Today in 1946, one of the most iconic Christmas movies ever made first debuted. “It's a Wonderful Life” is the classic holiday story of a man who wishes he wasn't born and gets what he wants, how heartwarming. Jokes aside, this Christmas movie means a lot to a lot of people. Based on the short story "The Greatest Gift", this movie wasn't always considered a classic. When it came out it lost money in the box office and had mixed to poor reviews.
The real secret of the film's success was that it fell into the public domain. Any TV station could show it and only had to pay royalties to the author of the book it was based on, so a lot of stations started playing it as a cheap fill in. From there it became a holiday classic for a lot of people. Then there was a copyright crackdown on the film starting in the 90's with the source material and soundtrack as leverage. That being said, nobody could stop you from making a fandub of the film and selling it.
[ASSOCIATES NOTE: to confess I've never actually seen this one in full. Just a bunch of clips, half having it on in the room, and other media mimicking its premise to the point it's almost cliché. That being said, I'd like to talk about an urban legend involving the film.
A lot of trivia sources like to say Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after two characters in this film. Anytime anyone with any authority on the muppets has had a say on the matter, they've confirmed Bert and Ernie were named on the spot while being built and the names being the same is a coincidence. That being said, they have made jokes about the coincidence on Scememe Street before.]
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Between this and A Christmas Carol, Christmas is definitely the holiday with the best selection of movies where a character learns a lesson about treasuring life through afterlife-powered time travel.]
Comments