Actors - It's a Wonderful Life

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	Actors - It's a Wonderful Life

It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 Frank Capra film, produced by his own Liberty Films, and released originally by RKO Radio Pictures.

Story

The movie begins with an apprentice angel named Clarence being given his final assignment before becoming a true angel: Help George Bailey (played by James Stewart), a man who sacrificed his dreams to help his hometown. Faced with a financial and legal crisis, he is contemplating suicide.

George is from Bedford Falls an east coast town where he runs the Building and Loan. He constantly makes sacrifices to help the people of Bedford Falls even taking his own money. His uncle loses his money and, facing financial crisis and jail time, George contemplates killing himself. Clarence comes to save him, and George sees what life would be life without him.

Production and distribution

Filming started on April 15, 1946 and ended on July 27, 1946. The film premiered on December 20, 1946.

The film was panned by some critics and was not a box-office hit upon initial release (placing 26th for the year, one place ahead of another Christmas movie, Miracle on 34th Street
), although it did receive five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor.

Liberty Films was purchased by Paramount Pictures, and remained a subsidary until 1951. Paramount owned the film until 1955, when they sold a few of their features and most of their cartoons and shorts to television distributor U.M.&M. T.V. Corp.. This included key rights to It's a Wonderful Life, including the original television syndication rights, the original nitrate film elements, the music score, and the story on which the film is based, "The Greatest Gift").

National Telefilm Associates took over the rights to the U.M.&M. library soon afterward. However, a clerical error at NTA, prevented the copyright from being renewed in 1974. Around this time, people began to take a second look at this film. It entered the public domain and many television stations began airing the film free of charge and royalties. In the 1980s (the beginning of the home video era) the film finally received the acclaim it didn't receive in 1946, thus becoming a perennial holiday favorite. For several years, it became expected that the movie would be shown multiple times on at least one station and on multiple stations in the same day, often at the same or overlapping times. It was a common practice for American viewers to jump in and out of viewing the movie at random points, confident they could easily pick it up again at a later time. The film's warm and familiar ambiance gave even isolated scenes the feel of holiday "comfort food" for the eyes and ears. The film's public domain success is often cited as a reason to limit copyright terms, which have been frequently extended by Congress in the United States.

Two colorized versions have since been produced; they are widely considered to be of inferior quality to the black and white original. They are often held up by opponents of colorization as an example of the flaws associated with the process. For many years, some stations paid substantial royalties to show a colorized version as it was viewed as more profitable to show the colorized versions than the black and white original.

In 1993, Republic Pictures, which was the successor to NTA, relied on the 1990 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Stewart v. Abend (which involved the movie Rear Window
) to enforce its claim of copyright, because, while the film's copyright had not been renewed, it was a derivative work of various works that were still copyrighted. As a result, the film is no longer shown as much on television (NBC is currently licensed to show the film on U.S. network television, and only shows it traditionally twice during the holidays, with one showing primarily on Christmas Eve from 8-11 Eastern time), the colorized versions have been withdrawn, and Republic now has exclusive ancillary rights to the film. Artisan Entertainment (under license from Republic) held home video rights until late 2005 when they reverted to Republic's sister studio Paramount, whose parent is Viacom.

The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Critique

Although generally acclaimed for its affirmation of positive values, the film has attracted some negative critique.

In 1947, a memo to the Director of the FBI reported that some sources viewed the film as subversive and pro-Communist on grounds of its negative depiction of the capitalist Potter and the triumph of the common man Bailey. The identity of these sources is unknown because the public version of the memo has been redacted.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for It's a Wonderful Life ]

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Actors - It's a Wonderful Life

Story

Production and distribution

Critique

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