What is your favorite Christmas movie? Enjoy this encouragement from Jimmy Stewart on the ongoing interest in It’s a Wonderful Life.

From Movieguide. In a December 1987 article, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE star Jimmy Stewart reflected on the story behind this Christmas classic and why viewers continue to love it.

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After serving in the Air Force during World War II, Stewart found himself back in California, unsure how to break back into the movie industry.

Join others crying out to the Lord day and night. 

“I had been away from the film business, my MGM contract had run out and, frankly, not knowing how to get started again, I was just a little bit scared,” he wrote.

“Then one day Frank Capra phoned me. The great director had also been away in service, making the WHY WE FIGHT documentary series for the military, and he admitted to being a little frightened too. But he had a movie in mind.”

During their meeting, Capra pitched IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE to Stewart, and although he wasn’t sure if the story would make a good movie, the actor jumped at the chance.

“Frank, if you want to do a picture about a guy who jumps off a bridge and an angel named Clarence who hasn’t won his wings yet coming down to save him, well, I’m your man!” Stewart exclaimed.

Production began in April 1946, and Stewart believed “there was a certain something special about the film.” …

For Stewart, though, something indescribable made this movie different from any other movie he worked on, and in his article, he described one such moment.

In one scene, “at the lowest point in George Bailey’s life, Frank Capra was shooting a long shot of me slumped in despair,” Stewart described.

“In agony I raise my eyes and, following the script, plead, “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.” …

While some label the movie as “an American cultural phenomenon,” for Stewart, “it seems to me there is nothing phenomenal about the movie itself.”

“It’s simply about an ordinary man who discovers that living each ordinary day honorably, with faith in God and a selfless concern for others, can make for a truly wonderful life.” …

From Movieguide.