Christian Signature and Archetype in Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life

by Donald R. Riccomini

Notes

1. Raymond Carney, American Vision: The films of Frank Capra (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986), 381. Hereafter cited parenthetically as Carney.

2. Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1972), 36-37.

3. Dan Schneider, “A Defense Of It's A Wonderful Life,” online at Cosmoetica , http://www.cosmoetica.com/B295-DES235.htm, notes that “The film opens as if a storybook, telling the viewer that this may indeed be just a fable.”