Jolly Facts About Beloved Christmas Movies
When that yuletide feeling grabs you and you’re in the mood for a sleigh-load of holiday cheer, there’s nothing quite like a good Christmas movie.
So hang up your stockings, put on your most hideous knitted jumper, and have a great big spoonful Christmas spirit on us as we count down these festive facts about some of our favorite Christmas movies.
Christmas Movies Facts
44. Humble Beginnings
It’s a Wonderful Life’s origins can be traced back to a Christmas card. Philip Van Doren Stern struggled for years to sell his short story, "The Greatest Gift," to publishers, and eventually just printed 200 copies of the story and sent them to some of his friends as a Christmas card. Producer David Hempstead ended up getting a hold of it, purchased the rights, and later sold them to Frank Capra's production company for $10,000.
43. Let it Snow!
Prior to It’s a Wonderful Life, most productions used painted cornflakes as fake snow. This presented an audio problem for Capra, who wanted to record the sound live during the snow scenes; the crunch of the cornflakes underfoot usually rendered this almost impossible. Together with special effects supervisor Russell Shearman, Capra engineered a new kind of artificial snow for the film made up of a mixture of foamite, sugar, and water.
42. It’s a Not-So-Wonderful Reception
Though now quintessential Christmas classic, It’s a Wonderful Life was actually kind of a box office bomb on its release. It lost $525,000, and left director Frank Capra struggling to finance his production company’s next film, State of the Union.
