For the scene that required Donna Reed to throw a rock through the window of the Granville house, director Frank Capra hired a marksman to shoot it out on cue. To everyone's amazement, Reed broke the window by herself. She had played baseball in high school and had a strong throwing arm.

As Uncle Billy drunkenly leaves the Bailey home, it sounds as if he stumbles into some trash cans on the sidewalk. In fact, a crew member dropped a large tray of props right after Thomas Mitchell went off-screen. James Stewart began laughing, and Mitchell quickly improvised, "I'm all right! I'm okay!" Director Frank Capra decided to use this take in the final cut and gave the stagehand a $10 bonus for "improving the sound."

James Stewart was nervous about the phone kiss scene because it was his first onscreen kiss since his return to Hollywood after the war. Under director Frank Capra's watchful eye, Stewart filmed the scene in only one unrehearsed take, and it worked so well that part of the embrace was cut because it was too passionate to pass the censors.

The gym floor that opens in the middle to reveal the swimming pool underneath was filmed at Beverly Hills High School In Beverly Hills, California, USA was real and is still in regular use. The same gymnasium moving floor was used in a similar school dance scene in Whatever It Takes (2000), fifty-four years later. The young man who opened the floor to the pool was Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer in an uncredited role. He was one of the stars in the Our Gang 'Little Rascals' series.

Sam makes a fortune in plastics while Harry becomes an engineer at his father-in-law's glass factory. Both of these come out of director Frank Capra's own education in chemical engineering. Capra himself was unable to find a job with his background, and like George Bailey, considered himself a failure for many years.

Continuity

When George and Clarence are drying off in the bridge keeper's shack, the postcard hanging by the thermometer on the wall next to the door repeatedly disappears and reappears between shots.

On Christmas Eve when he is hugging Tommy, George is clean shaven at 1:25:35 (2007 DVD). By the time he climbs the stairs to check on ZuZu he has a heavy 5 O'clock shadow on his face (at 1:28:36).

As George approaches Bert and Ernie by Ernie's taxi, and then all three ogle Violet as she walks down the street, the same woman in a print dress, holding the brim of her hat, walks by five times in 30 seconds from 0:13:25 to 0:13:59 (2007 DVD).

Just before George speaks to Harry on the phone, George removes a wreath from his arm and places it on a table. The wreath immediately reappears on his arm.

When Mary puts on "Buffalo Gals" on the phonograph at 0:43:38 (2007 DVD), she starts a ten-inch, yellow-labeled record, but in the next shot, a dark-labeled record is playing. Also, when Mary breaks the record at 0:46:46 after the conversation with George, she breaks a twelve-inch, yellow-labeled record instead of the original ten-inch record.



Factual errors

When Harry has his accident, he slides off the ice into a large area of open, moving water, not simply a small hole in the ice. Under these water conditions, the ice near the edge would be too thin to support the several boys already there.

When Clarence is being told what is going to happen to George Bailey, he is told that it will happen "at 10:45, Earth time". However it will be 10:45 at some point that day all over the globe. Without a location being defined, Clarence would have to check the entire globe throughout the day! Even the contiguous United States have 4 time zones.

The gigantic flowers in Mary's front yard could not have been that height on graduation night (May or June) in upstate New York.

(at 2:06:07) (2007 DVD), The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) (1945) is playing at the Bijou Theatre. It premiered in New York City 12/6/1945, and was actually released 12/27/1945 to the first-run, big-city theatre circuit. It would not have been playing the neighborhood, small-town theatre circuit this early (Christmas Eve, 1945).

George and Mary both seem to think that ZuZu caught a cold by walking home with an unbuttoned jacket. George even accuses her teacher of sending her home "half naked". But people do not catch the cold, or pneumonia, or other diseases, from being out in the cold weather. They catch them from other people. ZuZu probably caught her cold from another student.



Incorrectly regarded as goofs

Many viewers think that the bank run on George and Mary's wedding day is part of the stock market crash of 1929, placing the date of the wedding too close to Harry's 1928 graduation and making no sense if Harry has been away at college for at least 4 years. Bank runs in the United States continued through 1933, which is consistent with Harry leaving for college in 1928, returning 4 years later in 1932, followed by George and Mary's wedding in 1932 or 1933.

The characters of cousins Tilly and Eustace DO NOT pose a problem. They are both Baileys being their last names are on their desk plates. These two, as well as George and Harry, all call Billy "Uncle Billy" throughout the film. It is further established that Peter Bailey is the father of George and Harry, with no mention of Billy having children of his own. However, it is never established that Peter and Billy were the only brothers in that generation of the family, nor the only brothers involved in the Building and Loan. (Presumably Tilly's and Eustace's father (or fathers) is/are deceased by the start of the story.)

When George Bailey is arguing with Mr. Potter in the board room after Peter Bailey's death, George says to Potter: "What'd you say just a minute ago? They had to wait and save their money before they even ought to think of a decent home." We never hear Potter say this, but it is possible that it happened near the beginning of the meeting, which we did not see.

Supposedly, the $8,000 is still missing at the end of the film. While family and friends have provided George Bailey with additional monies at that point, if or when an audit is performed, he still has to explain what happened to the money that his absent-minded uncle lost. This puts him in the same position that he was before he received the additional donations/deposits. In fact, without a solid explanation as to where the money went, it would likely be assumed that the money was either stolen by Uncle Billy or embezzled by George himself. The building and loan would likely face legal sanctions as would George Bailey. However, cash is cash. The Building and Loan does not have to explain what happened to the specific bills that were lost; they simply have to have $8,000 on hand to keep the books accurate. For the same reason that George can use $2,000 of his honeymoon cash to keep the B&L afloat, he can take the $8,000 donated by the townsfolk to balance its ledgers.

When George is 'unborn', his car, the flower petals and the insurance policy, among others, all cease to exist but not his clothes. However, this was likely caused by Clarence and his superiors as they apparently never intended George to be unborn forever and merely did this as a test to George. They would never have allowed George to have this experience without his clothes.



Revealing mistakes

James Stewart's toupee falls off after he and Donna Reed fall into the pool during the Charleston contest.

Just after 12-year-old George gives Mary her ice cream (with coconut on it, even though she said she didn't want it), Mr. Gower sends him to deliver some capsules to a customer. When George gets back to the store after stopping to see his father because of his concern about the content of the capsules, Mr. Gower is on the phone with the customer, stating that George should have been there "over an hour ago". Despite George being gone for what is clearly an extended amount of time, Mary is still sitting at the counter with a half dish of unmelted ice cream.

In the drugstore when Mary leans over the counter to whisper in George's ear, a piece of tape suddenly appears on the edge of the counter between George's and Mary's heads at 0:06:59 (2007 DVD). This was most likely done as a reference mark for the young actors so the focus puller could accurately pull focus.

Movie spans about thirty years, but druggist Mr. Gowers never ages, and looks the same, from movie's start to finish.

When the film makes the jump from 12-year-old George Bailey in Mr. Gower's drugstore to the adult George Bailey in the luggage shop, the character has clearly aged at least 20 years (Jimmy Stewart was 37 or 38 at the time of filming), but both his father and Mr. Gower appear not to have aged at all in the following scenes. They look the same as they did when George was 12.



Miscellaneous

In the bridge keeper's hut when they are drying off Clarence introduces himself as "Clarence Oddbody AS2" explaining to George that AS2 means "Angel second class". This doesn't fit. It should be "A2" or ASC". The way Clarence stated it would mean "Angel second 2".

When Clarence introduces himself to George he says that his name is Clarence Odbody, AS2. When George asks what the AS2 stands for Clarence says, Angel Second Class. This would be correctly abbreviated as ASC or A2C, but it could not be abbreviated as AS2.

When George is at the train station waiting for Harry to arrive, he shows Uncle Billy several brochures from around the world. Then he says, "Here, Venzuela oil fields" (mispronouncing Venezuela).

George is happy at the end when he finds being born is better than not having been at all, plus the townspeople donated money to get him out of financial ruin. It seems unlikely that this will continue since he still has the matter of the $8,000 to contend with, meaning he should file a police report, plus he still has to deal with Potter making life miserable for him.



Anachronisms

Young George Bailey is shown working in a drugstore in 1919 at 0:05:53 (2007 DVD), but he's standing next to a Coca-Cola Silhouette Girl Thermometer which wasn't produced until 1938.

Young George Bailey mentions a 1919 National Geographic Magazine article involving Fiji and coconuts at 0:06:41 (2007 DVD), but no such article was published by that magazine in that year.



Audio/visual unsynchronised

When Mary and George are walking down the street after the dance, she asks him at 0:24:46 (2007 DVD), "Well, why don't you say it?" The next shot George is heard saying, "I don't know. Maybe I will say it," but his mouth is not moving at all.

George jumps into the river to save Clarence. As he is rescuing him, Clarence is screaming "help", but his mouth is not moving.

Crew or equipment visible

When Potter is offering George a job, as George stands and leans over Potter's desk, above Stewart's head and out the window appears to be a 'modern' vehicle (colored blue in the colored version) with a chrome door handle.

At 37:12, as George walks past the train station, a crew member with her arms crossed can be seen reflected in the window.



Errors in geography

At the scene showing the new houses at Bailey Park, California hills are visible beyond the houses. The film is set in New York state, which only has much gentler, rolling hills.



Plot holes

When George and Clarence are thrown out of Martini's, now Nick's in the alternate time line, George first notices the name change. Yet, he apparently never notices this upon entering the establishment through the same door they are thrown out of.

It seems a bit odd that Mr Welch would be drinking at Martini's bar on Christmas Eve instead of being at home consoling Mrs Welch after George chewed her out earlier over Zuzu getting sick.

At the end, no one knows that Potter had the missing, so apparently he gets to keep it with no repercussions.



Character error

At one point George (James Stewart) calls Violet (Gloria Grahame), Gloria.

The characters of Ma and Pa Bailey, Old Man Gower, Uncle Billy, and even Henry Potter himself all remain the same age throughout the film, starting from 1919 up to 1946.

An uncredited actor wearing a dark turtleneck sweater in an unnamed role is the second boy to slide down the river bank. At 0:04:20 (2007 DVD) when he is halfway down the bank, a shout "Come on, Marty" can be heard on the soundtrack even though Marty (who slides third) is still standing at the top of the bank watching this second boy slide.

When George and Uncle Billy are waiting for Harry's train, George shows Uncle Billy a handful of brochures from different places around the world. He refers to one of the places as "Venzuela (instead of Venezuela) oil fields".

Near the beginning of the movie, George appears to be sliding with his peers, kids about the same age as him, and Harry appears to tag along. There is no clear reason for Harry to be hanging with the older boys if George does not exist. However, Harry may have been watching the older boys and asked to try sliding as well, and the older boys might have been

slightly

aloof of Harry until Harry got in trouble.