As any proud Italophile knows, Christmas has deep Italic roots.

The pagan Roman festival of Saturnalia – a week-long celebration of Saturn, the god of agriculture – was held between December 17 through December 23rd. Citizens put wreaths and other forms of shrubbery on their doors, a tradition now associated worldwide with the holiday season. Emperor Constantine, whose Edict of Milan in 313 A.D. legalized Christianity, allegedly chose December 25th as the “official” birthdate of the Christ child as a way of sharing Saturnalia‘s popularity (which it did). And the colors of Christmas – red, white, and green – unmistakably mirror the red, white and green of Italy’s national flag, though the reasons for that were more political than religious.

Jumping ahead to America in 1946, we get to It’s a Wonderful Life, one of (Italian American) filmmaker Frank Capra’s most popular films. Though never intended to be an official Christmas movie, it has become such over the decades via its theme of an American “everyman” (George Bailey) turning despair into hope, loneliness into togetherness.

It was based on the short story The Greatest Gift by Philip Van Doren Stern; however, Capra managed to infuse the Christmas setting with his own popular brand of “can-do” American optimism, which had temporarily been muted by the seriousness of the war years. American audiences, after going through so much suffering from 1941-1945, were, like George Bailey, ready to believe that life could have meaning again.

Still, despite the Capra name, It’s A Wonderful Life didn’t do as well at the box-office as the studio had hoped. It wasn’t until the film was reshown on American television decades later, over and over again, that it became a beloved holiday staple of popular culture.

Interestingly, this so-called Christmas classic, which does have its critics (they refer to Capra’s blatant sentimentality as “Capra-corn”), may have Italic roots, too, yet not via the triumphant tone which infuses the story.

In a key scene in the film, a despondent Bailey stands on a bridge one dark night, contemplating suicide. Suddenly, there is a splash in the water. It is a man named Clarence who, unknown to George, is a guardian angel sent by God to save him. This fake drowning ruse jolts George out of his despair; he jumps in, rescues Clarence, and thus begins George’s reexamination of his life, set against the background of the Christmas season.

(Note: If this storyline sounds familiar, it should: Stern openly copied Charles’s Dickens’s 1843 classic, A Christmas Carol. He wanted to make an American version of it.)

Here is where things get interesting: On April 12th, 1917, on a cold winter morning in Seneca Falls, New York, a 22 year old Italian immigrant, Antonio Varacalli, dove off the Cayuga-Seneca Bridge to save a young woman who tried to kill herself moments earlier by also jumping off. The woman survived; Varacalli did not. In short, It’s A Wonderful Life may owe its dark undertones to a real-life, largely unknown, Italian American tragedy.

Varacalli’s death is an indisputable fact: The townspeople were so moved by his act of heroism that, a few years later, they erected a plaque in his honor. And in 2017, on the 100th anniversary of his death, the city began an annual “Antonio Varacalli Day” to note his sacrifice. Relatives were notified, and local school children wrote essays in his honor.

Now here’s where it gets really interesting: In Stern’s original short story, Clarence does NOT pretend to drown in a river so that George can save him. He walks behind George, who is slumped at the edge of the bridge, depressed and ready to jump, and whispers, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” The stranger’s remark stops George from following through.

What, then, inspired the filmmakers to change such a simple dialogue exchange to something much darker and more dramatic? According to a December 3rd, 2021 article in Forbes Magazine, it may have been a chance visit which Frank Capra paid to Seneca Falls:

Apparently, a local barber named Tom Bellissima said the film’s director, Frank Capra, came to Seneca Falls in mid-1945. While cutting his hair, Bellissima recalled talking to him about different things.

“Capra had been in New York City promoting his next production, ‘It’s A Wonderful Life.’ He apparently had an aunt in Auburn, [a city] about 20 minutes away,” explained Anwei S. Law, founder of a local Seneca Falls museum. “He told the village planner and a journalist that Capra asked about people, factories and the bridge. Bellissima didn’t know who Capra was at the time – he only realized who he was years later but recalled their conversation.”

That particular bridge, which Bellissima is said to have mentioned, involves a real-life story in Seneca Falls. While It’s A Wonderful Life shows actor Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey jumping off a bridge to save his guardian angel, Clarence, from drowning, the true tale ended sadly.

“We feel it is likely that Capra saw the plaque on our bridge dedicated to Antonio Varacalli, who drowned while saving a woman who had jumped from the bridge in 1917,” explained Law.

The article notes at the end that Jeanine Basinger, who oversees the Frank Capra Archives at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, can’t verify that Capra ever saw the plaque, heard this story, or added it to the screenplay. She also can’t verify that Capra based his fictional town in the film, Bedford Falls, on Seneca Falls. Indeed, Stern, author of The Greatest Gift, said that he actually based the fictional town in his book on Califon, New Jersey.

Still, although all of the above may possibly be urban legend, Antonio Varacalli’s sacrifice was certainly very real. And do note that the name “Seneca” is also the name of the great Roman philosopher, dramatist and stoic, Lucius Annaeus, aka Seneca the Younger – ironically, a man also familiar with suicide (he  was forced to kill himself after being falsely accused of plotting to murder emperor Nero).

One of Seneca’s famous quotes certainly befits the tale of George Bailey: “Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” -BDC

[The author wishes to thank his brother, Geno Dal Cerro, for alerting him to Varacalli’s story. Also, thanks to associate Frank Di Piero for noting the inconsistencies regarding Varacalli’s age. Various articles note that his father probably changed his son’s age to find him work in Seneca Falls, telling employers his son was 20. Antonio may, in fact, have only been 17 years old when he arrived in Seneca Falls in 1912. This would have made Antonio 22 years old at the time of his death.)