Thoughts

The character I played was George Bailey, an ordinary kind of fella who
thinks he's never accomplished anything in life. His dreams of becoming a famous
architect, of traveling the world and living adventurously, have not been
fulfilled. Instead he feels trapped in a humdrum job in a small town. And when
faced with a crisis in which he feels he has failed everyone, he breaks under
the strain and flees to the bridge. That's when his guardian angel,
Clarence,comes down on Christmas Eve to show him what his community would be like without him. The angel takes him back through his life to show how our
ordinary everyday efforts are really big achievements.

Clarence reveals how George Bailey's loyalty to his job at the building-and-loan office has saved families and homes, how his little kindnesses have changed the lives of others, and how the ripples of his love will spread through the world, helping make it a better place.

Good as the script was, there was still something else about the movie that made it different. It's hard to explain. I, for one, had things happen to me during the filming that never happened in any other picture I've made. In one scene, for example George Bailey is faced with unjust criminal charges and, not knowing where to turn, ends up in a little roadside restaurant. He is unaware that most of the people in town are arduously praying for him.

In this scene, at the lowest point in George Bailey's life, Frank Capra was shooting a long shot of me slumped indespair. In agony I raised my eyes and, following the script, pled, "God ... God ... Dear Father in heaven, I'm not a praying man, but if You're up there and You can hear me, show me the way. I'm at the end of my rope. Show me the way, God ..."As I said those words, I felt the loneliness, the hopelessness of people who had nowhere to turn, and my eyes filled with tears. I broke down sobbing. This was not planned at all, but the power of that prayer, the realization that our Father in heaven is there to help the hopeless, had reduced me to tears.