It's a Wonderful Life Festival starts Friday in Bedford, errr, Seneca Falls
Jimmy Hawkins has never been to Seneca Falls, the small town between Rochester and Syracuse that proudly bills itself as the real-life Bedford Falls, the fictional town made famous by Frank Capra's 1946 film classic, It's a Wonderful Life. But that changes for Hawkins this weekend.
The man who played little Tommy Bailey in the movie is one of the three surviving actors and "Bailey children" who'll be featured at the 21st annual "It's a Wonderful Life Festival" in Seneca Falls. Karolyn Grimes, who played Zuzu Bailey, and Carol Coombs Mueller, who was Janie Bailey, are also expected to be in Seneca County to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the film. Grimes and Coombs have been there previously. Plenty of fans will join in the three-day event that starts Friday morning.
"We want to visit with them and hear their stories about It's a Wonderful Life. (Fans) share with us, too and energize us," Hawkins said Tuesday in Rochester, one of a few upstate cities mentioned in the film. "I've been very blessed. Frank Capra has taken us everywhere."
Like to the New York Stock Exchange, where they rang the bell in 2003 (meaning an angel got its wings somewhere, right?), and Beverly Hills, where the Academy of Motion Pictures honored the movie on Nov. 21. And now Hawkins, the 75-year-old who was almost 5 during filming, will finally be in Seneca Falls, a town of around 10,000 residents about 10 miles south of the New York State Thruway.
Stars Jimmy Stewart (George) and Donna Reed (Mary) portrayed the Bailey parents. The plot: Financial peril with the family's savings and loan business causes George to contemplate suicide. But his guardian angel (Clarence) helps him see what his small town would be like without him and the impact he has had on so many lives.
"Maybe's there's a little George Bailey in (all of us)," said Hawkins, whose interpretation of Capra's message is that anyone "can touch lives for the better if you want to and that's what (people) gravitate to," in the movie. Hawkins has written a handful of books on the movie, including a trivia book in 1992 that far exceeded its publisher's first-run expectations. "They ended up publishing 10 times the amount," Hawkins said.
How serious are the Seneca Falls folks about their legendary claim of being Bedford? They change some signs around to read, "Welcome to Bedford Falls," during the event. The Seneca Falls It's A Wonderful Life Museum was born in 2010 and is open year-round.
Here are 10 interesting facts about the movie:
1. Why Seneca Falls? There is no real proof that Capra's vision of Bedford Falls was derived from Seneca Falls. But the bridge a despondent George Bailey jumps off and the quaint little downtown look a lot like Seneca Falls. It's also known that Capra stayed in Seneca Falls in 1945 en route to New York City. His uncle was a barber there, Hawkins said, and Capra was there for a visit.
"It could very well be true," Hawkins said. "The nice thing about it is they're keeping the legend of It's a Wonderful Life alive throughout this whole town."
2. Idea wasn't Capra's: Capra, who was 94 when he died in 1991, bought the rights to the script after it was rewritten a few times and couldn't get green-lit as a movie. The original version was a short story called "The Greatest Gift," by Philip Van Doren Stern. He decided to use it as a 21-page Christmas card for close friends and sent out 200 copies. David Hempstead, a producer at RKO Pictures, bought the rights for $10,000.
3. Where was the movie shot? Culver City, California. It took 12 days to shoot scenes with the Bailey kids, Hawkins said, and there was a heat wave during filming. "It's 90 degrees outside and here we have snow outside the Bailey house," said the native of Sherman Oaks.
4. Award-winning snow: The movie was nominated for five Oscars but won only a technical award for special effects. More precisely, the award was for snow. Capra thought the way fake snow was done previously — crunchy cornflakes painted white — would be too noisy and obscure dialogue during live filming. So a new material made of soap, water and a chemical called Foamite (found in fire extinguishers) was used. A fan to blow it did the trick.
5. Jimmy in, Cary out: When RKO owned the rights to the script, it wanted Cary Grant to play George Bailey. Once Capra bought the rights, he went after Stewart, with whom he had worked with on You Can't Take it With You (1938) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). For Reed, the movie was a breakthrough to starring roles.
6. Box-office dud: Believe it or not, moviegoers in the 1940s didn't make the movie a hit. In fact, Capra reportedly took a $500,000 loss, which was also the figure Hawkins mentioned. The movie cost approximately $3.8 million, a big budget back then, and brought in only $3.3 million during its first run in early 1947 (it was originally released on Dec. 20, 1946) but then hit theaters widespread a few weeks later.
7. Hit by mistake: TV actually turned It's a Wonderful Life into a hit. Republic Pictures made a mistake and let its copyright expire in 1974. That made the movie available as "public domain" for the next 20 years, meaning any network could show it without paying royalties and they took full advantage. The movie used to air all the time in the 1980s. "One day on Christmas Eve a station in Los Angeles played it 11 straight times," Hawkins said. A Supreme Court ruling in 1993 gave control back to Republic and it signed a long-term deal with NBC in 1994 to the exclusive broadcast rights.
8. When is it on this year? NBC showed the movie Saturday and will do so again at 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve. But get your DVR set for USA Network for 8 p.m. Saturday (Dec. 10), 9 a.m. Sunday (Dec. 11) and 8 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 16. Universal HD also will show it at 8 p.m. Dec. 30 and noon on Dec. 31.
9. When did the movie get colorized? Since the mid-1980s, three colorized versions have been released. Stewart, who died in 1997, was so against that for It's a Wonderful Life and other classics that he told Congress in 1987: "I tried to look at the colorized version, but I had to switch it off — it made me feel sick." Hawkins said he's OK with it.
"Kids don't want to see black and white," he said. "I'm glad that Paramount colorized it so the younger kids get the message of It's a Wonderful Life, too."
10. What types of events happen during the festival? There's a parade at 1 p.m. Saturday, the annual It's a Wonderful Run 5K race just before 5 p.m. Saturday, "Uncle Billy's" scavenger hunt, memorabilia exhibits, wagon and horse-drawn carriage rides, raffles, conversations with the actors together and individually, screenings of the film and The Donna Reed Show. One unique exhibit features love letters Reed received from servicemen during World World II.
Hawkins also will discuss his career a few different times during a jam-packed schedule. He went on to portray the son of some other Hollywood stars in the 1940s and 1950s, including Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn and was on TV shows such as Leave It to Beaver,The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and on The Donna Reed Show. Hawkins would later go on to co-star in a couple of Elvis Presley films.
It's A Wonderful Life Festival
- Where: 32 Fall Street, Seneca Falls, N.Y. 13148 (about 10 miles south of NYS Thruway Exit 41).
- When: Dec. 9-11 (see festival schedule).
- Admission: Free
- More information: http://therealbedfordfalls.com/ or call the museum at 315-568-5838.