Actor and producer Sheldon Leonard said in an interview that the only reason he agreed to play Nick the bartender in this film was so that he would have money to buy Dodger baseball tickets.
After the war Frank Capra set up Liberty Films with George Stevens and William Wyler to make more serious, soul-searching films. This and State of the Union were Liberty's only productions.
Although credited as merely "Mr. Potter," it is revealed on the back of the glass on Mr. Potter's office door that his name is Henry F. Potter.
As Uncle Billy is leaving George's house drunk, it sounds as if he stumbles over some trash cans on the sidewalk. In fact, a crew member dropped some equipment right after Uncle Billy left the screen. Both actors continued with the scene ("I'm all right, I'm all right!") and director Frank Capra decided to use it in the final cut. He gave the clumsy stagehand a $10 bonus for "improving the sound."
At $3.7 million, this was a very expensive independent production. In its initial box office run, it only earned $3.3 million.
At one stage when George is walking down the street, Uncle Billy calls out "Hey Captain Cook, got your sea legs yet?". Captain James Cook (1728-1779) was an English sailor renowned as a navigator.
Debuted a week after William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives, which explained why this movie was a disappointment at the box office and at the Academy Awards.
Despite being set around Christmas, it was filmed during a heat wave. It got to be so hot that Frank Capra gave everyone a day off to recuperate.
Films made prior to this one used cornflakes painted white for the falling snow effect. Because the cornflakes were so loud, dialogue had to be dubbed in later. Frank Capra wanted to record the sound live, so a new snow effect was developed using foamite (a fire-fighting chemical) and soap and water. This mixture was then pumped at high pressure through a wind machine to create the silent, falling snow. 6000 gallons of the new snow were used in the film. The RKO Effects Department received a Class III Scientific or Technical Award from the Motion Picture Academy for the development of the new film snow.
For the scene that required Donna Reed to throw a rock into the window of the Granville House, Frank Capra hired a marksman to shoot it out for her on cue. To everyone's amazement, Donna Reed broke the window with true aim and heft without the assistance of the hired marksman!
In 1947, an FBI analyst submitted, without comment, an addition to a running memo on "Communist infiltration of the motion picture industry," recording the opinion of an industry source who said that the film's "obvious" attempt to discredit bankers "is a common trick used by Communists."
In 2004 the BBC TV listings magazine "Radio Times" conducted a poll into the Best Film Never to Have Won an Oscar. It's a Wonderful Life came second (The Shawshank Redemption was first).
In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #20 Greatest Movie of All Time.
In the original script, Clarence confronts Potter about what he did to George. It was to take place right after Potter yelled, "And Happy New Year to you, in jail!"
In the scene where George Bailey runs through the streets wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, there's a shot of a theater marque advertising for The Bells of St. Mary's. Henry Travers, who plays Clarence, had co-starred in the film the previous year.
Originally ended with "Ode to Joy", not "Auld Lang Syne".
Pharmacist Gower's son's death at college is attributed to "Influenza" in the telegram that Young George reads, dated May 3, 1919. Around that time, there was the "Spanish Flu" worldwide epidemic that claimed millions of lives.
Ranked #3 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Fantasy" in June 2008.
Ranked as the #1 Most Powerful Movie of All Time by the American Film Institute (2006).
The Bailey Park scenes were filmed in La Crescenta, California.