Frank Capra's Classic Film, 'It's A Wonderful Life', Had Modest Beginnings

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON DECEMBER 6, 2018 UPDATED ON DECEMBER 6, 2018 at UnremberedHistory.com

By Ken Zurski

In November 1939 Philip Van Doren Stern, an American author, editor and Civil War historian wrote an original story titled “The Greatest Gift,” a heartwarming Christmas tale about a man named George Pratt who gets a dying wish granted that literally changes his life.

Stern’s story begins on a Christmas Eve night as a despondent George leans over the rail of an iron railroad bridge. He contemplates jumping into the river below:

Phillip Van Doren Stern

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a quiet voice beside him
said.

George turned resentfully to a little man he had never seen
before. He was stout, well past middle age, and his round
cheeks were pink in the winter air as though they had just been
shaved. “Wouldn’t do what?” George asked sullenly.

“What you were thinking of doing.”

“How do you know what I was thinking?”
“Oh, we make it our business to know a lot of things,” the stranger said easily.

George tells the man that he wishes he was never born. The man tells George his wish is granted. “You’ve never been born,” he says.

“The Stranger,” as he is called, then tells George to pose as a door-to-door brush salesman to avoid any confusion with people he knows well, but who now have no idea who he is.

When George confronts his wife Mary, she’s married with a child, a son, who pretends to shoot George with a toy gun. “You’re dead,” the boy tells him.  Dejected, George offers her a complementary brush and leaves.

George goes back to the bridge to confront “the stranger” and demands an explanation. “You already had the greatest gift of all,” the stranger explains, “the gift of life.” George begs for his old life back and returns home to Mary.  There he finds the brush he gave her.

Stern desperately tried to get his little story published, but it never sold. So in 1943, he made it into a Christmas card book and mailed 200 copies to family and friends.

The card book and story somehow caught the attention of RKO Pictures producer David Hempstead who showed it to actor Cary Grant’s agent.

In April 1944, RKO bought the rights but failed to create a satisfactory script.

Grant went on to make “The Bishop’s Wife.”

Cary Grant

However, another acclaimed Hollywood heavyweight, Frank Capra, who already had three Best Directing Oscars to his name, liked the idea.  RKO was happy to unload the rights.

“The story itself is slight, in the sense, it’s short,” Capra said referring to Stern’s book. “But not slight in content.”

Frank Capra

Capra bought it and brought in a slew of writers to polish and stretch Stern’s book into a full length feature film.  They hired another a well-known actor James Stewart to play the main character, now renamed George Bailey. “The Stranger” in the book became a guardian angel named Clarence. And while the rest of the film is mostly a screenwriter’s version, the story of George saving his little brother from a drowning incident was included from the book.

In December of 1946, seven years after Stern wrote the original story, “It’s a Wonderful Life” was released in theaters.

Merry Christmas, Everybody!!