It's a Wonderful Life

Event information

Come and join us at the beginning of the final weekend before Christmas for a screening of one of the most loved Christmas films of all time.

Frank Capra directs this heart-warming Christmas fantasy. George Bailey (James Stewart) has spent his entire life in the small town of Bedford Falls. Despite his yearning to see the world, George has always sacrificed his personal ambitions for the sake of his family and the local community, settling down to marry his childhood sweetheart, Mary (Donna Reed), and raise a family. However, when a huge amount of money goes missing from his savings and loans company he panics and finds himself preparing to commit suicide. He is shown the error of this idea by Clarence (Henry Travers), an angel who has been sent to Earth in order to earn his wings. To this end, Clarence shows George just how badly Bedford Falls and its residents would have turned out had he never been born.

The original story, "The Greatest Gift", was written by Philip Van Doren Stern in November 1939. After it was rejected by several publishers, he had it printed as a 24-page pamphlet and mailed to 200 family members and friends for Christmas 1943.

It's a Wonderful Life is now considered to be one of the greatest films of all time and among the best Christmas films. It has been recognized by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 best American films ever made.

Decades after It’s a Wonderful Life first appeared, Frank Capra said: “The importance of the individual is the theme that it tells. That no man is a failure, that every man has something to do with his life. If he’s born, he’s born to do something.”
He added: “To some of us, all that meets the eye is larger than life, including life itself. Who can match the wonder of it?”

Merry Christmas