24 Things You Didn't Know About "It's a Wonderful Life"

The beloved holiday classic has loads of fascinating back stories.

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It's safe to say that It's a Wonderful Life is one of the most popular holiday movies of all time—but even if you've watched the classic dozens of times, we're willing to bet there's still a lot you don't know about this beloved movie. Take a look at some of the surprising stories behind the 1946 film's most iconic moments.

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1 The movie is based on "The Greatest Gift," a short story by Philip Van Doren Stern.

Philip Van Doren Stern originally started writing "The Greatest Gift" in 1939, but had no luck publishing it at first.

2 It's a Wonderful Life started out as a Christmas card.
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After failing to find a publisher, Stern decided to print his story as a 21-page Christmas card that he sent to 200 of his friends in 1943. An RKO Pictures producer saw the "card" and convinced the studio to buy the rights to the story, which were eventually sold to Frank Capra's production company.

Stern's short story was eventually published as a book in 1944; Stern also sold the story to Good Housekeeping, which published it in its January 1945 issue under the title "The Man Who Was Never Born."

3 Cary Grant was originally slated to play George Bailey.
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After RKO Pictures sold the movie rights to Frank Capra, he decided to replace Cary Grant with James Stewart in the lead role. However, you may still see Grant on television around the holidays—he went on to appear in The Bishop's Wife.

4 At first, James Stewart was afraid he wasn't up for filming a movie so soon after World War II.

Lionel Barrymore (who played Mr. Potter in the movie) convinced Stewart to be in it. Stewart was also nervous about the phone kiss scene, his first on-screen kiss since returning from war.

5 This was Donna Reed's first starring role.

She would, of course, go on to become arguably the world's most famous TV housewife, thanks to The Donna Reed Show.

6 Bedford Falls was one of the most elaborate sets ever built at the time.

It's a Wonderful Life had a big budget for the time ($3.7 million dollars), so it's no wonder that the crew put a lot of time and effort into constructing the town of Bedford Falls. The set took two months to build and included 75 buildings stretched out over four acres in Encino, CA.

7 Seneca Falls, NY claims to be the inspiration for Bedford Falls.

While the fictional town's name combines those of Bedford Hills in New York's Westchester County and Seneca Falls, in New York's Finger Lakes region, the latter claims to be the real deal. Seneca Falls even has a website, TheRealBefordFalls.com, dedicated to pointing out all of the similarities between the two towns.

8 You can visit an It's a Wonderful Life museum.


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You guessed it—it's located in Seneca Falls. The town is also home to an annual It's a Wonderful Life festival.

9 The movie was shot in the summer of 1946 during a heat wave.

Look closely—you can see Stewart sweating in some of those snowy scenes. Ah, the magic of Hollywood.

10 A new type of artificial snow was engineered just for the movie.

Prior to It's a Wonderful Life, most movie productions employed cornflakes painted white as "snow." However, Capra found this special effect to be too noisy, so he had the special effects department mix Foamite (a fire-fighting chemical) with sugar and water. A whopping 6,000 gallons of this new "chemical snow" transformed the California set into a winter wonderland. (The RKO Effects Department actually received a technical award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its invention.)

11 The gym floor that opens to reveal a pool actually exists.

It's located in Beverly Hills High School and it's currently being restored.

12 Carl Switzer (a.k.a. Alfalfa from The Little Rascals) played Freddie Othello.

Switzer played the character who pushes the button that opens the gym floor to reveal the pool—but he is uncredited in the movie.

13 Reed really broke a window on the Granville House.

While a stuntman was standing by to throw a rock at the window, Reed broke it herself on the first try.

14 Uncle Billy wasn't supposed to yell after leaving George's house drunk.

After leaving the house, it sounds like Uncle Billy stumbles into trash cans and we hear him yell "I'm alright, I'm alright." This wasn't a line in the script—it was a crew member who accidentally dropped equipment during filming and Capra decided to keep it. The crew member even got a $10 bonus for his off-screen appearance as "Uncle Billy."

15 Capra never expected the film to become a classic—he didn't even think of it as a Christmas movie at first.

"The film has a life of its own now and I can look at it like I had nothing to do with it," Capra once said, according to Mental Floss. "I'm like a parent whose kid grows up to be president. I'm proud… but it's the kid who did the work. I didn't even think of it as a Christmas story when I first ran across it. I just liked the idea."

16 The original final scene had the cast singing "Ode to Joy" instead of "Auld Lang Syne."

17 The film didn't do well at the box office—it even put Capra into debt.

Receiving mixed reviews, It's a Wonderful Life only made back $3.3 of its $3.7 million budget at first. It placed 26th in box office sales for all films released in 1947—right ahead of Miracle On 34th Street.

18 The film actually rose to popularity on TV in the late 1970s.

When It's a Wonderful Life's copyright lapsed in 1974, it became available royalty-free to any station that wanted to air it until 1994. Of course, thanks to repeated airings throughout the '80s, it's now a Christmas classic that's guaranteed to make an appearance on our television screens each holiday season.

19 This film marks one of five times Beulah Bondi played Jimmy Stewart's on-screen mother.

The pair also appeared as relatives in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Of Human Hearts, Vivacious Lady, and The Jimmy Stewart Show: The Identity Crisis.

20 It's a Wonderful Life was added to the Library of Congress' National Film Registry in 1990.

Up to 25 titles are added to this list each year, after being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films."

21 The FBI flagged the film as "communist" in 1947.

In a 1947 memo, the FBI issued the following statement:

With regard to the picture "It's a Wonderful Life," [redacted] stated in substance that the film represented rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a "scrooge-type" so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists.

22 Donna Reed has a daughter named Mary—but she wasn't named after her character Mary Bailey.

Reed's daughter Mary Owen told Mental Floss, "I was named after my great grandmother, Mary Mullenger."

23 Capra, Reed, and Stewart have all called It's a Wonderful Life the greatest film they had ever made.

"I thought it was the greatest film I ever made," wrote Capra in his autobiography. "Better yet, I thought it was the greatest film anybody ever made."

24 Producers Allen J. Schwalb and Bob Farnsworth want to make a sequel.

In fact, in 2013 they announced that It's a Wonderful Life: The Rest of the Story would be released in 2015. Unfortunately for us, Paramount intervened because they own the copyright to the film, and Schwalb and Farnsworth would need to obtain a license to move forward with their sequel.

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