It’s a Wonderful Life is shown for the first time at the Globe Theatre in New York City on 20 Dec. 1946.

The film received mostly negative reviews and lost an estimated $500,000 for RKO Radio Pictures.

The film did manage to capture the attention of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, who wrote, “the film represented rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a ‘scrooge-type’ so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists.”