Yes – it IS a wonderful life …

| December 24, 2012

My favorite director of all time …

Frank Capra !

He was a very young kid when his family sent his oldest brother to America from Italy to establish a “base camp” for the entire family to immigrate to America.

They told him to not stop when he got to America – but get on a train and go clear across the land to southern California.

Once there, the oldest Capra brother found a small place to live and a job – then once he had built up a little cash, he sent word and the whole family traveled there.

What a story !

And Frank grew up to become one of America’s greatest directors.

Frank Capra was brilliant. He knew how a story should be told on film.

One of his greatest films is “It’s A Wonderful Life” … which was not the big hit in 1946, but is now considered one of the best American movies ever made.

My theory of why it didn’t do well in 1946 was basically TIMING of the release. There are many great movies that suffered from being released at a bad time because the public was distracted in whole at the moment.

That said …

We are going to watch it tonight.

As a side note – Gloria Grahame was an amazing actress and a real babe in my book. It’s IRONIC that after “It’s a Wonderful life” (her 3rd film for MGM if memory serves me) MGM thought she had no future potential … but enough to sell her contract to RKO … and THEN she became the star she was … my favorite performance was in “The Bad and the Beautiful”

But I digress … as i seem to commonly do in this journal …

This is not my favorite Capra movie – which is like saying white chocolate is not my favorite type of chocolate … but it is in my top 20 all time favorites for sure !

See it again – or for the first time …

Category: Tony Rollo Blog

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