How World War II shaped the iconic Christmas movie ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’


Stuart returned home from serving as a flight leader in World War II, and this 1946 film was his first since witnessing the horrors of war. With this post-war mentality, Stuart and director Frank Carapara take a film titled “It’s a Wonderful Life” and are antithetically crescendo for failed attempts at self-confidence.

Throughout the film, George Bailey’s life often feels anything but wonderful. The audience looks like a young man with worldly dreams, the shock comes instantly, everyone is like a nail in his coffin. Running his late father’s business, trapped in his hometown, the story culminates when George Bailey believes he is more dead than alive.

“It’s a Wonderful Life” is a real and echoing address Issues of self-worth and failure. Fresh from the war, Stuart himself has struggled with these tests, as he shapes George Bailey’s deeply related character. Without Stewart’s real acquaintance with the dark, a renaissance perspective on the holiday classic life would not be able to shine so unforgettably bright.

Became a classic

When it was first released, “It’s a Wonderful Life” was not intended to be a Christmas film. It initially flopped on office fees, and according to Turner Classic Movies, the film’s copyright has not been renewed.

This meant that in the 1970s, “It’s a Wonderful Life” was cost-free for broadcasters to broadcast frequently. Audiences began to take note of the less fun movie than Christmas, which flooded the airwaves at Christmas time, and thus the holiday tradition was born.

NBC, which now owns the rights to the film, broadcasts “That Wonderful Life” every year on Christmas Eve. In 2016, Variety reported that the program aired 4.5 million viewers on the network’s 42nd Christmas Eve.

The movie captures a period of American life filled with some of the most significant historical events of the 20th century, including the Great Depression and World War II.

After serving in the Army Air Corps, Stuart had been absent from Hollywood for five years, when he was offered the role of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” According to biographer Robert Metzen, he was initially reluctant to make the film, but it was his only offer, apart from a film featuring his war service.

“It’s a Wonderful Life” was the result of Jim’s war experiences as he unlocked this depth of soul in Jimmy … he had to learn to act again and that’s what you’re seeing on screen. It’s like lightning that has just been captured. In a bottle, “biographer Robert Metzen told CNN.

One of the film’s most iconic, unencrypted scenes is when George Bailey finds himself at the end of a rope: “I’m not a man of prayer but if you’re there and you can hear me, show me the way.”

George Bailey was not scripted to cry, but Jimmy Stewart did.

“As I said these words I felt lonely, frustrated with people who had nowhere to turn, and tears welling up in my eyes. I burst into tears.” Stewart said in a 1987 interview.
The scene, capturing a desperate request for George Bailey’s help, was done at once. This was part of how emotional Stuart, who was still reeling from the death of the war or the pressure of death, was, explained Ben McNuix, host of Turner Classic Movies.

“Jimmy Stewart was following his own experience and she was using it in her character. It’s a very difficult thing to do. The audience feels its intensity because it was clearly authentic,” Manquix told CNN.

“That Wonderful Life” has become a classic because it connects viewers emotionally, Manquez said, and is able to resonate in our daily lives.

“It’s a movie we see at Christmas time, but the power and feeling that the film gives is no less powerful in June,” Manquix said.

Military service

When Stuart joined the Army in 1941, he won an Academy Award for “The Philadelphia Story”.

Entering the Army Air Corps as private, he was assigned to the Motion Pictures Unit to make films for the War Department. Stuart, who comes from a family strained in military service, fought against orders and pushed for the opportunity to serve abroad.

Stuart with his Air Force hat in front of a military aircraft in the early 1904s.

After earning his wings as a pilot, Stuart was finally sent to England in 1943 as a flight leader. Metzen called Stewart an “aerial quarterback,” who was responsible for calling the pilots real-time shots in the air.

Stuart flew 20 times for physically and mentally challenging combat missions, which he rarely talked about after the war.

Through Stuart’s combat mission reports, Metzen was able to focus on the worst Stewart-led mission to the German city of Gotha in 1944. During this bombing campaign, Stuart lost men at his behest, a devastating cost to a leader who believed he was responsible for every life.

Also, Stuart’s personal experience with Gotha was something of a nightmare. Metzen explained that the floor of Stuart’s plane had been hit, leaving a hole under his foot. His damaged bomber had to retreat to England while Stuart was looking down at enemy territory through a hole in his cabin. Metzen estimates that Stuart experienced temperatures as low as zero to at least 20 degrees.

Metzen said the mission was “too many” for Stuart. Ten years from the recommended age of pilots flying heavy bombers, experiences like these took a tremendous toll on Stuart in the mid-30s.

“No one recognized Jimmy Stewart who came home from the fight. He had changed a lot. He says some ten years, some say 20. He has a lot of PTSD symptoms,” Metzen said.

Stuart has been awarded the Crocs de Guerrero Medal for his service.  Courtesy The Jimmy Stewart Museum.

These symptoms include convulsions, shortness of breath and nightmares. Metzen said short temperament changes mood in contrast to the explosive fit, destroying a part of the George Bailey family’s living room.

At the time, veterans returning from the war were thought to be experiencing “shell-shock” or “combat fatigue.” Post-traumatic stress disorder was not added as a psychiatric diagnosis until the 1980s after the Vietnam War.

When asked what the horrors of war were for Stewart, Metzen said Stuart’s perfectionism afflicts him: every life he lost under his command was a work he could do better.

The challenge of overcoming his alleged failures and rediscovering his own economy as a citizen is where the audience meets the next Stuart on screen in 1946.

Watching during an epidemic

For two hours, “It’s a Wonderful Life” continues the dark arc, until there are less than 10 glorious minutes left in the film. A Guardian Angel and the Alternative Universe Later, George Bailey learns the lesson that makes a movie worth watching: a normal life serving others will have an extraordinary impact on people’s lives.

It’s with a new perspective that George Bailey has resisted every little thing about his life, he now enjoys.

A new outlook on life is no foreign concept in 2020, a year that is unlike any other in recent history. Coronavirus epidemics have claimed the lives of 1.6 million people worldwide and disrupted daily life, forcing communities into lockdown and damaging the local economy.
“Right now, a lot of us are like George Bailey in a sense because he’s stuck in Bedford Falls and he feels like he’s failed as a result. Now, having been in this state of lockdown since March, I’ve re-evaluated. What does it mean to be, “film historian Karela Valderma told CNN.

“It’s a Wonderful Life” is one of the biggest movies ever made, as it can change the way we look at the world, says Walderma. What this film tells viewers is that success is not measured in materialism, but how much one gives back.

“I’m very grateful to the grocery clerks, the guy who shows up to bring my food – how much it’s needed. I’m so grateful to these front line workers – these people are heroes right now,” Valderma said.

The bravery of these everyday heroes has been shining through the darkness of 2020, but questions of strength and purpose are still this year for many. “That Wonderful Life” serves as a reminder that every life is necessary, and with a new perspective, wonderful.

CNN’s Amy Wray and Fernando Alfonso contributed to this report.

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