It's a Wonderful Life

UPC: 097369600125

Studio: Paramount

MPAA Rating: NR   Contains:[Mild Violence, Suitable for Children, Smoking]

Summary: This is director Frank Capra's classic bittersweet comedy/drama about George Bailey (James Stewart), the eternally-in-debt guiding force of a bank in the typical American small town of Bedford Falls. As the film opens, it's Christmas Eve, 1946, and George, who has long considered himself a failure, faces financial ruin and arrest and is seriously contemplating suicide. High above Bedford Falls, two celestial voices discuss Bailey's dilemma and decide to send down eternally bumbling angel Clarence Oddbody (Henry Travers), who after 200 years has yet to earn his wings, to help George out. But first, Clarence is given a crash course on George's life, and the multitude of selfless acts he has performed: rescuing his younger brother from drowning, losing the hearing in his left ear in the process; enduring a beating rather than allow a grieving druggist (H.B. Warner) to deliver poison by mistake to an ailing child; foregoing college and a long-planned trip to Europe to keep the Bailey Building and Loan from letting its Depression-era customers down; and, most important, preventing town despot Potter (Lionel Barrymore) from taking over Bedford Mills and reducing its inhabitants to penury. Along the way, George has married his childhood sweetheart Mary (Donna Reed), who has stuck by him through thick and thin. But even the love of Mary and his children are insufficient when George, faced with an $8000 shortage in his books, becomes a likely candidate for prison thanks to the vengeful Potter. Bitterly, George declares that he wishes that he had never been born, and Clarence, hoping to teach George a lesson, shows him how different life would have been had he in fact never been born. After a nightmarish odyssey through a George Bailey-less Bedford Falls (now a glorified slum called Potterville), wherein none of his friends or family recognize him, George is made to realize how many lives he has touched, and helped, through his existence; and, just as Clarence had planned, George awakens to the fact that, despite all its deprivations, he has truly had a wonderful life. Capra's first production through his newly-formed Liberty Films, It's a Wonderful Life lost money in its original run, when it was percieved as a fairly downbeat view of small-town life. Only after it lapsed into the public domain in 1973 and became a Christmastime TV perennial did it don the mantle of a holiday classic. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Category: Comedy Drama

Awards: U.S. National Film Registry – Library of Congress 100 Greatest American Movies – American Film Institute Best Director – null Best Actor – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Director – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Editing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Sound – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture – National Board of Review Best Director – Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Features: The Making of "It's a Wonderful Life" - a documentary featurette hosted by Tom Bosley
A Personal Remembrance - a special tribute to Frank Capra narrated by his son, Frank Capra, Jr.
Original theatrical trailer

It's a Wonderful Life

Format: DVD

Release Date: 10/31/2006

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Pre-1954 Standard

Audio: DD1 Dolby Digital Mono

Runtime: 130 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English,French

Subtitles: English

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Disc #1 -- It's a Wonderful Life [60th Anniversary Edition]
1. Opening Credits
2. 1919: Saving Harry
3. Mr. Gower's Drug Store
4. "You Put Something Bad in Those Capsules"
5. 1928: George Bailey, World Traveler
6. Last Meal
7. High School Reunion
8. The Big Charleston Contest
9. Walking Mary Home
10. Harry's Surprise
11. Courting Mary
12. Wedding Day
13. 320 Sycamore
14. Bailey Park
15. On the Nest
16. December 24, 1945
17. Uncle Billy at the Bank
18. Searching for $8,000
19. Something Wrong With Daddy
20. No Help From a Warped, Frustrated Old Man
21. At Martini's Bar
22. On the Bridge
23. Saving George
24. At Nick's Place
25. Pottersville
26. "I Want to Live Again"
27. Homecoming
28. The Richest Man in Town

Bruce Eder

The image of It's a Wonderful Life has undergone a complete transformation since its 1946 release. In its own time, Frank Capra's comedy-drama about the dark side of human nature was a modest failure, neither a box-office success nor a critical favorite, though it garnered some recognition in the form of 5 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. For the next 28 years, the movie remained a cult favorite among movie buffs and Capra fans. Then the movie's copyright was allowed to lapse and suddenly, during the early 1980s around Christmas (the season in which the film is set), it seemed possible to flip on the TV at random some nights and find the movie playing somewhere on the dial, and that went double for Christmas Day, Christmas Eve, and New Year's. The public came out regarding the film as a lost classic; Capra lived just long enough to reap some of the belated acclaim, and his estate later benefitted from the sales of the films that he owned outright, such as Broadway Bill and Lady For a Day. The movie is in fact a dark, disturbing look at small-town American life between the two world wars, rife with class envy and fears of modernity, and featuring a before-its-time portrayal of George Bailey's middle-aged sense of failure that seems more appropriate for an American film of the Seventies. It is at once nostalgic and angry, and its reputation as a holiday chestnut has been mercilessly parodied for its conclusion on good spirits and generosity; Saturday Night Live, in particular, had vicious fun with it in a post-end-credits parody in which the people of Bedford Falls lynch Mr. Potter when they realize that he has the money. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Frank Albertson  Actor 
Lane Chandler  Actor 
Danny Mummert  Actor 
Robert Peyton  Actor 
Dick Elliott  Actor 
Charles Halton  Actor 
Almira Sessions  Actor 
John Farrell MacDonald  Actor 
Garry Owen  Actor 
Bob Scott  Actor 
Harold Landon  Actor 
Stanley Andrews  Actor 
Harry V. Cheshire  Actor 
Eddie Fetherstone  Actor 
Harry Holman  Actor 
George Nokes  Actor 
Ellen Corby  Actor 
Edward Keane  Actor 
Ray Walker  Actor 
Bob Anderson  Actor 
Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer  Actor 
Marian Carr  Actor 
Tom Fadden  Actor 
Bert Moorhouse  Actor 
Al Bridge  Actor 
Charles Lane  Actor 
Frank Capra  Director 
Frank Capra  Producer 
Frank Capra  Screenwriter 
Frances Goodrich  Screenwriter 
Albert Hackett  Screenwriter 
Jo Swerling  Screenwriter 
Dimitri Tiomkin  Composer (Music Score) 
James Stewart  Actor 
Donna Reed  Actor 
Lionel Barrymore  Actor 
Thomas Mitchell  Actor 
Henry Travers  Actor 
Beulah Bondi  Actor 
Carol Coomes  Actor 
Ward Bond  Actor 
William Edmunds  Actor 
Gloria Grahame  Actor 
Argentina Brunetti  Actor 
Sarah Edwards  Actor 
Frank Faylen  Actor 
Jean Gale  Actor 
Karolyn Grimes  Actor 
Frank S. Hagney  Actor 
Jim Hawkins  Actor 
Samuel S. Hinds  Actor 
Todd Karns  Actor 
Sheldon Leonard  Actor 
Virginia Patton  Actor 
Ronnie Ralph  Actor 
Lillian Randolph  Actor 
Larry Simms  Actor 
Mary Treen  Actor 
H.B. Warner  Actor 
Charles Williams  Actor 

Country: USA