Bedford Falls is the fictional town in which Philip Van Doren Stern’s 1943 short booklet, The Greatest Gift, and RKO Pictures 1946 film adaptation, It’s a Wonderful Life, are set. Genesee Street is the main road through Bedford Falls, with over 30 stores and buildings, including a public library, a dance academy, a trust and savings bank, an emporium, a Western Union and American Airlines office.
About Bedford Falls (It’s a Wonderful Life) in brief
Bedford Falls is the fictional town in which Philip Van Doren Stern’s 1943 short booklet, The Greatest Gift, and RKO Pictures 1946 film adaptation, It’s a Wonderful Life, are set. In 1945, Frank Capra visited Seneca Falls, New York to look for inspiration for the town of Bedford Falls. Genesee Street is the main road through Bedford Falls, with over 30 stores and buildings, including a public library, a dance academy, a trust and savings bank, an emporium, a Western Union and American Airlines office, a barber shop, a florist, a beauty shop and a bakery. It is also the location of Giuseppe Martini’s bar, and behind the town’s toll bridge on the outskirts of the town is the location where George thinks about committing suicide but is saved by Clarence Odbody. When the two are in the water, you can see many houses on the riverbank above the river. The town does actually spread out quite a bit, showing that the railway station is actually the main form of transport in the town.
The only time the town comes back in the film is when Harry comes back from the university and comes back to the town to get out of the water. In one shot of the toll-house where George and Clarence go to get dry, you Can see many lit-up houses over the hills in the countryside, showing the little town that the town has become. The name Bedford Falls derives from both Seneca falls and a hamlet in Westchester County, New. York, called Bedford Hills. It was an abandoned house that became known to youngsters as the place to throw rocks at, and if you smashed a window you could make a wish. Both George and Mary threw rocks at the house after a high school party. George wished for a future of traveling and becoming an architect. Mary wouldn’t tell George her wish but later in the movie she told him she had wished to marry him and live in the house.
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This page is based on the article Bedford Falls (It’s a Wonderful Life) published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 29, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
