Jimmy Comes Marching Home, directed by Frederick Keeve, is a short film written by Yale School of Drama MFA graduate and New York playwright, Robert Gulack. Set in 1946, director Frank Capra (Bart Shatto) does his best to try and persuade movie star and WWII war hero Jimmy Stewart (Frederick Keeve), badly damaged by the horrors of aerial combat in wartime service, to return to acting and star in their first postwar film, It’s a Wonderful Life. Stewart, the first major American movie star to enlist in the United States Army to fight in World War II, is still haunted by the experience.and doesn’t want to act again. The story follows Capra’s attempts as he tries to convince Jimmy to take on the role of George Bailey, a man who has given up his personal dreams in order to help others in his community and whose thoughts of suicide on Christmas Eve bring about the intervention of his guardian angel. As Capra soon realises, Jimmy’s current state of mind is mirroring that of the character in the film. Could this role offer Stewart the redemption he is seeking?

About The Production

Jimmy Comes Marching Home was shot at Lux Angeles Studios, Los Angeles, in March 2023, with a budget of 20k. It was nominated as a Semi-Finalist in the Flickers’ Rhode International Film Festival and was an official selection of the European Short Awards, and the Culver City Film Festival where it won Best Original Short Screenplay Adapted From Another Medium.

Further information about the production can be found on IMDb here.