With Thanksgiving and Christmas fast approaching, many people will inevitably be revisiting their favorite holiday movies. Two television staples of the season that have stuck around longer than most are the 1939 Victor Fleming musical The Wizard of Oz and 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life, directed by Frank Capra. While The Wizard of Oz’s plot has no real connection to either holiday, the tradition of broadcasting it during the fall has made it just as popular with TV audiences around this time of year as Capra’s classic Christmas tale. Another thing the two films have in common is that one of the more iconic film comedians of that era was considered for roles in both.
When MGM started the casting process for The Wizard of Oz, one of their top choices for the titular Wizard was the inimitable W.C. Fields. The comic was in poor health at the time, but was a fan of the original novel by L. Frank Baum, so he entertained the idea at first. Fields reportedly dropped out after the studio refused to meet his asking price. It’s easy to see why they wanted him to play a bumbling con artist, though, as that was a character he was very familiar with portraying in his own films. Here’s a clip of Fields at his best as a crooked ticket vendor in You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man:
Compare that to Frank Morgan’s portrayal of the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz, released six months later:
Another bumbling character Fields was in the running for was George Bailey’s Uncle Billy in It’s a Wonderful Life. Fields’s characters were also well known for their affinity for alcohol, so again, it’s no mystery why Capra would’ve had him in mind for the part. Here’s another clip of Fields, this time having some drunken hat troubles in 1934’s You’re Telling Me!:
Now take a look at Thomas Mitchell having similar issues as Uncle Billy in It’s a Wonderful Life:
Sadly, Fields was gravely ill by the time production was underway, and couldn’t reasonably have been expected to appear. He passed away just a few days after the film premiered in theaters. A resurgence in the 1960s made Fields something of a counterculture hero, even landing him on the cover of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album with other influential figures, but interest in his work has dwindled in recent years. One can’t help but think that if he’d just done those two movies, he’d have been much better known today due to their annual holiday broadcasts.
Then again, maybe it’s the way Fields would’ve wanted it. Although he reportedly sent out Christmas cards every year, he always swore he hated the holiday. The cruelest irony of all was that he died on that very day.
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