The It's a Wonderful Life Book by Jeanine Basinger

“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.” The pair were still given final credit, but it was Capra, with uncredited help from writers such as Jo Swerling, Michael Wilson, and Dorothy Parker, who finally cobbled together the rest of the screenplay. “Frank Capra could be so condescending,” said Hackett. When he did, he recruited husband and wife writing duo Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett to help him polish the failed scripts into something coherent. After creating three inadequate scripts – one of which was worked on by Dalton Trumbo – RKO had decided to shelve the project, before Capra came on board and immediately saw its potential. The film, which was originally going to be produced by RKO Pictures, had a stuttering beginning. “This doesn’t sound very good, does it?” Stewart, desperate to work again and trusting in Capra completely, had just one question: “When do we start?” And finally, you’re going to kill yourself, you’re going to jump off a bridge, and an angel, by the name of Clarence, comes in to help you, but he can’t swim, so you go down and save the …” He trailed off. “You get married, you have all these kids, and your father dies, and you have to take over the building and loans. “You play a fella in a small town,” Capra explained to Stewart, as the latter would later recall.

When producer David Hempstead came across it, he bought the movie rights immediately. The idea had come from the author Philip Van Doren Stern, who had become frustrated that he couldn’t get a short story published, and had sent it to friends as a 21-page Christmas card instead. Then Frank Capra called.Ĭapra – who had directed Stewart twice before, including on Mr Smith Goes to Washington – wanted to pitch a film called It’s a Wonderful Life. “I was just a little bit scared,” he later recollected of his newfound circumstance. His contract with MGM had run out, his agent had left the movie business, and he was suffering from what would later be recognised as post-traumatic stress disorder. He was riding high.īut after spending three years fighting the Nazis in the US Air Force, the 37-year-old returned home in 1945 to find that everything had changed. He’d appeared in 28 films, had been nominated for an Oscar for Mr Smith Goes to Washington, and even won one for Best Actor a year later for The Philadelphia Story.

Actor James Stewart, who had just returned from war, was desperate for a new role (National Telefilm Associates)īefore James Stewart was sent off to fight in the Second World War, he was one of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars.

The It's a Wonderful Life Book by Jeanine Basinger