It's a Wonderful Life It's a Wonderful Life It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas fantasy comedy-drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra, based on the short story and booklet "The Greatest Gift", which Philip Van Doren Stern wrote in 1939 and published privately in 1945. The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has given up his dreams in order to help others, and whose imminent suicide on Christmas Eve brings about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers). Clarence shows George all the lives he has touched, and how different life in his
It's a Wonderful Life turned the story and what was worth using from the three scripts into a screenplay that Capra would rename "It's a Wonderful Life". The script underwent many revisions throughout pre-production and during filming. Final screenplay credit went to Goodrich, Hackett, and Capra, with "additional scenes" by Jo Swerling. Capra produced the film with his independent motion picture production company Liberty Films. Dalton Trumbo had written a draft that was different from the final film. In Trumbo's draft, George Bailey is an idealistic politician that slowly grows more cynical as the story progresses, then tries to commit suicide after losing an