Holiday movies are always big box office. Over the years Hollywood has given us some magical Christmastime movies — Home Alone, The Bishop's Wife, numerous versions of A Christmas Carol and Miracle on 34th Street.
But in 1946, while America was recovering from the ravages of World War II, a couple of war veterans, Jimmy Stewart and Frank Capra, joined forces with a composer who had provided Capra with music for a documentary called Why We Fight, Dimitri Tiomkin. They all got together to make It's a Wonderful Life.
The film was shot in the summer of 1946. However, sometime before the release on Christmas day, 1946, the score was overhauled and very little of Tiomkin's original stuff survived. There was a really neat CD that came out a few years ago on Telarc that features the score to It's a Wonderful Life, including those lost cues of Dimitri Tiomkin.
Click the Listen button above to hear the finale that Tiomkin hoped would be in the movie — part of it was used, but not all of it.
It's a Wonderful Life, theatrical trailer, 1946
Saturday Cinema
Tune in to Saturday Cinema, 10 a.m. CST Saturday mornings to hear music from more of your favorite holiday films. Just click on the Listen button below to hear the live stream.
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