A Wonderful (After) Life: Public Domain Works and Television Discourse

Abstract

The story of how Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life accidentally became a holiday classic has become a standard ‘fun fact’ to include when discussing the movie – a chance oversight in paperwork resulted in its copyright expiring in 1974, thus local television broadcasters seized the opportunity to air the film free of charge throughout the Christmas season. This article more closely examines the industrial and legal dealings which determined the fate of the Frank Capra film for nearly four decades, and how those twists and turns were discussed in forums ranging from the popular press to the halls of the U.S. Congress. I investigate the ways in which the prestige that is now associated with the film was only later brought into play as a means of arguing for it to come back under traditional corporate ownership.

Using this film as a particular example allows us to clearly see the longstanding discourses of quality that media scholars argue has been associated with the cinematic medium. Meanwhile, the television broadcast format – arguably how Wonderful Life was kept in the public consciousness, growing the film’s fanbase over the years – became tagged as ‘devaluing’ the movie’s status.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Dr. Stacy Takacs for her help in shaping this research project in its early stages, to Dr. Graig Uhlin for your useful draft comments, and to the HJRFT peer reviewers and editorial team for your thoughtful remarks and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Elaine Dutka, ‘It’s a Wonderful Gift’, Los Angeles Times, December 7, 1997.

2 Ibid.

3 Brian Hannan, Coming Back to a Theatre Near You: A History of Hollywood Reissues, 1914–2014 (North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2016), 435; ‘Spelling Signs Pact to Buy Republic Pictures’, Orlando Sentinel, December 10, 1993; ‘Hamilton, Republic Venture: It’s a Wonderful Licensing Deal’, Brandweek, October 23, 1995.

4 Dutka, ‘It’s a Wonderful Gift’.

5 Ibid.

6 John McDonough, ‘Capra’s “Wonderful Life”: Color it the Holiday Classic’, Chicago Tribune, November 24, 1985 (accessed March 14, 2017).

7 Michael Z. Newman and Elana Levine, Legitimating Television: Media Convergence and Cultural Status (New York: Routledge, 2012), 3.

8 Jeanine Basinger, The It’s a Wonderful Life Book (New York: Knopf, 1986), 54.

9 Ibid., 53.

10 Jonathan Munby, “A Hollywood Carol’s Wonderful Life,” Christmas at the Movies: Images of Christmas in American, British and European Cinema (London: I.B. Tauris, 2001), 40.

11 Ibid., 45.

12 Ibid., 45–7.

13 Bosley Crowther, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) Review’, The New York Times, December 23, 1946 (accessed February 1, 2024); Burt Briller, ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’, Variety, December 18, 1946 (accessed February 3, 2024).

14 ‘Cinema: New Picture, Dec. 23, 1946’, Time, December 23, 1946 (accessed February 10, 2024).

15 James Agee, ‘Films’, The Nation, December 28, 1946, 766.

16 Agee, ‘Films’, The Nation, February 15, 1947, 193–94.

17 Manny Farber, ‘Mugging Main Street’, The New Republic, January 6, 1947, 44.

18 Basinger, It’s a Wonderful Life Book, 4.

19 ‘The Price of Liberty’, Time, May 26, 1947 (accessed February 18, 2024).

20 Patrick McGilligan, Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 438; Joseph McBride, Searching for John Ford: A Life (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin: 2003), 530.

21 Basinger, It’s a Wonderful Life Book, 67.

22 Hannan, Coming Back, 70.

23 Basinger, It’s a Wonderful Life Book, 67.

24 Ibid., 68.

25 Hannan, Coming Back, 304.

26 Blair Davis, ‘Small Screen, Smaller Pictures: Television Broadcasting and B-Movies in the Early 1950s’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 28, no. 2 (2008), 223.

27 David Pierce, ‘Forgotten Faces: Why Some of Our Cinema Heritage is Part of the Public Domain’, Film History 19 (2007): 126.

28 Ibid., 127.

29 Ibid., 129.

30 Basinger, It’s a Wonderful Life Book, 70.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.

33 Newman and Levine, Legitimating Television, 28.

34 James Bates, ‘Yule With Less “Wonderful Life’? Tune In’, Los Angeles Times, November 23, 1993.

35 Newman and Levine, Legitimating Television, 29.

36 Stephen Cox, It’s a Wonderful Life: A Memory Book (Nashville: Cumberland House Publishing, 2005), 126.

37 Ibid., 127.

38 Basinger, It’s a Wonderful Life Book, 68; John McDonough, ‘Frank Capra: For the Veteran Director, It’s a Wonderful Life’, Chicago Tribune, April 16, 1978.

39 Basinger, It’s a Wonderful Life Book, 85.

40 Hannan, Coming Back, 304.

41 Tom Shales, ‘The Color Green’, The Washington Post, November 2, 1986.

42 Ibid.

43 Hannan, Coming Back, 304.

44 Hannan, Coming Back, 304; Gary Edgerton, ‘“The Germans Wore Gray, You Wore Blue”: Frank Capra, Casablanca, and the Colorization Controversy of the 1980s’, Journal of Popular Film and Television 27 (2000), 26.

45 Edgerton, ‘The Germans Wore Gray’, 24.

46 Cox, It’s a Wonderful Life: A Memory Book, 111.

47 Edgerton, ‘The Germans Wore Gray’, 24.

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid., 25.

50 Chris Anderson, Hollywood TV: The Studio System in the Fifties (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 16.

51 Hannan, Coming Back, 305. Edgerton, ‘The Germans Wore Gray’, 27.

52 Shales, ‘The Color Green’.

53 Edgerton, ‘The Germans Wore Gray’, 30.

54 Ibid.

55 ‘KTLA Viewers Vote as Colorized Pix’, Variety, November 26, 1986.

56 Hannan, Coming Back, 435.

57 An Act Making Appropriations for the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies for the Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 1989, and For Other Purposes. Public Law 100-446, U.S. Statutes at Large (1988), 1774.

58 Ibid., 1784.

59 Ibid., 1785.

60 Edgerton, ‘The Germans Wore Gray’, 29.

61 Newman and Levine, Legitimating Television, 101.

62 Ibid., 117.

63 Ibid., 118.

64 Ibid.

65 Davis, ‘Small Screen, Smaller Pictures’, 221.

66 Pierce, ‘Forgotten Faces’, 26.

67 Bates, ‘Yule With Less “Wonderful Life’? Tune in’.

68 U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Copyright Term, Film Labeling and Film Preservation Legislation: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property of the Committee on the Judiciary, 105th Cong., 1st sess., 1995, 52.

69 Newman and Levine, Legitimating Television, 121.

70 Hannan, Coming Back, 304.

71 Ibid.

72 Ibid.

73 Cox, It’s a Wonderful Life: A Memory Book, 115.

74 Harry Haun, ‘Hitchcock’s Film Treasures Resurrected from Family Vault’, New York Daily News, October 7, 1983; for more on the ‘Missing Hitchcocks’, see Robert E. Kapsis’ book Hitchcock: The Making of a Reputation, which convincingly argues that this choice by Hitchcock (negotiated and enforced by his agents) was one of many savvy decisions made by the director in helping to position his artistic legacy throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

75 Haun, ‘Hitchcock’s Film Treasures Resurrected from Family Vault’.

76 Steward v. Abend, 495 U.S. 207, 1990.

77 Citation.

78 Citation.

79 Linda Greenhouse, ‘Final Twist in “Rear Window” Case’, The New York Times, April 25, 1990.

80 Bates, ‘Yule With Less “Wonderful Life”? Tune In’.

81 Ibid.

82 Ibid.

83 Ibid.

84 Ibid.

85 Ibid.

86 Jay Bobbin, ‘“Wonderful Life” to Flash Before our Eyes Only Once’, The Baltimore Sun, December 10, 1994.

87 Bill Carter, ‘The Media Business – Television’, The New York Times, December 19, 1994.

88 Bobbin, ‘“Wonderful Life” to Flash Before our Eyes Only Once’.

89 Carter, ‘The Media Business – Television’.

90 Ibid.

91 Ibid.

92 Ibid.

93 Ibid.

94 James Hibbard, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life Delivers Its Biggest Audience in Seven Years’, Entertainment Weekly, December 26, 2012.

95 NBC.com, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, web.archive.org/web/20180801063352/http://www.nbc.com/its-a-wonderful-life?nbc=1.

96 Maggie Maloney, ‘Mark Your Calendars! Here’s How to Watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” When It Airs on December 24’, Town and Country, December 5, 2022.

97 U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee, Copyright Term, 96.

98 Pierce, ‘Forgotten Faces’, 125.

99 Cox, It’s a Wonderful Life: A Memory Book, 111.

100 Anderson, Hollywood TV, 18.

101 Munby, ‘A Hollywood Carol’, 56.

102 Eric Smoodin, Regarding Frank Capra: Audience, Celebrity and American Film Studies, 1930–1960 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 18.

103 Kimberly Nordyke, ‘“Christmas Story” Still a Hit with Cable Viewers’, Reuters, December 30, 2007.

104 Cox, It’s a Wonderful Life: A Memory Book, 111.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anna Louise Wiegenstein

Anna Louise Wiegenstein is a Ph.D candidate in Screen Studies in the Department of English at Oklahoma State University. Her dissertation work focuses on elements of style in the work of Baz Luhrmann. Other research interests include streaming video industrial studies and contemporary film and television musicals. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Ampersand: An American Studies Journal, InMediaRes, and the Media Industries Journal.