Bedford Falls | |
|---|---|
 Top: Genesee Street looking toward the courthouse. Bottom: Genesee Street looking toward the Station. Shots used in the film Cimarron (1931). | |
| Country |  United States of America |
| State |  New York |
| County | Bedford County |
| Website | www.therealbedfordfalls.com |
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, and they both have very similar toll bridges. The locations are both close to Buffalo, Elmira, and Rochester, New York.
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. [1]
The name Bedford Falls derives from both Seneca Falls and a hamlet in Westchester County, New York, called Bedford Hills.
Genesee Street is the main road through Bedford Falls. At the north end is a courthouse with a street heading east down Bridge Street, which departs the town. The street is 300 yards long, with over 30 stores and buildings, including a public library, a dance academy, a trust and savings bank, an emporium, a Western Union and American Airlines office, a barber shop, a florist, a beauty shop, a bakery, an antique shop, a "World Luggage and Sports Shop", a hardware store, a candy shop, an art store, a music store, and a theater (Bijou Theater). [2]
There is also a drug store (Gower's Drugs), a toy shop, a meat market, a newspaper office (the Bedford Falls Sentinel), a tailor's shop, a bicycle shop, a garage, a bowling alley and pool house, a hotel, a grocery, two cafés (including the Tiptop Café), a bonds store, a gas company, a telephone exchange, a police station and a building and loan (Bailey Brothers) that George (James Stewart) ends up running with his Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) after George's father dies. [3]
Down the center of the street, there is a tree-lined parkway with fifteen oak trees. The parkway is split off into three, as two roads cut through Genesee Street. One is Jefferson Avenue, which goes to the high school and Potter's Field, and the other is Washington Avenue. At the south side of the town, a road heads east, to New England and Sycamore streets. Another road goes southwest to the railway station.
The Bailey Building and Loan is at the corner of Genesee Street and Jefferson Avenue. [4]
The real Genesee Street, although non-continuous, stretches from Utica, NY to Buffalo, mostly along the route of New York State Route 5.
New England Street holds eight residential houses. One house belongs to Peter (Samuel S. Hinds) and Ma Bailey (Beulah Bondi) and is where George and his younger brother, Harry, grew up as kids.
Sycamore Avenue holds six properties. One of them was where Mary (Donna Reed) grew up. Another house down the street is 320 Sycamore, known as the Old Granville House. It was an abandoned house that became known to youngsters as the place to throw rocks at, and if you smashed a window you could make a wish. Both George and Mary threw rocks at the house after a high school party. [5]
George wished for a future of traveling and becoming an architect. Mary wouldn't tell George her wish but later in the film she told him she had wished to marry him and live in the house. The wish actually came true when in 1932, on the night of George and Mary's wedding, she bought it as their home. Through the years they redecorated the house, raised four children there, and lived the rest of their lives in the house. [6]
Bridge Street is at the north side of the town and connects to Genesee Street from the east next to the courthouse and runs out of the town via a toll bridge. Many other residents live up Bridge Street including the man who owns the tree George drives his car into when drunk. It is also the location of Giuseppe Martini's bar called "Martini's" (Romeo Restaurant), and behind the bar is the town's canal.
The toll bridge on the outskirts of the town is the location where George thinks about committing suicide but is saved by guardian angel Clarence Odbody. When the two are in the water (after George jumps in to "save" Clarence) and the toll man shines his torch-light into the water, you can see many of the houses on Bridge Street above the riverbank.
On the other side of the canal is a toll-house where George and Clarence go to get dry. In one shot of the toll-house, you can see many lit-up houses over the hills in the countryside, showing that the little town of Bedford Falls does actually spread out quite a bit.
The Bedford Falls railway station is the main form of transport to get in and out of the town. The location was used only once in the film when Harry (Todd Karns) comes back from university with his wife Ruth Dakin (Virginia Patton) as George and Uncle Billy were waiting there. [7] While waiting there George says to Uncle Billy that a train whistle is one of the three most exciting sounds in the world, along with anchor chains and plane motors. [8]
Bailey Park and Potter's Field are two different housing developments. Potter's Field is owned by Henry F. Potter and through his bank, while Bailey Park is owned by residents who have received mortgages through the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan. Bailey Park was built just south of Mount Bedford and north of the town. Potter's Field is a play on the term potter's field, which refers for a place for the burial of unknown or indigent people. [9]
Most people who live in the Potter homes are very poor people and can't afford to live anywhere else. Even this slum housing is not truly affordable, as Potter's organization charges very high rents for their properties, while skimping on amenities. This had provided the impetus for the Building and Loan to open their own Bailey Park development, which featured higher-quality homes at more affordable prices, and chance for people of modest means to build equity in them. Many residents, including the Martini family (William Edmunds and Argentina Brunetti) are able to move out of Potter's Field to Bailey Park with the help of the Building and Loan. [10]
| 320 Sycamore | |
|---|---|
| Former names | Old Granville House The Waldorf Hotel |
| General information | |
| Type | House |
| Architectural style | Victorian |
| Location | Sycamore Avenue, Bedford Falls |
320 Sycamore is the fictional street address in Bedford Falls of the Bailey family. It is situated down Sycamore Street to the southeast of the town. [11]
Before the Baileys bought the house, it was owned by a family named Granville, who left the derelict house vacant and it became a ghost house. The local teenagers made a game of throwing rocks at the Old Granville House, and if they broke a window they could make a wish. Mary bought the house in October 1932, on the day she and George were married. Over the years the young couple restored the house, improving it with such things as new ceilings and floors, all while raising their four children in it.
The film was shot at RKO Radio Pictures Studio in Culver City, California, and the 89 acre RKO movie ranch in Encino, [12] where "Bedford Falls" consisted of Art Director Max Ree's Oscar-winning sets originally designed for the 1931 epic film Cimarron that covered four acres (1.6 ha), assembled from three separate parts, with a main street stretching 300 yards (three city blocks), with 75 stores and buildings, and a residential neighborhood. [13] 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. [14]
Pigeons, cats, and dogs were allowed to roam the mammoth set in order to give the "town" a lived-in feel. Due to the requirement to film in an "alternative universe" setting as well as during different seasons, the set was extremely adaptable. 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. [15] Filming started on April 15, 1946, and ended on July 27, 1946, exactly on deadline for the 90-day principal photography schedule.
RKO's movie ranch in Encino, a filming location of "Bedford Falls", was razed in 1954. [N 1] There are only two surviving locations from the film. The first is the swimming pool that was unveiled during the famous dance scene where George courts Mary. It is located in the gymnasium at Beverly Hills High School and is still in operation as of 2023. The second is the Martini home, at 4587 Viro Road in La Cañada Flintridge, California. [17]
Since mid-December 2015 the small Scottish village of Birgham has been unofficially twinned with Bedford Falls, even having their road signs amended to include the reference. [18]
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.
Letchworth State Park is a 14,427-acre (5,838 ha) New York State Park located in Livingston County and Wyoming County in the western part of the State of New York. The park is roughly 17 miles (27 km) long, following the course of the Genesee River as it flows north through a deep gorge and over several large waterfalls. It is located 35 miles (56 km) southwest of Rochester and 60 miles (97 km) southeast of Buffalo, and spans portions of the Livingston County towns of Leicester, Mount Morris and Portage, as well as the Wyoming County towns of Castile and Genesee Falls.
Skaneateles is an affluent village in the town of Skaneateles, in Onondaga County, New York, United States. The village is named after, and located on the shores of, Skaneateles Lake, one of the Finger Lakes. As of the 2020 census, the village had a population of 2,533 residents.
SouthwarkBridge is an arch bridge in London, for traffic linking the district of Southwark and the City across the River Thames. Besides when others are closed for temporary repairs, it has the least traffic of the Thames bridges in London.
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.
New York State Route 5 (NY 5) is a state highway that extends for 370.80 miles (596.74 km) across the state of New York in the United States. It begins at the Pennsylvania state line in the Chautauqua County town of Ripley and passes through Buffalo, Syracuse, Utica, Schenectady, and several other smaller cities and communities on its way to downtown Albany in Albany County, where it terminates at U.S. Route 9 (US 9), here routed along the service roads for Interstate 787 (I-787). Prior to the construction of the New York State Thruway, it was one of two main east–west highways traversing upstate New York, the other being US 20. West of New York, the road continues as Pennsylvania Route 5 (PA 5) to Erie.
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.
A movie ranch is a ranch that is at least partially dedicated for use as a set in the creation and production of motion pictures and television shows. These were developed in the United States in southern California, because of the climate.
RKO Forty Acres was a film studio backlot in the United States, owned by RKO Pictures, located in Culver City, California. Best known as Forty Acres and "the back forty," it was also called "Desilu Culver," the "RKO backlot," and "Pathé 40 Acre Ranch," depending on which studio owned the property at the time. For nearly 50 years it was known for its outdoor full-scale sets, such as Western Street, Atlanta Street, and Main Street and was used in many films and television series.
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.
Little Beard's Town, also known as Chenussio and "Genesee Castle", was a powerful Seneca town in the Genesee River Valley near modern Leicester in Livingston County, New York, where Cuylerville stands today.
A Wonderful Life is a 1986 musical with a book and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and music by Joe Raposo.
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.
Philip Van Doren Stern was an American writer, editor, and Civil War historian whose story "The Greatest Gift", published in 1943, inspired the classic Christmas film It's a Wonderful Life (1946).
"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.
The Gould Hotel is a hotel in Seneca Falls, New York. When it was built in 1920 it was described as “the most complete and perfectly equipped of the smaller hotels of New York State." More than 80 years later, a $6.2 million renovation occurred.
Bedford Falls Productions is the production company of Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the creators of the television series Thirtysomething and Once and Again, and producers of Legends of the Fall and Blood Diamond. The company is also known for producing the series My So-Called Life, and the Academy Award-winning films Shakespeare in Love and Traffic.
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.
James F. Hawkins is an American former actor, producer and writer. He is best-known for his TV roles in shows like Annie Oakley, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Leave It to Beaver, Petticoat Junction, and The Donna Reed Show; and as Tommy Bailey, son of George Bailey in the 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life.