Christmas in July! IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE Plays July 17-18th at The Sky View Drive-in in Litchfield, IL

“Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) screens Friday and Saturday Nights July 17th and 18th at the Sky View Drive-in in Litchfield, Il. (1500 Historic Old Route 66)Admission is only $7 (free for kids under 5). The movie starts at dusk (9:00-ish). The Sky View’s site can be found HERE

It wasn’t until the 1980s when IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE became the perennial holiday favorite it’s known as today. The ultimate feel-good classic from director Frank Capra was a box-office disappointment when it was initially released in 1946. Due to a clerical error in 1974, the film went into public domain and was then shown on every low-rent local access channel in varying degrees of quality for years and was released on VHS by a variety of fly-by-night  home video companies – including the infamous colorized version. In 1993 Republic Pictures enforced its claim to the film’s copyright. It stopped being televised as often but by then everyone had fallen in love with its charms and taken to heart its message: It’s not so much about what you leave behind when you die, but it’s more about how you use your life while you live.