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The 84-year-old, who was six when she played Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed's daughter, was orphaned at 15 and later lost a son to suicide, didn't even see the Christmas classic until she was 40. For most of each year, Karolyn Grimes leads the sort of quiet, family-centric life that one might expect any retired 84-year-old grandmother to lead — but come December, that all changes. Indeed, when The Hollywood Reporter connected with her by telephone last week, the Seattle resident was, for the 22nd time, being celebrated at a festival in Seneca Falls, New York, and she would soon...

It's a Wonderful Life star Virginia Patton Moss is dead at the age of 97. The last surviving adult cast member of Frank Capra's classic holiday film, Moss passed away on Aug. 18 in Albany, GA, as reported by Variety. Moss was credited in the film under her maiden name, Patton. Moss starred in 1946's It's a Wonderful Life as Ruth Dakin Bailey, the wife of Harry Bailey (Todd Karns) and the sister-in-law of the main character George Bailey, portrayed by James Stewart. Moss was the last living adult actor who had worked on the film, though several It's a...

We think of It's a Wonderful Life as a great American movie, a great Jimmy Stewart movie, a great Frank Capra movie — and, of course, as a great Christmas movie. We don't think of it as a great Italian-American movie. But we should, especially at Christmastime, when Italian-Americans — of Capra's generation and beyond — can be heard in every shop and restaurant singing many of the songs that define the season. Capra was born in Sicily, and at age 6 moved to Los Angeles. It's a Wonderful Life is spiced with subtle but significant references to his fellow...

Jimmy "All American Hero" Stewart was being slandered and fighting corruption to exhaustion back then. At that time, in reality, the US Senate tried to stop the movie from being released. http://www.tcm.com/ We the People!

Many of us will gather our families around the TV this Christmas Eve to watch Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life. The story behind the movie is well known, so I won’t bore you with reiterations of such. Capra based It’s A Wonderful Life on the short Christmas story, The Greatest Gift, by Philip Van Doren Stern. His adaption on the big screen of the ultimately undeniable importance and fragility of each and every one of our lives has become a gift to us in and of itself. But Capra’s real gift to us was his philosophy as a filmmaker....

If you have a big lawn you're tired of mowing or have overgrown land you need to clear, there are some four-legged friends who are hungry for the job. Prosperity Acres Farm in Sunderland, Md. has what it calls "green goats." As an alternative to using herbicides, property owners in Southern Maryland can hire the goats to chow down on unwanted vegetation. Many of the things goats feast on, are things you don't even want to touch. "They love the wild rose bushes, poison ivy, poison sumac, poison oak. (They're) not a problem for them whatsoever," says farm owner Mary...

This wonderful Christmas perennial is very unusual for films in that Hays Code Era, a villain gets away with the crime. Does that affect your feelings about this movie? For me, when I saw this movie in my youth, it did catch my thought and I remember asking my parents why. Now as a seasoned adult, I think that I appreciate a movie that does not wrap up all of the threads into a neat package.

Wishing you a wonderful election season...and a safe vote. Don't forget the bonus scenes.

U.S. filmmaker Frank Capra used the Nazi's own propaganda against them. Do the same with Obama.

One of the best films ever made is Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. The 1934 comedy features an heiress on the run from her father, and the reporter who joins forces with her. The two fall in love and, alone in hotel rooms, to guard against temptation, they hang a blanket between their beds. They call it “the walls of Jericho.” When the couple finally ties the knot, the “wall” comes tumbling down. In the 1930s, a plotline that precluded premarital sex was a wise idea. Movie-makers who flouted the Motion Picture Production...

When it comes to a Christmastime movie, a perennial favorite of most everyone is It’s a Wonderful Life. Jimmy Stewart made no secret it was his favorite film and favorite role as George Bailey. The poignant slice of Americana is on the Vatican’s film list and No. 5 on the Register’s 100 best films list. No matter how many times we watch it, the story remains fresh and remarkably uplifting. And with strong spiritual implications whose foundations were laid before filming began. Before Stewart became George Bailey, his guardian angel surely watched over him during harrowing combat missions in World...

The other night, along with many other Americans, I watched the Frank Capra classic It's a Wonderful Life. Starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, the movie has become a Christmas staple -- but it was not always that way, and how it attained its holiday status has as much to do with the intricacies of intellectual property law as it does with the storyline and the production values.   When it was released in 1946, It's a Wonderful Life was only a moderate success. The story was unusual for Christmas -- built around an attempted suicide by banker George Bailey...

As explored here this past weekend, the Clarion Fund has paid dozens of newspapers across the country -- almost solely in "swing" election states -- and The New York Times to distribute the "Islam terror" DVD "Obsession" with their home delivery packages. Among the larger cities where this has taken place: Miami, Philadelphia, Denver and Pittsburgh. An estimated 28 million copies have been distributed so far, also through the mails and other magazines. An article at the group's site, www.radicalislam.org, all but endorsed John McCain this past week, then was pulled down. But at least one newspaper turned away the...

To commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the surrender of Japan on Aug. 15, the Chinese government has released a film made by an Episcopal priest documenting the Nanjing massacre. The Rev. John G. Magee, an Episcopal missionary in China from 1912-1940, recorded the Dec. 13, 1937, capture of the city and six-week killing spree by Japanese soldiers that claimed over 300,000 Chinese lives. China’s Xinhua News Agency reported the National Museum in Beijing began screenings of Fr. Magee’s film on Aug. 10, and that a library in Nanjing dedicated to preserving the memory of the victims of the massacre had...

Selected excerpts from the new CBS News Holiday ClassicThe neighborhood of Black Rock Falls, somewhere in midtown New York. The streets are deserted, and snow is falling. It is Christmas Eve. Over the above scenes we hear voices praying:JOHN ROBERT'S VOICE: I owe everything to Dan Rather. Help him, dear Father. MIKE WALLACE’S VOICE: Help my son Dan tonight. ROBIN'S VOICE: Please, God. Something's the matter with Daddy. MARY MAPES’ VOICE: I love him, dear Gaia. Ommna hoptep chothulu. Camera pans skyward. Voices speak from the clouds. CLARENCE'S VOICE: You sent for me, sir? FRANKLIN'S VOICE: Yes, Clarence. A man...