Film
At the suggestion of RKO studio chief Charles Koerner, Frank Capra read "The Greatest Gift" and immediately saw its film potential. In 1945, RKO, anxious to unload the project sold the rights to Capra's production company, Liberty Films, which had a nine-film distribution agreement with RKO, for $10,000, and threw in three scripts adaptations for free. Capra claimed the script was purchased for $50,000.00. Capra, along with writers Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, with Jo Swerling, Michael Wilson, and Dorothy Parker brought in to "polish" the script, 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.
In the film, the main character George Pratt (George Bailey in the film) was played by James Stewart, the angel Clarence was played by Henry Travers and Mary Thatcher (George's wife, Mary Hatch in the film) was played by Donna Reed. Other characters were talked about in the story, such as, a Potter who owned a photographer studio. His brother Harry, who drowned in a river because George wasn't alive to save him. His parents were also in the story and instead of Mary becoming an old maid like in the film, she married a man called Art Jenkins.
Read more about this topic: The Greatest Gift (story)
Famous quotes containing the word film:
“A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)
“All film directors, whether famous or obscure, regard themselves as misunderstood or underrated. Because of that, they all lie. They’re obliged to overstate their own importance.”
—François Truffaut (1932–1984)
“The woman’s world ... is shown as a series of limited spaces, with the woman struggling to get free of them. The struggle is what the film is about; what is struggled against is the limited space itself. Consequently, to make its point, the film has to deny itself and suggest it was the struggle that was wrong, not the space.”
—Jeanine Basinger (b. 1936)