It's A Wonderful Life

Family, Fantasy

James Stewart	George Bailey
Donna Reed	Mary Hatch
Lionel Barrymore	Mr. Potter
Thomas Mitchell	Uncle Billy
Henry Travers	Clarence
Beulah Bondi	Mrs. Bailey
Frank Faylen	Ernie
Ward Bond	Bert
Gloria Grahame	Violet
H.B. Warner	Mr. Gower

Director	Frank Capra
Producer	Frank Capra
Writer	Philip Van Doren Stern; Frances Goodrich; Capra, Frank; Hackett, Albert; Frank Capra; Jo Swerling
Cinematography	Joseph F. Biroc
Musician	Dimitri Tiomkin

George Bailey is a generous, loving husband and father in the small town of Bedford Falls. All his life he has worked hard and made sacrifices to benefit his neighbors and his family. The officer of a small bank loan business, George misplaces an $8,000 bank loan on Christmas Eve and is so distraught that he contemplates suicide. Not only is he upset about the lost money, but he surveys his life and determines that the world would have been better off if he had never been born. Because of the decency in his heart and the prayers of his family, a junior angel named Clarence comes down to show George what the world really would have been like if he had never existed. George discovers that the life he once thought insignificant and unimportant actually touched many lives and shaped the course of history far beyond what he imagined. He changes his mind about taking his own life and realizes that he has contributed a lot by living his life, and in the Christmas spirit his neighbors give George a Christmas gift that he will never forget.