It's A Wonderful Life Museum — Attraction in Town of Seneca Falls

My girlfriend and I visited here on November 25th. It was the perfect way to kick off the holiday season with a quick visit to this museum devoted to Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The Museum has two of the only confirmed film props: the earrings that Gloria Grahame wore as Violet Bick in the film. Reproductions and similar historical furniture bring to life the Bailey’s living room and the pictures that hung in George’s office. Seneca Falls claims to have inspired Bedford Falls in “It’s a Wonderful Life” based on a visit Capra made to the town in 1945; the film setting of Bedford Falls near Albany, Rochester, and Buffalo; similar local architecture; and the story of Antonio Varacalli. The museum is fun for a visit while checking out other historical sights around Seneca Falls. It also works well that the town annually changes its name to “Bedford Falls” in honor of the film, which perfectly sets the...

This small museum was a nice quick stop while visiting Seneca Falls. All-in-all it took about 40 minutes to go thru spending time reading each letter, looking at the memorabilia, etc. Being a younger visitor, some of the displays lacked context to understand without googling. They had several interesting pieces in their collection, but have outgrown their space. While we contributed a donation to the museum and bought souvenir items, the staff had zero interaction with us- no greeting or thank you for visiting, etc. However, the staff went out of their way to engage w a few different elderly visitors for monies to have them be named as museum sponsors--it was awkward. We also went and visited the bridge around the block that inspired the movie scene and saw all the bells that other visitors put on...

Beautiful and nostalgic.

Even though I go to the It's a Wonderful Life events every year, I still look forward to revisiting the museum and looking over the artifacts, both as memorabilia from a movie I love dearly and as items from an age of moviemaking past and living past. It's a beautiful chunk of preserved history, in terms of movies and society.

My favourite things in the museum are the real life items that featured in the movie, were based on the movie, or were owned by actors in the movie. Particularly, the cigar lighter! As George always says: "Hot dog!"

I definitely recommend taking the time to stroll through this place. It's...