It's a no-brainer: Take a beloved Christmas movie, add songs and dancing, open the doors.

To call A Wonderful Life a no- brainer may sound like damning it with faint praise. Whatever praise there may be goes to the hard-working, if not entirely successful, cast and crew of the Arvada Center production, cer- tainly not the writers or those who chose it for the season.

Directed by Bev Newcomb- Madden, the show hews fairly closely to the 1946 Frank Capra film, beginning with George Bailey about to take his own life and flashing back to the events that led him to the crisis.

It becomes a musical through the writing of Sheldon Harnick, creator of Fiddler on the Roof, and Joe Raposo, writer of such classic songs as Bein' Green and C Is for Cookie, but together, the two are not a perfect match.

Rather, their score is at best forgettable and at worst - as in the overlong Charleston competition - a hackneyed outline of high-spirited songs of yore. The feeling is an attempt to sprinkle nostalgia upon us like so much fairy dust, the result like White Christmas without Irving Berlin.

There's not much a lead actor can do with the role of George Bailey. He can do a Jimmy Stewart impression, which is a road full of pitfalls, or play it straight, as Daniel Fosha does. Fosha has a fine singing voice but not the onstage charisma to suck us into Bailey's life, and the script doesn't give him many traits other than eternal sacrifice.

Christine Paterson, possessed of a beautiful, old-fashioned soprano, has even less to work with as Mary, George's true love. She's sweet, but she and Fosha find their finest scenes in quiet moments of mutual devotion.

As the hapless apprentice angel, Clarence, Rich Hicks brings some life to the stage. With a Beatles haircut and goofy vaudeville style, he creates an endearingly ineffectual goofball in the oldest traditions of comedy.

His counterpoint is the heartless Mr. Potter, played by Mark Rubald with corpselike cosmetics, a muppet's eyebrows and, if anything, not enough wickedness.

The Depression segments of A Wonderful Life will hit a little close to home for today's audiences, as the Building and Loan founders and George talks about his father: "People were human beings to him, not receipts. . . . You know how long it takes a working man to save up $5,000?"

That kind of punch to the gut isn't enough to create any continuity of emotion. Rather than invest in the characters onstage, most of the emotion we derive will be secondhand, based on the feelings we have about the movie's being thrown into three dimensions.

A Wonderful Life

* Grade: C

* When and where: through Dec. 28 at the Arvada Center, 6901 Wadsworth Blvd.

* Cost: $45 and up

* Information: 720-898-7200