Jimmy Stewart's first film after serving as a bomber pilot flight leader in WWII.

He flew 20 missions, one being over Gotha which he lost several planes and men. A hole was blasted underneath his feet while flying his bomber on this mission.

It's George Bailey's crucial moment. Disheveled and desperate, he offers up a Hail-Mary prayer to a God he's not sure is listening: "I'm not a praying man, but if you're up there and you can hear me, show me the way. I'm at the end of my rope." Actor Jimmy Stewarts' emotion is palpable in this scene, one that acclaimed actress Carol Burnett called one of the finest pieces of acting ever on the screen. What may have escaped audiences watching "It's a Wonderful Life" over 70 years after its making, is that the tears running down Stewart's face are real, the actor later shared.

This scene, capturing George Bailey's desperate plea for help, was done in one take. This was due in part to how emotional it was for Stewart, who was still grappling with the life or death pressure of war, . . . . .

...."Nobody recognized the Jimmy Stewart that returned home from combat. He had changed so much. He had aged some say ten years, some say 20. He had a lot of the attributes of PTSD,"

On Another Note: Here's a You Tube video titled It's a Wonderful Life: 50 Things You Don't Need to Know

My favorite Christmas movie.

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Buck
My favorite Christmas movie.

And seems to grow in importance every year.

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sekker

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Buck
My favorite Christmas movie.

And seems to grow in importance every year.

Holiday confession: I’ve never seen it. Picked up the 4K disc a few months ago and start my holiday vacation tonight — I think I’ll make this year the year I finally watch it.

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It is what it is.

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Buck
My favorite Christmas movie.

Ditto. I can't get through the Christmas holidays without watching that one.

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Mr. Lahey: A lot of people, don’t know how to drink. They drink against the grain of the liquor. And when you drink against the grain of the liquor? You lose.

Randy: What the @#$%& are you talking about?

Wow, that was a powerful read.

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Ukulele music I couldn't find anywhere else.
[colquhoun.info]

Something I copied a few weeks ago. Sorry I didn't save the link.
Flak Happy. I can't imagine the horror.

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Months after winning his 1941 Academy Award for best actor in “The Philadelphia Story,” Jimmy Stewart, one of the best-known actors of the day, left Hollywood and joined the US Army. He was the first big-name movie star to enlist in World War II.

An accomplished private pilot, the 33-year-old Hollywood icon became a US Army Air Force aviator, earning his 2nd Lieutenant commission in early 1942. With his celebrity status and huge popularity with the American public, he was assigned to starring in recruiting films, attending rallies, and training younger pilots.
Stewart, however, wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to fly combat missions in Europe, not spend time in a stateside training command. By 1944, frustrated and feeling the war was passing him by, he asked his commanding officer to transfer him to a unit deploying to Europe. His request was reluctantly granted.

Stewart, now a Captain, was sent to England, where he spent the next 18 months flying B-24 Liberator bombers over Germany. Throughout his time overseas, the US Army Air Corps’ top brass had tried to keep the popular movie star from flying over enemy territory. But Stewart would hear nothing of it.
Determined to lead by example, he bucked the system, assigning himself to every combat mission he could. By the end of the war he was one of the most respected and decorated pilots in his unit.
But his wartime service came at a high personal price.
In the final months of WWII he was grounded for being “flak happy,” today called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
When he returned to the US in August 1945, Stewart was a changed man. He had lost so much weight that he looked sickly. He rarely slept, and when he did he had nightmares of planes exploding and men falling through the air screaming (in one mission alone his unit had lost 13 planes and 130 men, most of whom he knew personally).
He was depressed, couldn’t focus, and refused to talk to anyone about his war experiences. His acting career was all but over.
As one of Stewart’s biographers put it, “Every decision he made [during the war] was going to preserve life or cost lives. He took back to Hollywood all the stress that he had built up.”
In 1946 he got his break. He took the role of George Bailey, the suicidal father in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The rest is history.

Actors and crew of the set realized that in many of the disturbing scenes of George Bailey unraveling in front of his family, Stewart wasn’t acting. His PTSD was being captured on film for potentially millions to see.
But despite Stewart’s inner turmoil, making the movie was therapeutic for the combat veteran. He would go on to become one of the most accomplished and loved actors in American history.
When asked in 1941 why he wanted to leave his acting career to fly combat missions over Nazi Germany, he said, “This country’s conscience is bigger than all the studios in Hollywood put together, and the time will come when we’ll have to fight.”


This holiday season, as many of us watch the classic Christmas film, “It’s A Wonderful Life,” it’s also a fitting time to remember the sacrifices of Jimmy Stewart and all the men who gave up so much to serve their country during wartime. We will always remember you!
Postscript:
While fighting in Europe, Stewart’s Oscar statue was proudly displayed in his father’s Pennsylvania hardware store. Throughout his life, the beloved actor always said his father, a World War I veteran, was the person who had made the biggest impact on him.
Jimmy Stewart remained in the USAF Reserve following the war, retiring as a Brigadier General in 1968. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985 and died in 1997 at the age of 89.
— Ned Forney, Writer, Saluting America’s Veterans

there is a doc called "five came back" streaming on netflix.

it's now a few years old.

but tells the story of five acclaimed hollywood directors who spent the war years embedded overseas with us troops and how they and their films changed upon their return home.

the five directors were:

Frank Capra. John Ford, John Huston, George Steven, and William Wyler.

"It's A Wonderful Life" was Capra's first film after his war service and he produced it himself because the studio was in doubt if anyone wanted to see a dark Capra film.

accordingly, each of the other film-makefs also made seminal films and each of their efforts were strongly influenced by their war years.

good doc.

stay well.

rob



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2020 02:23PM by robfilms.

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N-OS X-tasy!

Holiday confession: I’ve never seen it. Picked up the 4K disc a few months ago and start my holiday vacation tonight — I think I’ll make this year the year I finally watch it.

On the Blu-ray version, my favorite in the "Deleted Scenes' is the whole town gathering together ransacking and burning Mr Berstein's Hardware store because "he wouldn't close for the holiday". (I love small town America.)

About to watch it on Christmas Eve - and I've never seen it all the way through, either.

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Hurts like a bastid...

I love "It's a Wonderful Life". Thanks for all the great posts and links.

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Buck
My favorite Christmas movie.

Not just my favorite Christmas movie. It’s a Wonderful Life is my favorite movie of all time!