It’s a strange east Pasadena connection. Hard to imagine now, but in 1946, the train station scenes for It’s a Wonderful Life were shot at the old Lamanda Park Train Station. Our local Santa Fe station was turned into the train station for the movie’s fictional Bedford Falls, New York.
The station scenes set the stage for the rest of the movie. As the movie opens, George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart), is ready to leave town and travel the world. But, at the train station, he finds out he won’t be going anywhere. Instead, he will be stuck for life in “crummy little” Bedford Falls managing the town’s “cheap penny-ante building and loan.” From there, director Frank Capra spins a yarn that takes George Bailey from the depths of despair to “the richest man in town.”
Of course, the Lamanda Park station is long gone. It was taken down in 1953. But for decades it was a fixture at San Gabriel Blvd. and Walnut Street (then Railroad Street).
Who knows all this stuff about filming locations for an old movie shot long ago at a now demolished train station? There are no credits at the end of the movie thanking the good citizens of Lamanda Park. And, I’ve read that film records say the whole movie was shot at the RKO lot in the San Fernando Valley. So, who knew the local connection?
Well, the train fanatics over at The Whistle Stop knew. Their shop is located around the corner from the old Lamanda Park station and they had the goods. It was right there hanging on a wall in their store — a 1946 photo of the movie’s filming at the Lamanda Park station. The back of the photo states, “Santa Fe’s Lamanda Park station is renamed “Bedford Falls” for a scene in Frank Capra’s film It’s a Wonderful Life.”
The photo was taken by noted railroad photographer Stan Kistler, a local resident who lived on Craig Street near the Santa Fe tracks. Kistler was famous in railroad circles and you can read about him at the Pacific Electric Railway Historical Society site.
Here’s the Kistler photo of the Lamanda Park shoot:
Now, back to the question of who knew? The next leg of the story involves a stalker; the kind of stalker who seeks out and documents filming locations. Somehow the “stalker” wound up at the The Whistle Stop and spotted the photo.
Coincidentally, the “stalker” has an incredible blog named i am not a stalker where she documents old movie locations. The blog is a fun read and has a lot of Pasadena area movie sites. On Christmas Eve, 2010, she posted the story. The post appears with the Kistler photo and clips of the train station scene from It’s a Wonderful Life. The post even has then-current photos of the San Gabriel/Walnut intersection where the Lamanda Park station was located.
Now, the world knew that the train station scene from It’s a Wonderful Life was filmed in Lamanda Park!
And, that’s how I learned about the east Pasadena connection to one of my favorite movies. The i am not a stalker post is now fifteen years old but, as far as I know, remains the most complete resource on the Lamanda Park station filming. Great work!
Here’s a photo of the old Lamanda Park Station:
Below is a 1922 aerial photo added to provide a sense of where the Lamanda Park Station was located.
Let’s decipher this faded old map. Colorado runs east to west at the bottom of the map. The Santa Fe train tracks are shown by dash marks through the middle of the map. In the center, I’ve marked out in blue the location of the old Lamanda Park train station. San Gabriel Blvd. is the north-south street between Annie and Daisy. You can see where San Gabriel dead-ends into Railroad Street (now Walnut). That’s where the train station was.
Before leaving this post, I want to reference an excellent article by Matt Hormann that also documents the filming at the old Lamanda Park station. He has some interesting facts about local reaction to the filming and Frank Capra’s connections to the Pasadena area.
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It’s a Wonderful Life played locally at the Academy Theater on East Colorado Blvd. opening there in April, 1947. The film disappointed at the box office but gained popularity when its copyright protection inadvertently lapsed in 1974. With copyright protection gone, television stations could endlessly replay the movie. Audiences loved the movie and it became a Christmas classic. Despite its modest initial reception, the film was recalled by both Capra and Stewart as their favorite movie.
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