How a Story Nobody Wanted Becomes the Christmas Classic, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’

As Americans go sledding through TV channels and video streams this weekend, millions will warm themselves with a 1946 classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Few will marvel that they’re watching a box office flop or reflect on the rejected novella from which its timeless message draws inspiration.The dream that became “It’s a Wonderful Life” danced like a sugar plum in the head of its author, Philip van Doren Stern, while he was sleeping one February night. Upon awakening, he began writing what became a 4,000-word short story, “The Greatest Gift.” Over five years, Stern produced one the world’s most iconic Christmas tales. It was a unique accomplishment for someone born to a Jewish father and interred at a Jewish cemetery after passing away — just short of his 84th birthday — in 1984. Stern’s luck ran out when he tried to find a publisher. Although he was an author and editor in the book business, no one was interested. The dark opening of “The Greatest Gift” may be the reason. “The little town straggling up the hill,” it reads, “was bright with colored Christmas lights, but George Pratt did not see them.” In a scene duplicated 98 minutes into the film, Pratt is “leaning over the railing of the iron bridge, staring down moodily at the black water,” contemplating suicide. He is “sick of everything,” “stuck here in this mudhole for life, doing the same dull work day after day.” He wishes he’d never been born.For publishers, this just wasn’t the dough from which Christmas cookies are made. They may not have read further to enjoy the story of redemption or seen Pratt’s supernatural glimpse of how his life had touched those he loved.With no contract under the tree, Stern printed the story in pamphlets as Christmas cards. In an afterword for 2014’s “The Greatest Gift: A Christmas Tale,” his daughter, Marguerite Robinson, wrote of delivering the story “to my teachers and my friends, who were children from a variety of backgrounds and religions.”Ms. Robinson wrote that her father, “who was himself from a mixed religious background,” had explained “that while this story takes place at Christmastime, and that we were sending it as a Christmas card to our friends, it is a universal story for all people in all times.”One of Stern’s copies reached a producer at RKO Pictures who bought the rights, envisioning Cary Grant as its star. The director of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Frank Capra, purchased the rights next and approached James Stewart.Stewart, who’d just returned from combat in World War II, resisted jumping back into acting but Capra convinced him to play the renamed George Bailey. Screenwriters set to work, beginning the film not with the hero begging for death but by showing audiences his noble character.The quest of Henry Travers as the angel, Clarence Odbody, struggling to earn his wings is a film creation. So is the antagonist: Lionel Barrymore’s miser, Henry Potter. Viewers also get to see just why Bailey wants to end his life after suffering a string of bad luck and injustices. Stewart and Donna Reed — who portrays Bailey’s wife, Mary — were all screen legends with a long list of credits, as was Capra. Yet all three described this film as their personal favorite. In a letter to Stern, Stewart called Stern’s novella “an inspiration to everyone concerned with the picture” and said, “the fundamental story was so sound and right.” Although “It’s a Wonderful Life” failed to recoup its budget, it was nominated for five Academy Awards. It didn’t win, but as the years passed, audiences around the world fell in love with the tale. What started as the story nobody wanted was ranked as the Most Inspirational Movie of All Time by the American Film Institute in 2006. “The Greatest Gift” inspired a classic because Stern, like George, recoiled from darkness and overcame disappointment. In the novel, film, and story behind the story, we find a reason to open our eyes to the lights twinkling around us and realize that despite our troubles, we have all been gifted a bright and wonderful life.__________Capra was the director of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ The name was given incorrectly in the bulldog.

How a Story Nobody Wanted Becomes the Christmas Classic, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’

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