It's a Wonderful Life

Continuity mistake: George walks downtown to find Mary. He stops in the street as a man is walking the opposite direction. The man doesn't pass George at any point. The scene cuts to a closer angle and he has disappeared.

manthabeat

Continuity mistake: George throws a rock at the dilapidated house. He is talking about his wishes. Mary starts to turn in one angle and repeats the action in the next angle.

manthabeat

Continuity mistake: When George comes downstairs to eat with his parents, there's a lot of commotion including a barking dog. George looks down at it and the scene cuts instantly to a wider shot. He is no longer looking down.

manthabeat

Continuity mistake: When George is trying to open the gate to Mary's house, the walking stick in his right hand is pointed up, but the next shot it's pointed down.

Scott215

Continuity mistake: The walking stick carried by George as he wrestles with opening the gate to Mary's house is raised up in the closeup shot, then immediately down in the long shot when he finally is able to open the gate.

Scott215

Continuity mistake: In the run on the Building and Loan scene, Ernie approaches and stands close to Mary's left shoulder, but the long shot of George confronting the crowd shows Ernie further away from Mary and partially hidden by a column in the office.

Scott215

Continuity mistake: In the drugstore scene, young George is holding up his latest issue of National Geographic magazine for Mary to see, but the next shot shows George bending down to fill Mary's ice cream dish.

Scott215

Continuity mistake: At the beginning in the soda shop, the first little girl (Mary) is facing toward the camera, away from the other girl that comes in. When they start talking however in the next shot, both are facing outward.

manthabeat

Continuity mistake: When George crashes his car into the tree, the front of the vehicle is against the tree, but the next shot of George exiting the car shows the vehicle off to the side of the tree.

Scott215

More mistakes in It's a Wonderful Life

Mary: Bread, that this house may never know hunger. Salt, that life may always have flavor. And wine, that joy and prosperity may reign forever.

More quotes from It's a Wonderful Life

Trivia: The opening credits list a copyright date of 1947, but distributor RKO rushed IAWL into theaters December 20 1946, to replace 'Sinbad the Sailor' whose Technicolor prints were not ready. It went into general release January 1947. The rush probably cost Capra and his partners their indie studio Liberty Films, whose first production opened in a record blizzard back east and failed to make back its money; it also wound up losing out at the Oscars against a powerful postwar drama 'The Best Years of Our Lives' rather than facing a much weaker Oscar field in 1947. Then again, confusion over its copyright date seems to have allowed it to slip into public domain for about 20 years from 1973, leading to its constant (cost-free) play at Christmas time, cementing its reputation as America's favorite holiday movie.

DougM

More trivia for It's a Wonderful Life

Chosen answer: We know that Tilly (Matilda) Bailey is not Uncle Billy's daughter, because when Billy "loses" the deposit money and rushes back to BBB&L, George tells him that Harry's on the telephone and we hear Tilly say, "Hurry up Uncle Billy, long distance from Washington," so presumably she's George's cousin and Uncle Billy's niece. (When there's the run on the bank we see her desk, and there are a few photographs of men, one of which may be her father).

Super Grover

More questions & answers from It's a Wonderful Life

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