You see George you really had a wonderful life. Don't you see what a mistake it would be to throw it away?

In perhaps the most famous holiday movie ever made, it only took one night, Christmas Eve, for George

Bailey to come to that realization.

Good idea, Ernie, a toast to my big brother George,

the richest man in town.

It took It's a Wonderful Life, a little longer than that than that though to become the Christmas classic it is today in poll after poll it shows up as the greatest Christmas film of all time

But best of lists were not on director Frank Capra's mind when he made it.

This movie came out in 1946, which if you know your American history is one year after the end of

World War II.

Emily St. James is a writer and culture critic.

She says that Capra, who went overseas to make documentaries for the war effort, and

star Jimmy Stewart, who flew combat missions during the war, they made a movie that reflected

the emotional aftermath of World War II. the this like sort of comprehension of the war needed to be one fascism needed to be

defeated the Nazis needed to be defeated but there's been this great cost in terms of

lives in terms of like the people who survived the trauma and terrible things they've been

through and how do we sort of grapple with all of that.

St James says that subtext informs a story that goes to some very dark and despairing places.

Your brother Harry Bailey broke through the ice and was drowned at the age of nine.

That's a lie. Harry Bailey went to war.

He got the Congressional Medal of Honor. He saved the lives of every man on that transport.

Every man on that transport died. Harry wasn't there to save them because you weren't there to save Harry.

When the film came out in 1946, it wasn't immediately hailed as a classic.

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