The Journal. - The Wonderful Accident Behind a Christmas Classic

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

“It’s a Wonderful Life” is one of the most iconic Christmas movies. But when it first came out in 1946, it was considered a flop. WSJ’s Ben Cohen explains how the movie went from nearly forgotten to a Christmas favorite. Further Reading: -The Christmas Movie That Became a Classic Because of a Mistake  Further Listening: -Canned or Homemade? America’s Biggest Cranberry Company Wins Either Way  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our colleague Ben Cohen is a business columnist. But recently, for our podcast, he's had a slightly different beat. And you also are kind of like our holiday correspondent, because we just had you on the show pretty recently talking about cranberry sauce around Thanksgiving. I come on the show to talk about very old foods and very old movies, but specifically around big holidays. Do you like Christmas movies? I do like Christmas movies, yeah.

I am Jewish, so Christmas to me is like eating Chinese food and going to the movies. What's your favorite Christmas movie? I think it's Elf. I might have to say that my favorite Christmas movie is Die Hard. All right, I'm not doing that right now. That's a whole thing, and that's a separate podcast, and we're not going to do that right now. Die Hard, Elf, those are popular.

But when it comes to the holidays, no movie is more embedded in American pop culture than It's a Wonderful Life. Merry Christmas, movie house! Merry Christmas, Emporium! It is still insanely popular, and it has lasted the test of time. The American Film Institute ranks It's a Wonderful Life as the 11th greatest American film ever made. And one analytics firm said it was near the top of its list of the most streamed movies

during the holidays. It's a Wonderful Life was right up there with Home Alone among the Christmas movies that we can't stop watching, and it was easily the oldest movie on this list of Christmas movies that remain relevant today. It's a Wonderful Life came out in 1946.

It stars Jimmy Stewart, who was one of Hollywood's biggest celebrities back then. The movie is a fixture of the holidays now, but when it debuted, it was seen as a huge flop. A flop? A flop. Yeah. It was not well received. When you go back and look at some of the reviews of this movie, they were not exactly raves. The New York Times said, the weakness of this picture is the sentimentality of it. It's illusory concept of life.

So how did it become a Christmas classic? It would take nearly three decades for this movie to be saved by a Hollywood miracle. The most iconic Christmas movie became the most iconic Christmas movie only because of a mistake, an accident. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knudson. It's Friday, December 15th. Coming up on the show, the mistake that turned It's a Wonderful Life from a flop into a holiday staple. With Uber Reserve, you can book your Uber ride in advance.

90 days in advance. Perfect for all you forward thinkers and planning gurus. Reserve your Uber ride up to 90 days in advance. Uber Reserve. See Uber app for details. It's a Wonderful Life is one of the most beloved Christmas movies around. But Ben had a confession. Is this where I should say that I've never seen It's a Wonderful Life? I'm sorry, what?

You've never seen It's a Wonderful Life? I've never seen It's a Wonderful Life. You may remember that I had never eaten cranberries. I was just going to say, Ben! You love the holidays and that you've never participated in anything holiday. Are you going to tell me next that you work for the Wall Street Journal and you've never walked down Wall Street? Where is Wall Street again? Should we, uh... Um, hold on. I have in my notes what It's a Wonderful Life is supposed to be about. You must at least know what the plot is, right?

You know, loosely, I did reporting on it. It is a Christmas movie that the director did not consider to be a Christmas movie. Instead, it was a meditation against atheism. And the movie is this, like, dark, oddly supernatural film. Look, who are you? I told you, George, I'm your guardian angel. Can't you describe to me what It's a Wonderful Life is about? I could, actually.

So this is the premise of the movie. So Jimmy Stewart is this young man who really wants to make something of his life, and he wants to go out and travel. To make a long story short, It's a Wonderful Life is the story of George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart. George is this guy who gives up on his own dreams so he can take over his father's struggling bank and help people in his town. But then there's a financial crisis and a bank run.

You realize what this means? It means bankruptcy and scandal and prison. That's what it means. And so George considers ending his life and jumping off a bridge. And that's when this angel comes in and is like, I'll show you what this town would be like if you weren't here, making everybody's lives better. And then he realizes that he actually wants to live,

and he goes back and he saves the town and saves his family. And then there's a very famous line in the movie where the angel who helps him gets his wings, and George Bailey's daughter in the movie says, Daddy, Daddy! Look, Daddy, teacher says, every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings. Bell ringing is a sound of

an angel getting its wings. I believe it's every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings. I asked ChatGPT for the famous lines from It's a Wonderful Life. The movie was based on a short story called The Greatest Gift.

The story caught the attention of Hollywood and a producer snapped up the rights. Eventually, it landed on the desk of director Frank Capra, one of the biggest names

in Hollywood at the time. Some of his other famous movies include It Happened One Night and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Capra decided to make The Greatest gift into a movie, which was later renamed It's a Wonderful Life. And Jimmy Stewart signed on as the lead.

When the movie was about to be released back in the 40s, the studio had high hopes. It had a huge star making a comeback performance after not being in the movies for a few years. It had such a huge publicity rollout campaign that it was on the cover of Newsweek magazine, and it had a six-page photo spread in Life magazine. That was a very big deal at the time. photo spread in Life magazine. That was a very big deal at the time. Frank Capra famously went out of pocket to cover the expenses of this movie, which ran way over budget at the time. And I assume the expectation in his mind was that he was going to make up that money at the box office when it came out and it was this huge hit. And it turns out it was not. The movie ended up losing about a half million dollars. It went way over budget. So you said it lost a half a million dollars,

which sounds like a ton of money for the 1940s. I think that is fair to say. It was a ton of money in the 1940s. What happened to the studio that made it? It went out of business. The studio was never able to recoup the cost. It was dissolved and its assets were sold off, including the rights to It's a Wonderful Life. It looked like the movie was destined to gather dust on a shelf somewhere. So everybody forgot about the movie when it came out. And it turns out,

everybody forgetting about the movie is what actually saved the movie over the long run. So it wasn't Frank Capra, and it wasn't Jimmy Stewart, and it had nothing to do with the enduring power of American cinema or our eternal love of Christmas movies. It was because of neglect and U.S. copyright law. U.S. copyright law. At the time, a studio's rights to a movie only lasted 28 years.

In 28 years after It's a Wonderful Life was released, everyone had mostly forgotten about it. And the copyright holder could fill out paperwork to renew that copyright for another 28 years. But if the movie is not making money for anybody, and everybody has forgotten about it, then nobody will remember to renew the copyright. And that's what happened to It's a Wonderful Life. The copyright lapsed and it entered the public domain in 1974, exactly 28 years after it was released. So in 1974, when it lapses into the public domain, what happens next? So what happens when a movie enters the public domain is that, like, anybody can license it.

Anybody can put it on TV. You know, television stations could run a movie whenever they pleased. It's a wonderful life, presented without commercial interruption. Christmas Day at 5 on Fox 32. It's a wonderful life tonight on TNT. It's a wonderful life today at 4. See it again

for the first time, 10.35 Eastern, Sunday morning on TBS. And if you are the manager of a TV station, the only thing better than a Christmas movie is a free Christmas movie that you can play over and over and over again as much as want, any time during the year, but especially during Christmas. Just like no one has the copyright to Christmas trees or fruitcake, no one had the copyright to It's a Wonderful Life. And so, with television stations airing it over and over again all Christmas, the movie became ubiquitous. But the success of the movie also kindled something else. Regret. Because just as the movie finally got its wings, the people that failed to renew the copyright were kicking themselves. Republic Pictures, the studio that ended up with the rights, suddenly saw value in

what it had lost. It became so big that the studio that initially held the rights to it decided, hey, we want to be in the business of It's a Wonderful Life now. The fight to regain control over a holiday classic? That's after the break. Whether you're practicing your morning breath work, waiting for your favorite artist to come on stage, or running errands at the perfect pace, Liquid IV Powder helps you turn ordinary water into extraordinary hydration so you can live a more extraordinary life.

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decades after its original release. All because Republic Pictures forgot to renew the copyright, and TV stations were allowed to play it as much as they wanted for free. And while this was nice for TV stations, it wasn't so great for Republic Pictures, which wasn't making a cent from the film's newfound popularity. Multiple companies started releasing the movie on videocassette.

By one estimate, there were more than 100 video distributors that offered it in their catalogs. And Republic Pictures wanted in. We want back in on this gravy train now. Or at least we want to be associated with this movie that seems to be resonating with a whole bunch of people that we didn't think would be interested in this movie.

And so, you know, what ultimately happens in the 1990s, 20 years after It's a Wonderful Life has been looping on TV around the holidays, is that the studio is able to claw back some of its rights. Republic started to push back. It owned the rights to make a movie about the underlying short story, and it quietly bought up the music rights in the film. And they're basically daring anyone to challenge the copyright on it. And through those legal mechanisms,

they are able to begin enforcing some of the old copyrights associated with It's a Wonderful Life. And in the early 1990s, a new copyright precedent from the Supreme Court bolstered Republic's claim. By 1993, Republic was serving notice of its copyright claim to broadcast stations. The tactic worked. Republic regained control of the film,

which meant that TV stations couldn't re-air the movie without their permission. So it's not in the public domain anymore, which is the reason why it's not on Netflix and Hulu and Apple TV and every streamer that we subscribe to. Like, you can imagine a world if something is in the public domain where you can watch this movie anywhere you please. And that's not the case these days. It runs on NBC a few times a year, notably right around Christmas, but it is not the free-for-all that it was when interest in the movie was revived. The mistake that made It's a Wonderful Life so popular probably couldn't happen again today. Copyright laws changed a lot since

the 1900s. These days, most movies are protected for at least 95 years. And so, to Ben, there's something magical about the way this success story unfolded. I mean, there are certainly examples of mass culture digging up old hits and introducing them to a new audience, right? But this wasn't an old hit and there was like nothing purposeful about it. Like you almost think, you know, I keep thinking back to last year when Stranger Things played that 1985 Kate Bush song, Running Up That Hill. It sparked this revival in the song and suddenly every teen is singing a song from 1985 but when you think about running up that hill like and the way that stranger things used it like you can

almost see like the netflix engineers and like the really smart people like who know how culture works putting their fingers on the button and like it almost seems like a stunt right like we're going to bring this song back and we're gonna we're to see it run up the hill of the charts, right? Like, that song, like, on one of the most popular shows on television, clearly there's going to be some sort of nostalgic revival for it. It was on purpose. Yeah, and it's like, it's, you know, maybe cynical at worst and kind of, like, diabolically brilliant at best, right? It's like people who know exactly what they're doing. There was nothing purposeful about It's a Wonderful Life coming back in a big way. Like, it was pure serendipity. It

happened totally by accident. And like, that is one of the things that I love about this story. As for how the filmmakers felt about the revival of the movie, they were as surprised as anyone. Frank Capra actually did an interview with the Wall Street Journal in 1984. And Frank Capra said, it's the damnedest thing I've ever seen. He was 87 years old at the time, right? And Frank Capra says, this film has a life of its own now

and I can look at it like I had nothing to do with it. I am like a parent whose kid grows up to be president. I'm proud as hell, but it's the kid who did the work. It is funny that this movie that was a flop at the time ended up being probably the movie that made Jimmy Stewart more famous than any other film he made. It's really odd, right? And it makes me think, like, what else did not do well when it first came out? And like, there are all these forces in life beyond our control. And sometimes you just need forces in life beyond our control,

and sometimes you just need a little bit of a lucky break. And I think that is one of the lessons of It's a Wonderful Life. We don't always know why something might work, and sometimes it works for reasons that nobody would have guessed. I have one more thing for you, which is, I need you to watch this movie. I'll watch it. I'll watch it.

All right, and report back to me what you think. All right. A few days ago, I got an early Christmas present, a voice memo from Ben. Ryan, it's Ben. I finally did it. I watched It's a Wonderful Life. I'm not sure that it's really a Christmas movie,

but I can understand now, having actually seen the movie, why people watch it every Christmas. As for me, I think I'll stick with Elf. This episode has been updated. A previous version incorrectly said that Republic owned the rights to The Greatest Gift. In fact, it held the rights to make movies based on the story. That's all for today, Friday, December 15th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal.

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