FOR a lot of people, It's a Wonderful Life is as essential a part of the festive celebrations as turkey with all the trimmings.

Even though it will doubtless pop up at some point in the Christmas schedules, fans of the classic 1946 film starring James Stewart will leap at the chance to see it in all its Christmassy glory on the big screen - and in a specially cleaned-up print to boot.

One of the most heart-warming films ever made, it tells the story of a good man, George Bailey (Stewart) brought low by money troubles. The film opens on Christmas Eve with a despairing George about to throw himself from a bridge. Then his guardian angel, Clarence, walks out of the blizzard and shows him what life in Bedford Falls would have been like if he had never existed.

Needless to say, it's happy endings all round, but there's much more to Frank Capra's festive favourite than its whimsical overtones might suggest, with a stark warning about the corrupting influence of money at the film's centre.

But if there's one film that's guaranteed to inject a bit of the magic back into Christmas, this is it.