Saluting Capra Jr. -- Wilmington's George Bailey

WILMINGTON -- They sang like tipsy carolers, drunk on hot cider, Dean Martin records and all the corny joy of Christmas. And of course, they rang bells.

If Frank Capra Jr. could see the 300 people gathered Friday night to mourn his death, and to watch his father's famous movie on a Wilmington big screen, he would have turned into a star and twinkled back at them, showing off a new pair of wings.

Capra died at 73 this week, breaking one of the few living links to "It's a Wonderful Life."

He timed his passing perfectly, dying two days before the holiday tearjerker's annual big-screen showing at UNC-Wilmington, courtesy of the film school he helped found.

It's a tradition popular enough to draw film fans from Charlotte, but Friday, they came to see if any angels hovered overnight, dressed in frilly nightshirts.

"Now we get to cry in public," said Patricia Williamson, an Internet worker with her family in tow. "I actually witness my husband crying at a different point [in the film] every year."

Before cancer stopped him, Capra would ring a bell along with Salvation Army Col. Harold "Andy" Anderson, drawing big bucks from moviegoers.

"When Mr. Capra rang the bell," said Anderson, a 73-year-old who has wielded his own bell since age 12, "people left $20 bills."

The whole evening seemed shot in black and white, ordered up to please your grandparents. A radio played nothing but Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra carols for 90 minutes. Cider and cocoa were free, but mourners brought their own marshmallows. The only thing missing was the Andrews Sisters.

Any death leaves an awful hole, the angel Clarence noted.

But Capra's work had clearly not yet touched those of tender years. At least a dozen people warming themselves with cocoa on the Wilmington campus were newbies, unfamiliar with George Bailey on any screen, big or otherwise. One father of three didn't know if he was attending a movie or a play, only that he'd come for something child-friendly and free.

"I've never even seen this movie," said Lauren Campbell, the house manager at UNCW's Kenan Auditorium. "I've seen snippets."

Meanwhile, Lou Buttino, chairman of film studies at UNCW, belted out "Auld Lang Syne" like an unashamed 10-year-old in a boys' choir, forming a duet with Anderson around the Salvation Army kettle.

Capra, he said, gave North Carolina its film ties, bringing movies from "Firestarter" to "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" and TV shows like "Dawson's Creek," which pumped millions of dollars into Wilmington's downtown.

"There would be fewer stories being told and seen beneath the North Carolina skies," Buttino said. "That would be a tragedy."

Capra never tired of his father's Christmas story, of imagining angels earning wings whenever he heard a bell, or of seeing George Bailey delivered from bridge-jumping despair over and over. The film didn't even do well at the box office in 1946, Buttino said, and didn't really become legendary until its copyright lapsed in the 1970s and it beame an endless television repeat.

Tearfully, Buttino recalled last year's screening, when Capra sat to talk with a disabled woman who had driven from Charlotte for her yearly dose of inspiration. Frank was like that, Buttino said, the sort of man who fluttered around behind you, making sure you steered clear of any bridges.

"Our friend Frank got his wings this Wednesday," Buttino told the crowd of 300 just before the movie started.

And as the lights went down, he raised his hand and loudly rang a bell.