Hollywood Insiders' Time Travel Novel Goes Back to the Future to the Set of It's a Wonderful Life

It's a Wonderful Time invites readers to revisit the 1946 classic Frank Capra film, celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.

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Doug Stebleton

Oct 12, 2021, 08:43 ET

SIMI VALLEY, Calif., Oct. 12, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- This year as the classic film It's a Wonderful Life celebrates its 75^th anniversary, Hollywood veterans Doug Stebleton and Reinhard Denke take a fresh look at the making of the movie in their new novel, It's a Wonderful Time. Published by Banner Press, it features a 25-year-old time-traveling hero, Evan West, whose crash into a telephone pole thrusts him into a temporal vortex that transports him into 1946 Hollywood during the making of the film.

West befriends Jimmy Stewart, gets a job with director Frank Capra and meets Dr. William Cooper (Coop), a fellow time traveler who worked for Nikola Tesla in 1899. Together, they hope to save Capra's film from being defiled by a greedy studio mogul.

West has a heart that beats at 24 frames a second and the same could be said of Stebleton and Denke, who between them have movie producer and film adaptation script credits. It's a Wonderful Time is the first book in The Hollywood Time Travel series.

In an interview, Stebleton and Denke can share:

It's a Wonderful Life trivia they uncovered in researching their book
Stories from Stebleton's first Hollywood job as a parking attendant at the Beverly Hills Hotel and chauffer to a powerful TV executive
Where the idea for the book came from, and why it's an example of the power of never giving up

Praise for It's a Wonderful Time
"A satisfying, exciting ride back to post-WWII Hollywood. Jimmy Stewart's character ... reminds me how much I miss him."— Rich Little, Hollywood Legend

"The sights, sounds, heart, soul and even smells of the good old days come alive on every page. In a word... it's Wonderful!" — John Schneider, actor, The Dukes of Hazard, Smallville and Poker Run

"This is a book for film lovers to fall in love all over again as they go back in time to these classics." — Doug Claybourne, film producer, The Fast and The Furious, The Mask of Zoro and War of The Roses

"It uses time travel to reexamine the post-war Capra film with today's eyes, and is written with lots of humor and charm." — Robert Davi, actor, Die Hard, License to Kill and The Goonies

About the Authors
An entertainment business veteran working in Hollywood since 1987, Doug Stebleton's company owns a catalog of songs that are licensed to film and television studios and to independent productions; its credits include Blood Diamond, Borat, Little Miss Sunshine, The Sopranos, CSI, ER, The Big Bang Theory and Blue Bloods. He has also produced several films including Big Life, a feature film that will be released soon.
Reinhard Denke is a Texas native and graduate of USC Film School whose first script, Sex, Greed, Money, Murder and Chicken Fried Steak, was optioned by Johnny Depp's Infinitum Nihil production company and chosen for the prestigious 2009 Hollywood Blacklist. Denke adapted The Lives of Beryl Markham (now entitled Undaunted) and wrote The Chickasaw Rancher, to be released this year, among other films.