Jimmy Stewart turned 38 when he made the classic and iconic movie, It's a Wonderful Life. Donna Reed was only 25 years old when she made the movie.  When interviewed Reed reportedly described her role as "the most difficult of her career". Cary Grant was considered to play the part of George Bailey before Stewart was handed the male lead. Ginger Rogers was considered to play the part of Mary Hatch Bailey before Donna Reed was handed the female lead.  I don't think anyone, now can even imagine anyone else playing these iconic lead roles.  

Bedford Falls is the fictional town in which Philip Van Doren Stern's 1943 short booklet, The Greatest Gift and RKO Pictures 1946 film adaptation It's a Wonderful Life, are set. In 1945, Frank Capra visited Seneca Falls, New York to look for inspiration for the town of Bedford Falls.  The real town and the fictional town are very similar as they are both mill towns. They both had a grassy median down the main street (Seneca Falls does not anymore), both communities boast Victorian architecture and a large Italian population plus they both have very similar bridges.  In Seneca Falls, there was a local businessman named Norman J. Gould who owned Gould Pumps and was one of the richest men in town.  Gould also had great control over politics and economics of the area much as Henry F. Potter did in the film.

The film was shot at RKO Radio Pictures Studio in Culver City, CA and at the 89 acre RKO movie ranch in Encino where "Bedford Falls" that covered four acres assembled from three separate parts with a main street stretching 300 yards (three city blocks) with 75 stores and buildings plus a residential neighborhood.  Capra built a working bank set, added a tree-lined center parkway and planted 20 full grown oak trees to existing sets for It's a Wonderful Life.  Pigeons, cats and dogs were allowed to roam the mammoth set in order to give the "town" a lived-in feel.  RKO created "chemical snow" for the film in order to avoid the need for dubbed dialogue when actors walked across the earlier type of movie snow, made up of crushed cornflakes.  Filming started on April 15, 1946 and ended on July 27, 1946 exactly on deadline for the 90-day principal photography schedule.

Making "chemical snow" on the Set.

Jimmy Stewart was said to say that the Bedford Falls set made him think of his hometown, Indiana PA.

There's nothing quite like It's a Wonderful Life.  The beloved 1946 Christmas film in which James Stewart plays a despairing man who is shown what the world would look like if he'd never been born, is, to many of us, as treasured and esssential a part of the festive period as Santa Claus, himself.

A question I have asked myself regarding this classic film and its plot is this .. what would the world look like if the film had never been made?  I don't think any of us want to find out nor would Jimmy, himself.