What made It's a Wonderful Life a classic? It was the cheap and free showings of the movie on television after the move fell into the public domain. People watched every year, starting after or on Thanksgiving and the film quickly became a tradition. Traditions are very important (especially CHRISTmas traditions) in my life, with my family and throughout my childhood. Beyond the film, I want to pass on traditions to my kids so this year I decided to put up the village in a trial run as I've finally finalized what I think I can use and fit into my own Bedford Falls. I have not set up our village for a few years as since the beginning of this blog I have had three small girls. Their names are Janie, ZuZu .... just kidding I didn't go that far :) But beyond the time, or lack thereof, to setup the village there is also the trouble of keeping these expensive and precious items intact with small kids around that have made me lazy the past few years. But, this year I decided that what good is waiting for all of them to be bigger kids if they don't get to experience the wonder of setup and grasp some of that Bedford Falls magic. So while rather jumbled and almost on a whim I decided to "make a night of it" and setup up my village in all it's grandeur and flaws still needing tweaked. There might be one or two people out there who care enough such that I decided to post some images to the blog with the aim of fine tuning things for next year and possible start dabbling into some video editing. 

    First some generic wide shots of the village sections. One section for the two streets, and the other elements reserved for more outskirts elements.

This is the section containing some of the film elements beyond the main streets and homes.

This end makes up some of the other elements I present outside the town more or less. 

The first section is basically a street layout that I've tried to layout as close to the movie as possible. Some of the buildings are only in tiny shots of the film, some only discussed, and some are not in the movie but were part of the set or script. I also used the great map from a great book I picked up a few years ag. I highly recommend this book for all kinds of facts and knowledge of the film. The Essential It's a Wonderful Life: A Scene-By-Scene Guide to the Classic Film by Michael Willian. This basically is me attempting to reconstruct the scenes that take place on George's big day ... errr ..night. You know as he runs by after realizing how blessed he was, is, and overjoyed at his second chance. 

"Merry Christmas, movie house!

Merry Christmas, emporium!

Merry Christmas, you wonderful old Building and Loan!

<George notices a light in Potter's office window, 

and races across the street. George pounds on the window.>

Merry Christmas, Mr. Potter!"

Roughly speaking the Bandstand is on the end of the street in front of the "court house"

The soldier memorial statue and "Bedford Falls" sign are directly in front forming a circle element. 

More or less will be my main street.

We have one of the Bench's, one of two in the center street, George runs by another one later

 Also still looking for the right trees to match the film. 

I have the stringed lights and bells but have not decided how to put them up in village yet.

    So as is obvious. This is a rough layout, that needs tuning and perhaps a few more peices when I can find the right matches. Threes of this kind, a second bench perhaps, and additional 1940's village cars and trucks of this scale. I welcome any suggestions. 

    Now the second section, which is the houses and residential elements of the town. I ended up just lining them up for now even though some of them clearly are not next or close to each other in the film. We only get a sense of where Mary lived from the wedding reception scene with George and his mother, ...

Here's your hat, what's your hurry! Mother pointing George toward the Hatch home from the Bailey Home

... and obviously Bailey park is located outside the town. Potter and his rent keeper (the late great Charles Lane) discuss the area over a map that clearly places the area near former fields. But I just put the series 4 building Mr. and Mrs. Martini's house in the line of house for now. I placed the Gazebo from series 5 there are an element of the Bailey Park. 

Charles Lane - Lived to be 102

Potter angry over the growth of Mr. Martini's neighbors

Bailey Park clearly on the outskirts of Bedford Falls

    I've thought about buying additional homes to create a residential street with the likes of Target's Burt the Cop home, a house that looks like the man's home with the Tree George Runs into, and some others but space is already an issue so I"m still thinking on that one. 

His Great Grandfather planted that tree George!

Bert the Cop's home from the Target collection

    I've also placed the Church in this area since it makes sense the building would be located near the homes and this type of church isn't one you likely find within the downtown areas. The older church we see on VJ day would be, but I have not located a Village stone church that I think resembled the doorway and exterior that we see. The Lefton village has one I'm eyeing. 

Always felt too large for Bedford Falls but impressive

Doesn't seem Catholic to me

    It's just stock footage I'm sure as I don't see anything like it located on the RKO studio lot either. Would like to know if anyone has information on what church was filmed for the footage. Here is a link to great information on the former lot again. 

   

Small town church and Nativity

    I always put a couple of my Enesco village trees around the church. 

This is my little Nativity, that is a Dept 56 piece. Plan on getting a small light for baby Jesus and star. It compliments my own CHRISTmas thoughts and the core of why I love the film.   

   "All I'm asking is thirty days more . . ."

until Christmas

Visiting the Martini Home ... for real. One of only two real locations from the film that you can actually still visit.

   Obviously a lot of this blog is referencing my love of the film (what I call an experience) with connection to the villages and items I set up every year around CHRISTmas. One of my favorite pieces already documented was the building from the 4th series, the Martini House. What I have only recently found, was that that house has been located and is well documented. Several sites are available to see shots of the building as it stands today and it seems virtually unchanged with the same house number still in the same location across the door Mary and George stood at in the famous scene. The address of the home location is 4587 Viro Rd La Cañada Flintridge, California. Below is the street view picture bringing it to full color and life.

Via Google Streetview: The Martini home today

   I will not steal or go into details available on various sites but check out the following for tons of information on the location today. 

This page has a ton of information and many great then and now pictures, as does this one.  The poster also even has pictures of the other buildings caught in the scene and their locations today. She highlights just about all aspects from the scene in regards to how it appears today. The author, Lindsay Blake, seems to run a blog that focuses on movie locations you can visit. All credit goes to her, her site can be found here. This other site has some of the same but also has some pictures of the roadway George and Mary parked on and how it looks today, as well as the location of the tree that the Bailey Park sign was hung as well. Very cool! 

Those outside the Enesco family ... Potter's Mill from the Target Bedford Falls collection.

  The Enesco series is just one of at least five villages that are based on the It's a Wonderful Life film. I believe (obviously) that the best of these is the Enesco collection but one of its limitations is the number of buildings in the collection as they stopped after only five releases. Thus, there are some buildings that I wanted for my own Bedford Falls that required stepping outside of the Enesco universe. They had to be a building that wasn't part of that collection, yet filled a gap in the town I wanted to recreate. Thus, one of those was the Potter's Mill building that offered a unique look at some of Mr. Potter's method of income outside the banking element so visible in the film. It does not have a specific reference in the film, but one does not have to stretch very hard at all to imagine the Potter family owning and operating a Mill, likely connected to keeping workers paying his rents in the actual referenced Potter's fields. The closets thing relating to the film would be George's reference to Sam about some of the older employers in Bedford Falls, specifically a machinery and tool shop. During their famous exchange on the phone George mentioned:

"Oh, I don't know . . . why not right here? You remember that old tool and machinery works? You tell your father he can get that for a song. And all the labor he wants, too. Half the town was thrown out of work when they closed down."

Now the Mill is labeled for lumber supply but given that Bedford Falls used to have a tool and machinery works, that infrastructure probably was related or connected to our Potter's Mill. So goes my logic and line of thinking.

Anyway here are some quick looks at that the Mill. .

Front facing