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This is Later with Lee Matthews,
The Lee Matthews Podcast More what You Hear

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Weekday Afternoon, So on the Drive. Kurt Inger is best known as the

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editor and co producer of two Michael
Moore films, Fahrenheit nine to eleven and

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the Oscar winning Bowling for Columbine.
He's also produced a one of a kind

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podcast taking a definitive look at one
of the most popular and beloved holiday movies

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of all time, and that is
It's a Wonderful Life. The name of

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the podcast is George Bailey was never
born by the title Kurt, I am

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intrigued. Hey, Lee, thanks
for having me on. Well, the

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basic idea of this movie came out
of the mind of my partner Raynobashlsky,

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who is for ten years have been
thinking about this film It's a Wonderful Life

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and just it's his favorite film of
all time. It's had a huge impact

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on him and one of my favorite
films too, honestly. And if you

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don't like the film, I don't
want to know you. And you know

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that's episode six, but go ahead, I apology. No, no,

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no, there's there's episodes for those
people too. You know, everyone,

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We're very inclusive here in George Bailly
was never born podcast world, and we

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you know what's funny is, you
know, the basic conceide of the film

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is George Bailey reflects on or is
given the chance to see a world where

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he was never born and what kind
of impact he had? And that got

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us thinking, well, what kind
of impact does any of us have?

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And instead of being a podcast about
the movie, you know, behind the

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scenes stuff or who did what or
why certain things were done certain ways,

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which we do deal with a little
bit, instead of doing instead of being

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about that, we decided to think
about what kind of impact the movie has

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had on our culture here in the
States. And you know, we really

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the movie is so part of what
we think about as Americana. You know,

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what does small town America look like? And it's based on this film

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in a lot of in a lot
of ways, And so thinking about through

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that kind of lens, it was
like, well, what would what is

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our world like without any of us? And what if any of us were

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to go away or see the world
without our impact? You know, how

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would we feel about that and what
would happen? So it's it's kind of

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a big metaphysical kind of you know, college dorm room type, thinking that

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somehow iHeart gave us the money to
actually explore and and we thank them for

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that. And so, you know, it was like, is the the

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actual name is just reflective of you
know, of any of us isn't here?

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So George Baill what if George Billy
was never born anywhere? So that's

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kind of where it came from.
Well, the movie itself has a very

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curious impact because it was buried,
it died and withered, and nobody heard

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about it until until video came you
know, VHS video rentals came back.

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That's when it seemed to have a
renaissance. Yeah, it was. It

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was that. But it was also
when in the early seventies, through a

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whole bizarre chain of events, that
the film fell back into the public domain

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and all the the UHF stations and
stuff started being able to program it without

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paying any royalty State of Buddy,
So they just kept playing it over and

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over because hey, it's reprogramming and
it was a really We explore that in

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one of the episodes too, is
how and why the film actually fell into

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the public domain and what the downstream
ripple effects of that are. So right

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now. It's it's you know,
you can you can see it on Prime

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and this and that and and NBC
plays it every year and it's like,

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but but who really owns it?
You know? And you know who whose

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film is this? And that's another
episode we explore, is whose film is

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this? And we we talked to
Jimmy Stewart's daughter, Kelly Harcourt, Kelly

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Stewart Harcourt, And we also talked
to Monica Capra Hodges, Frank Capra's granddaughter.

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And we also talked to the granddaughters
of the man who wrote the original

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short story that the film is based
on, Phil Ben Dornstern, who wrote

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a story called The Greatest Gift in
nineteen forty three, which was basically Act

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three of the movie. And Frank
Caprin his team, actually, we're able

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to flesh it out and create the
whole first two acts to leading up to

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George on the bridge, like how
did this guy get on that bridge?

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And that's kind of our thinking.
That's what the podcast is. Podcast is

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is if any of us were on
the bridge, what would we be thinking.

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So we look at these kinds of
issues in the podcast, we look

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at, you know, where both
the real life town that Bedford Falls is

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based on, which is Seneca Falls
in upstate New York. We look at

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that town and what happened to that
town since the film, since ninth,

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since the late forties? What would
Bedford Falls have been like since the late

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forties? What if George Bailey?
What if there are no George Bailey's Are

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we all Pottersville? These kind of
big issues. You know, what if

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George Bailey were a Nazi? What
he have jumped off? No? I

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don't know. You may have pushed
someone out there. Yeah, yeah,

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we're talking to Kurt Ingfer. He
has produced a podcast called George Bailey Was

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Never Born. You know his work
from some of the editing he did on

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Fahrenheit nine to eleven and Bowling for
Columbine. I'm old enough to remember the

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television movie version of It's a Wonderful
Life. I think it was called It

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Happened One Christmas and it starred Marlow
Thomas. Oh my goodness. I don't

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know if it was an Aaron Spelling
production, but it probably was. Yeah,

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Oh no, it was a it
was a Marlo Thomas production. Oh

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okay, it was. It was
her thing. That is so amazing.

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Oh man. I remember then after
me and Ray sat down and we watched

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this thing and we were like,
what did we just watch? It was

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crazy? Yeah. And you you
know Orson Willis was in that right or

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yeah, played played Potter, played
Potter. Yeah. Oh man, Oh

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I just wish he would have they
would have led him directed the Uh the

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podcast. The podcast is George Bailey
was never born. I want to begun

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podcast as you can hear on the
iHeartRadio appen everywhere you get podcasts. And

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Kurt as an editor, to me, I know as an audio editor that

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the magic happens in the editing,
and the same I think happens when you're

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editing a film. So I imagine
your podcast as well edited I hope.

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So so far, the people there
haven't been any complaints about the editing,

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let's just say that. And I
must say that our person did most of

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the editing. Elizabeth Marcus did a
bang up job, and I did quite

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a bit of editing also, and
uh, and you know it was just

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a team effort, because you know, we interviewed over two hundred people for

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this, everyone from journalists for the
New York Times like Wendell Jamison to conservative

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talk show hosts Tom Mullen, to
h Esquire writer Dom Nero, to you

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know, uh, various people all
over the country. We interviewed librarians in

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New Hampshire and real estate agents in
Massachusetts, and it was just, you

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know, we just want to get
people's opinions about the film, and we

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wanted to get some actual, uh
you know, kind of expert opinions,

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uh in some ways about the issues
we wanted to deal with. So we

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talked to people like Ryan Pohle,
who are you know, uh they're historians

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or sociologists and stuff. And and
we also talked to like David Wilson,

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who is a Scottish psychopath criminologist.
Yeah, and he has videos on like

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Vandy fair Page and he examines the
you know, the mind of of of

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serial murders and we ask him,
okay, do your thing on Potter,

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what's he love? Yeah, And
so we really did a big deep dive

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into into you know, the psychology
of the characters and and that way kind

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of the psychology of our country in
a way like right now, like how

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did we get here? And what
does this film have? What does what

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can this film teach us or show
us about ourselves that maybe can help us.

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George Bailey was never born. The
podcast available on the iHeartRadio app everywhere

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you get podcasts. Kurt Ngfer is
the one who brought it to you.

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We thank you for joining us and
Merry Christmas. All right, Thank you,

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Lee, Thanks so much for everyone
out there. Thanks for listening to

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Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee
Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to

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The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five
to seven and iHeartMedia presentation