![]() ![]() Public interest in the film was practically nonexistent until the late 1980s, when increased TV airings and a general sense of nostalgia had people asking, "Gee, whatever happened to Zuzu?" Paraphrasing Sheldon Leonard, who played Nick the bartender in the movie, Jimmy Hawkins says, "the movie never changed people changed." People needed the film's message-that every human's life is important, and impacts so many other lives-then, he says, but they need it now more than ever.This magnificent film gives us a glimpse of the Holocaust, but it is really about love, and the indomitability of humanity even in the midst of inhumanity. Potter, and Uncle Billy, who were out and about on Main Street.ĭespite its current reigning status as a holiday classic, It's a Wonderful Life bombed at the box office, costing Capra half a million dollars. ![]() "All of us were born in different towns but we talked in the last couple of days and we've all said if we were ever born again we'd wish it were here in Seneca Falls," said Hawkins, speaking for himself and his on-screen sisters, while accepting the honor.Īfterward, a crowd gathered at the historic Gould Hotel, which had transformed into "Martini's" bar for the weekend, to celebrate with cake and champagne while singing "Auld Lang Syne." Throughout the weekend, residents and tourists alike reveled in their chance interactions with their favorite characters, brought to life by skilled character actors impersonating George, Mary, Zuzu, Mr. Earlier this month, during the IAWL festival, town officials presented Coombs, Grimes, and Hawkins with honorary citizenship. Today, Seneca Falls prides itself on continuing to embody the values that inspired the movie in the first place-family, faith, and community. George Bailey impersonator with a fan, at the Gould Hotel. This act of fundraising is said to be the inspiration for the ending scene of IAWL, when the whole town surprises George with enough cash to save his building and loan business. Those early 20th-century Seneca Falls residents also raised enough money to bring Varacalli's family over from Italy, a goal he had been working towards at the time of his death. Moved by Varacalli's heroism and selfless sacrifice, the community decided to award him with the Carnegie Hero Medal posthumously and, in 1921, affixed the bridge with a plaque honoring him, which would have been there when Capra came through town. He saved Ruth by pushing her towards an onlooker who had extended a safety rope, but drowned in the process. Seeing her distress, a 17-year-old canal worker named Antonio Varacalli jumped in after her, despite his own inability to swim. On that day, a young woman named Ruth decided to commit suicide by leaping from a steel structure nearly identical to the Bedford Falls bridge into the Barge Canal below. The movie's pivotal scene, in which George contemplates ending his life by jumping from a bridge into the icy waters below, is eerily similar to a tragedy that rocked Seneca Falls on April 12, 1917. "In the original story, the main character's name was George Pratt. He was, after all, weaving a feature-film-length script from a story so short that it often appeared in Christmas cards at the time. "He thought it was the greatest idea he'd ever heard and so he set out to make based on that theme," says Hawkins.īut other than its underlying message and the main character's first name, Capra took little from Van Doren Stern's story, relying instead on his own imagination and inspiration from his travels to fill in the rest. That's when the head of the production company RKO Pictures approached Capra about making a movie based on the 1943 short story "The Greatest Gift" by Philip Van Doren Stern, in which a man gets to see what life would be like if he'd never been born. Smith Goes to Washington, worried about "if we still had it, you know, that mysterious 'it' that means everything in this town." (Stewart had been out of work for so long that he considered moving back to Pennsylvania to run his dad's store.) ![]() Jimmy Stewart said that at the time, he and Capra, who had worked together on 1939's Mr. Army vet who had spent the war years making educational films for the military, founded his own production company and began looking for his next project. The man, Tom Bellissima, remembered the exchange because he was also of Italian descent and joked that he was the "beautiful one" (bellissima means 'beautiful' in Italian) and that Capra, which means 'goat' in Italian, was "the goat."Īfter World War II ended, Capra, a U.S. A local barber recalled cutting Capra's hair around the time he would've been working on the film's script. It's reported that he had relatives in nearby Auburn, New York he may have been visiting them when, either out of necessity or curiosity, he made the drive to Seneca Falls. The first clue comes from Capra's extended family. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |