Frank Capra's It's a wonderful life [videorecording] / Liberty Films presents ; screenplay by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, and Frank Capra ; produced and directed by Frank Capra.
Material type:
FilmPublisher number: 96001 | Paramount PicturesPublication details: Hollywood, Calif. : Paramount Home Entertainment, [2006]Edition: 60th anniversary edDescription: 1 videodisc (ca. 130 min.) : sd., b&w ; 4 3/4 inISBN: - 1415719101
- 9781415719107
- It's a wonderful life
- It's a wonderful life (Motion picture).
- Additional scenes by Jo Swerling ; score, Dmitri Tiomkin ; directors of photpgraphy, Joseph Walker and Joseph Biroc ; editor, William Hornbeck.
- National Film Registry selection, 1990.
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult DVD
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Dr. James Carlson Library | DVD | FAMILY It's a w | Available | 33111006607457 | ||||
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Adult DVD
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Main Library | DVD | FAMILY It's a w | Available | 33111006605048 | ||||
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Adult DVD
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Northport Library | DVD | FAMILY It's a w | Available | 33111006606806 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
This is director Frank Capra's classic bittersweet comedy/drama about George Bailey (James Stewart), the eternally-in-debt guiding force of a bank in the typical American small town of Bedford Falls. As the film opens, it's Christmas Eve, 1946, and George, who has long considered himself a failure, faces financial ruin and arrest and is seriously contemplating suicide. High above Bedford Falls, two celestial voices discuss Bailey's dilemma and decide to send down eternally bumbling angel Clarence Oddbody (Henry Travers), who after 200 years has yet to earn his wings, to help George out. But first, Clarence is given a crash course on George's life, and the multitude of selfless acts he has performed: rescuing his younger brother from drowning, losing the hearing in his left ear in the process; enduring a beating rather than allow a grieving druggist (H.B. Warner) to deliver poison by mistake to an ailing child; foregoing college and a long-planned trip to Europe to keep the Bailey Building and Loan from letting its Depression-era customers down; and, most important, preventing town despot Potter (Lionel Barrymore) from taking over Bedford Mills and reducing its inhabitants to penury. Along the way, George has married his childhood sweetheart Mary (Donna Reed), who has stuck by him through thick and thin. But even the love of Mary and his children are insufficient when George, faced with an $8000 shortage in his books, becomes a likely candidate for prison thanks to the vengeful Potter. Bitterly, George declares that he wishes that he had never been born, and Clarence, hoping to teach George a lesson, shows him how different life would have been had he in fact never been born. After a nightmarish odyssey through a George Bailey-less Bedford Falls (now a glorified slum called Potterville), wherein none of his friends or family recognize him, George is made to realize how many lives he has touched, and helped, through his existence; and, just as Clarence had planned, George awakens to the fact that, despite all its deprivations, he has truly had a wonderful life. Capra's first production through his newly-formed Liberty Films, It's a Wonderful Life lost money in its original run, when it was percieved as a fairly downbeat view of small-town life. Only after it lapsed into the public domain in 1973 and became a Christmastime TV perennial did it don the mantle of a holiday classic. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Based on a story by Philip Van Doren Stern.
Originally released as a motion picture in 1946.
Special features: The making of It's a wonderful life (behind the scenes information on the making of the film, the film's conception and reception); A personal remembrance (includes interviews with Frank Capra and James Stewart), original theatrical trailer.
Additional scenes by Jo Swerling ; score, Dmitri Tiomkin ; directors of photpgraphy, Joseph Walker and Joseph Biroc ; editor, William Hornbeck.
James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Travers, Beulah Bondi, Frank Faylen, Ward Bond, Gloria Grahame, H.B. Warner.
A man is saved from a suicide attempt by an angel and is then shown how important he is to the people who love him. A Christmas classic.
DVD, NTSC; region 1; Dolby Digital.
English or French audio tracks, optional English subtitles; closed-captioned.
National Film Registry selection, 1990.