Largely forgotten, It Happened One Christmas was a gender reversing remake of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life with Marlo Thomas in the role immortalized by Jimmy Stewart and Orson Welles in a supporting role.
Dialogue was lifted and many shots copied from the 1946 original, prompting Capra to describe the December 11, 1977 movie-of-the-week as plagiarism.
The ABC movie was not a hit with the critics with some of the kinder reviews calling it “satisfying” (The Los Angeles Times) or “a well-intentioned but minor-league TV remake” (The Chicago Tribune).
It’s a Wonderful Life was not a television staple when It Happened One Christmas first aired and many viewers may have not been aware of the Capra film.
When The Washington Post panned the movie, writer Haynes Johnson made no mention of the Capra classic: “I had the misfortune to turn on the television the other night to something called It Happened One Christmas. What happened was the kind of abomination you’d normally snap off immediately; a syrupy, about Tiny Tim and Scrooge, but this time set in happy, homey, small-town America with a heroine (Marlo Thomas) who exudes more goo per second than anyone seen before. The ghosts of Christmas past, present and future are combined in one Mary Poppins character with a cockney accent.”
The character Johnson was referring to was the guardian angel Clara, played by Cloris Leachman. She received an Emmy nomination for her performance. (Henry Travers played the angel Clarence in the original).
Orson Welles was tapped to play miserly “Old Man” Potter, the role originated by Lionel Barrymore in the Capra classic. He provided a serviceable performance, but nowhere in the league of Barrymore,
It Happened One Christmas did well enough in the ratings that ABC repeated it in 1978 and 1979. It moved into syndication and eventually disappeared.
The movie has its share of admirers, some of whom have lamented its unavailability on DVD.
Marlo Thomas in a Facebook posting several years ago encouraged those fans to petition Universal Pictures for its release.
Bootleg copies are frequently sold on iOffer and eBay, though many are from an edited, syndicated showing. YouTube has several versions posted. Below is the full 109-minute version.
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