that required Donna Reed to throw a rock through it, it was all a waste of money. “Mom threw the rock herself that broke the window in the Granville House,” Owen says. “On the first try.”

4. It took two months to build Bedford Falls.

Shot on a budget of $3.7 million (which was a lot by mid-1940s standards), Bedford Falls—which covered a full four acres of RKO’s Encino Ranch—was one of the most elaborate movie sets ever built up to that time, with 75 stores and buildings, 20 fully-grown oak trees, factories, residential areas, and a 300-yard-long Main Street.

5. The gym floor-turned-swimming pool was real.

Though the bulk of the film was filmed on pre-built sets, the dance at the gym was filmed on location at Beverly Hills High School. And the retractable floor was no set piece. Better known as the Swim Gym, the school is currently in the process of restoring the landmark filming location.

6. A copyright lapse aided the film’s popularity.

Though it didn’t make much of a dent at the box office, It’s a Wonderful Life found a whole new life on television—particularly when its copyright lapsed in 1974, making it available royalty-free to anyone who wanted to show it for the next 20 years. (Which would explain why it was on television all the time during the holiday season.) The free-for-all ended in 1994.

7. Alfalfa is the teenager behind that swimming pool prank.

Though he’s uncredited in the part, if Freddie Othello—the little prankster who pushes the button that opens the pool that swallows George and Mary up—looks familiar, that’s because he is played by Carl Switzer, a.k.a. Alfalfa of the Little Rascals.

8. The film was shot during a heat wave.

It may be an iconic Christmas movie, but It’s a Wonderful Life was actually shot in the summer of 1946—in the midst of a heat wave, no less. At one point, Capra had to shut filming down for a day because of the sky-high temperatures—which also explains why Stewart is clearly sweating in key moments of the film.

9. The FBI saw the film. They didn’t like it.

In 1947, the FBI issued a memo noting the film as a potential “Communist infiltration of the motion picture industry,” citing its “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.”

10. Zuzu didn’t see the film until 1980.

Karolyn Grimes, who played Zuzu in the film, didn’t see the film until 1980. “I never took the time to see the movie,” she told Detroit’s WWJ last year. “I never just sat down and watched the film.”

Well, the cat’s out the bag, you know the hidden facts behind this wonderful spirit-lifting film.

Catch the film on the main stage as it comes to life in It’s A Wonderful Life: Live from WVL Radio Theatre on Sunday, November 29 at 2:30pm at The American Theatre.

Source: http://mentalfloss.com/article/60792/25-things-you-might-not-know-about-its-wonderful-life