With the holiday season upon us, there's no better time to take a little behind the scenes look at It's a Wonderful Life. This Frank Capra holiday classic wasn't really meant to be a holiday film. It was scheduled to be released in January, 1947, but the studio put the rush on and released it during the week of Christmas, 1946, so it would be eligible for Academy Award consideration that year. It wasn't a flop, but it wasn't a box office hit either. The movie didn't become popular until the 70's when the copyright lapsed and the film entered the public domain. The networks realized they could air it for free, so they started showing it a gazillion times during the holiday season.

I believe the story is that somewhere along the line Republic Pictures inherited the library of he studio that originally held the rights and started trying to win back the copyright. After several years of trying, they found a little loophole that allowed them to gain control of the movie. Republic Pictures argued that the film had entered the public domain, but the movie soundtrack was still under studio control. So Republic Pictures has used the music soundtrack copyright to stop companies from distributing the movie and stations from broadcasting it. NBC is the only network it has licensed to air the movie.

The production of the movie had your typical movie-making problems. For example when Jimmy Stewart nailed the prayer scene in the bar on the first try, Capra realized he didn't have a close-up shot. When he asked Stewart if he could do it again, the first take was so draining that Stewart felt he couldn't do it with the same intensity. So they did what we all do, they manipulated the scene in post, frame by frame, to make it appear like a close-up (but they didn't have any fancy NLE or compositing software like we do). You can find out more tidbits in this article by Stephen Cox, author of It's a Wonderful Life: A Memory Book.

NBC will air It's a Wonderful Life tonight (24th) at 8:00 EST.