Fans of the 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life were left aghast after Amazon Prime edited out 22 minutes of the film, including the pivotal sequence where George Bailey (James Stewart) glimpses life without his existence, per foxnews.com. The botched 108-minute version, caused by complex copyright issues regarding the musical score, was branded “sacrilege” and an “abomination” by viewers.
Without this footage, the film’s narrative logic collapses. Audiences are left watching Bailey contemplate suicide one moment, before suddenly sprinting joyfully through the streets the next, with no explanation for his change of heart.
The existence of this truncated version stems from the film’s complex copyright history. While the movie famously entered the public domain in 1974, the rights to the underlying short story, The Greatest Gift, and the musical score were later reclaimed by rights holders.
Legal experts suggest this edit may be a workaround to avoid infringing on the copyrighted story, which is most heavily featured during the Pottersville scenes.
While Amazon reportedly hosts both the full 130-minute original and the abridged version, users complain that the platform does not clearly distinguish between them. This has led many unsuspecting viewers, particularly those seeing the film for the first time, to watch a version stripped of its emotional core.
•Featured image courtesy Everett Collection
