It's A Wonderful Life - 1946

It's a Wonderful Life, Donna Reed, James Stewart, 1946 Giclee Print
9 in. x 12 in.
Buy at AllPosters.com
Mounted

It's A Wonderful Life (1946), originally made for Liberty Films, is one of the most popular and heartwarming films ever made by director Frank Capra. Frank Capra regarded this film as his own personal favorite - it was also James Stewart's favorite of all his feature films.

It was actually a box-office flop at the time of its release, and only became the Christmas movie classic in the 1970s due to repeated television showings at Christmas-time when its copyright protection slipped and it fell into the public domain in 1974 and TV stations could air it for free. [Republic Pictures restored its copyright claim to the film in 1993, with exclusive video rights to it. Currently, it can be shown only on the NBC-TV network, and its distribution rights belong to Paramount Pictures.]

The film's screenplay (credited as being written by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, and Capra himself, with additional scenes by Jo Swerling) was based on "The Greatest Gift," an original short story first written on a Christmas card by Philip Van Doren Stern. Uncredited for their work on the script were Dorothy Parker, Dalton Trumbo, and Clifford Odets.

Gone With The Wind - 1939

Gone with the Wind, Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, 1939 Giclee Print
12 in. x 9 in.
Buy at AllPosters.com
Mounted


Gone With The Wind (1939) is often considered the most beloved, enduring and popular film of all time. Sidney Howard's script was derived from Margaret Mitchell's first and only published, best-selling Civil War and Reconstruction Period novel of 1,037 pages that first appeared in 1936, but was mostly written in the late 1920s. Producer David O. Selznick had acquired the film rights to Mitchell's novel in July, 1936 for $50,000 - a record amount at the time to an unknown author for her first novel, causing some to label the film "Selznick's Folly." At the time of the film's release, the fictional book had surpassed 1.5 million copies sold. More records were set when the film was first aired on television in two parts in late 1976, and controversy arose when it was restored and released theatrically in 1998.

The famous film, shot in three-strip Technicolor, is cinema's greatest, star-studded, historical epic film of the Old South during wartime that boasts an immortal cast in a timeless, classic tale of a love-hate romance. The indomitable heroine, Scarlett O'Hara, struggles to find love during the chaotic Civil War years and afterwards, and ultimately must seek refuge for herself and her family back at the beloved plantation Tara. There, she takes charge, defends it against Union soldiers, carpetbaggers, and starvation itself. She finally marries her worldly admirer Rhett Butler, but her apathy toward him in their marriage dooms their battling relationship, and she again returns to Tara to find consolation - indomitable.

Authenticity is enhanced by the costuming, sets, and variations on Stephen Foster songs and other excerpts from Civil War martial airs. Its opening, only a few months after WWII began in Europe, helped American audiences to identify with the war story and its theme of survival.

Chinatown - 1974

Chinatown, Faye Dunaway, Jack Nicholson, 1974 Giclee Print
9 in. x 12 in.
Buy at AllPosters.com
Mounted



Chinatown (1974) is a superb mystery thriller detective private and modern film noir. His original screenplay by Robert Towne is winning a survival which honors the best of Hollywood film noir from the pen of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler in the '30s and '40s. The film has refused to provide a slogan, instead of choosing images with words on his poster, which featured in the Art Deco of the 40s, the detective - his back facing the viewer, to smoke a cigarette, the smoke from to form the face of heroin, meaning creation, mood, and symbolism of the film without uttering a single sentence.

The film is a blend of mystery, romance, suspense and hard boiled detective / film noir genre elements - especially embodied in The Maltese Falcon (1941) (by director John Huston acting in this film) and The Big Sleep (1946 ). This revisionist film noir was the first production from the legendary Paramount Studios head (and former actor), Robert Evans, a flamboyant Hollywood figure who later in 1994 published an autobiography, juicy, stays for children in the photo that been made in a documentary film in 2002.

The film marks the return of French Polish director Roman Polanski in Hollywood five years after the gruesome murders Manson 1969 that claimed the life of his wife, actress Sharon Tate. Polanski chose to use a dark end rather than the final with more hope in the original script, probably because of the tragedies of his life. Only a few years later, in 1978 he would be charged and convicted of statutory rape in 1977 (and drugged) of a young girl of 13 years (later identified as Samantha Geimer), while for star / actor Jack Nicholson (absent at the time), and had to flee to Europe as a fugitive. This was the last film Polanski made on site in the United States.

Screenwriter Robert Towne was founded in part on a real scandal Los Angeles in the early 20th century (the story of the infamous 1908 Owens Valley "rape" scandal and Land San Fernando Valley-grab by speculators). The character of the film, Hollis Mulwray was loosely from the Los Angeles real life water engineer William Mulholland (Director General of the Los Angeles Water Works and Supply), which has orchestrated the purchase of water rights and water piping in the Sierra Nevada in Los Angeles by an aqueduct which crosses the north-precious now San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. The character's name was an anagram Hollis Mulwray clever for "Mulholland". The bad character of Noah Cross was a reference to the Bible, Noah.