Whatever its social relevance, the film remains popular. What’s so different about today and 60 years ago?” “Think of all the people out of work, losing their homes, hungry kids worried about their parents. “Oh, it was fresh and dark, about as relevant today as it was when it was made,” said Grimes, quieting a moment. It was about Clarence the angel (played by Henry Travers) coming down from heaven on Christmas Eve to save financially ruined George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart) from killing himself so his life insurance would support his wife Mary (played by Donna Reed), and their four children - 6-year-old Zuzu, her big sister Janie (played by Carol Coombs), and big brother Pete (Larry Simms) and baby Tommy (Jimmy Hawkins). Watching it for the first time, 33 years after she appeared in the film, however, Grimes said she was swept away by the story she had never heard before. “I never saw movies I was in because my mom told me that would be prideful, being stuck on yourself,” said Grimes.

It was free programming, a cash gusher with no royalties paid to its creators, and the widespread exposure informed the imagination of generations of families huddled around the television over the holidays. When the copyright lapsed in 1974, television stations worldwide began looping the movie into their schedules. Though she had never seen it before 1979, her kids and everyone else seemed to be familiar with the sentimental chestnut from filmmaker Frank Capra. The film, of course, is the holiday classic “ It’s A Wonderful Life,” which premiered at the Globe Theater in New York Dec. But something tugged at her as she saw snatches of snow-clogged streets of small-town America and people she thought she knew. Working full time and raising seven children, the 39-year-old Grimes had no time to spare, much less to sit around watching television.

“I never saw the movie before,” said Karolyn Grimes, 71, remembering living near Kansas City, Mo., in December 1979 and catching out of the corner of her eye flickering images on the television of familiar faces and places from long ago.

How long is it's a wonderful life