Merry Christmas, George Bailey | |
---|---|
Based on | The Greatest Gift by Philip Van Doren Stern |
Directed by | Matthew Diamond |
Starring | Bill Pullman Penelope Ann Miller Nathan Lane Sally Field Martin Landau |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Running time | 60 minutes |
Original release | |
Network | PBS |
Release | December 25, 1997 |
Merry Christmas, George Bailey is a 1997 television broadcast directed by Matthew Diamond and starring Bill Pullman, Penelope Ann Miller, Nathan Lane, Sally Field and Martin Landau. [1] It is an adaptation of the 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life , which is based on the 1943 short story "The Greatest Gift" by Philip Van Doren Stern. [2] Filmed live, it is a recreation of Lux Radio Theater's 1947 production of It's A Wonderful Life.
It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas supernatural drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra. It is based on the short story and booklet "The Greatest Gift" self-published by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1943, which itself is loosely based on the 1843 Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol. The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has given up his personal dreams in order to help others in his community and whose thoughts of suicide on Christmas Eve bring about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody. Clarence shows George all the lives he touched and what the world would be like if he had not existed.
Meet Me in St. Louis is a 1944 American Christmas musical film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Divided into a series of seasonal vignettes, starting with Summer 1903, it relates the story of a year in the life of the Smith family in St. Louis leading up to the opening of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in the spring of 1904. The film stars Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Mary Astor, Lucille Bremer, Tom Drake, Leon Ames, Marjorie Main, June Lockhart and Joan Carroll. The film was adapted by Irving Brecher and Fred F. Finklehoffe from a series of short stories by Sally Benson originally published in The New Yorker magazine called "The Kensington Stories" and later in novel form as Meet Me in St. Louis. The film was directed by Vincente Minnelli, who met Garland on the set and later married her. Tony Award-winning designer Lemuel Ayers served as the film's art director.
George Bailey is a fictional character and the protagonist in Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. The character is a building and loan banker who sacrifices his dreams in order to help his community of Bedford Falls to the point where he feels life has passed him by. Eventually, due to difficulties in keeping the building and loan solvent, Bailey falls into despair so deep that he contemplates suicide, until a guardian angel, Clarence Odbody, gives him a valuable perspective on the worth of his life. George finds through Odbody's angelic power and gift what life would be like if he didn't have his wife, Mary, his children and friends, and what their lives and the social structure of Bedford Falls would be like without him.
Penelope Ann Miller, sometimes credited as Penelope Miller, is an American actress. She began her career on Broadway in the original run of Biloxi Blues (1985–1986), later appearing in the 1988 film adaptation of the same name. After playing small roles in the comedies Adventures in Babysitting (1987) and Big Top Pee-wee (1988), and receiving a Tony Award nomination for her leading role in the Broadway revival of Our Town (1988–1989), Miller came to prominence with a succession of major parts in films such as The Freshman, Awakenings, Kindergarten Cop, Other People's Money (1991), Chaplin (1992), The Shadow (1994), and The Relic (1997). For her portrayal of exotic dancer Gail in Carlito's Way (1993), she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.
The Donna Reed Show is an American sitcom starring Donna Reed as the middle-class housewife Donna Stone. Carl Betz co-stars as her pediatrician husband Dr. Alex Stone, and Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen as their teenage children, Mary and Jeff. The show originally aired on ABC from September 24, 1958, to March 19, 1966.
William Mills Irwin is an American actor, choreographer, clown, and comedian. He began as a vaudeville-style stage performer and has been noted for his contribution to the renaissance of American circus during the 1970s. He has made a number of appearances on film and television, and he won a Tony Award for his role in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. He also worked as a choreographer on Broadway and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Choreography in 1989 for Largely New York. He is also known as Mr. Noodle on the Sesame Street segment Elmo's World, and he appeared in the Sesame Street film short Does Air Move Things?. He has regularly appeared as Dr. Peter Lindstrom on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and had a recurring role as "The Dick & Jane Killer" on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. From 2017 to 2019, he appeared as Cary Loudermilk on the FX television series Legion.
The Hollywood Palace was an hourlong American television variety show broadcast Saturday nights on ABC from January 4, 1964, to February 7, 1970. Titled The Saturday Night Hollywood Palace for its first few weeks, it began as a midseason replacement for The Jerry Lewis Show, another variety show, which lasted only three months.
The Relic is a 1997 American monster-horror film directed by Peter Hyams and based on the best-selling 1995 novel Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The film stars Penelope Ann Miller, Tom Sizemore, Linda Hunt, and James Whitmore. In the film, a detective and a biologist try to defeat a South American lizard-like monster which is on a killing spree in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown is the 15th prime-time animated television special based on Charles M. Schulz's comic strip Peanuts. The subject of the special is Arbor Day, a secular holiday devoted to planting trees. It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown premiered on the CBS network on March 16, 1976, which is near the dates in which most U.S. states observe Arbor Day. This is the first special to feature the character Rerun van Pelt, who had debuted in the Peanuts comic strip in March 1973.
Karolyn Grimes is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Zuzu Bailey in the classic 1946 Frank Capra film It's a Wonderful Life. She also played Debby Brougham in the 1947 film The Bishop's Wife.
Henry F. Potter is a fictional character, a villainous robber baron and the main antagonist in the 1946 Frank Capra film It's a Wonderful Life. He was portrayed by the veteran actor Lionel Barrymore.
Garth Brooks & the Magic of Christmas is the second Christmas album by American country music artist Garth Brooks. It was released on November 23, 1999, peaked at number seven on the Billboard 200 chart, and number one on the Top Country Albums chart. Two years after this album's release, Brooks released a reissue of this album, Songs from Call Me Claus, which contained most of the songs from this release. The only tracks which were not carried over were "White Christmas", "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen", and "Go Tell It on the Mountain".
It Happened One Christmas is a 1977 American made-for-television Christmas fantasy-comedy-drama film directed by Donald Wrye, starring Marlo Thomas, Wayne Rogers, Orson Welles, and Cloris Leachman. It originally premiered as The ABC Sunday Night Movie on December 11, 1977.
"The Greatest Gift" is a 1943 short story written by Philip Van Doren Stern, loosely based on the Charles Dickens 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, which became the basis for the film It's a Wonderful Life (1946). It was self-published as a booklet in 1943 and published as a book in 1944.
Clarence Odbody, also spelled Clarence Oddbody, is a guardian angel character in Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life, where he was portrayed by Henry Travers, and in the 1990 sequel, Clarence, where he was played by Robert Carradine.
Mary Hatch Bailey is a fictional character in Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. She is the sweetheart and later wife of protagonist George Bailey. Mary is played by Donna Reed as an adult and Jean Gale as a child. She is loosely based on Mary Pratt, a character in Philip Van Doren Stern's 1943 short story The Greatest Gift.
Events in 1913 in animation.