It's A Wonderful Life By Philip Van Doren Stern

“It’s a Wonderful Life,” directed by Frank Capra, was released on December 20th, 1946. The film was based on the short story titled “The Greatest Gift”, written by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1939. “It’s a Wonderful Life” received many mixed reviews considering its controversial themes. It was doing so poorly in theaters that when the copyright protection ended it was never renewed and thus it has been part of the public domain since 1974. Due to being part of the public domain “It’s a Wonderful Life” was shown very frequently on television during the Christmas season, and has now become known as one of the ‘Christmas classics.’ “It’s a Wonderful Life” is a controversial film with important family ideas, themes and symbols.

“It’s a Wonderful

What they were unaware of was that this transition into the public domain would be what causes the film to make its climb to the top. Due to it being part of the public domain, television networks saw it as a cheap Christmas film and would play it almost on a continuous loop throughout the month of December. Through this constant playback of “It’s a Wonderful Life” the film found something it had never found before, an audience. It remained in the public domain for almost twenty years until a court case changed it

The court case concluded the company who owned Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘‘Rear Window’’ had infringed the copyright of the short story that the film was based upon. The company that owned the movie along with James Stewart had to pay damages and a portion of the movie’s profits to the literary agent who bought the copyright to the short story in 1972. It was indicated that there could be more than 1000 other films in the same boat. This created the opportunity for Republic Pictures to reclaim “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Republic Pictures renewed the copyright contract for the original story properly along with that of the music in the film. Though the film remains in the public domain it is impossible to show the film in its entirety without permission from Republic Pictures due to the company owning both the story and the music. Later, in 1994, Republic Pictures signed a long-term contract granting NBC exclusive rights to show the film, which the station does a few times each year