Since DougJ started a Christmas music thread yesterday, how about Christmas movies today.
I don’t like any of them much, but I’ll watch It’s a Wonderful Life on occasion just to see the “what if George never existed” scenes. The only reason I like those is Jimmy Stewart. He made a lot of so-so movies, but I’ll be goddamed if anyone can do desperation better than him. When he’s rolling around Potterville getting ready to jump off that bridge, you can see that he dredged up something very scary from some dark place inside, and it adds a touch of reality to the melodrama. It’s all the more interesting because of the transition from an even-keeled regular guy into the suicidal, desperate figure we see in the “what if” segment.
Stewart is also great in Vertigo, of course, but in that movie his character is motivated by a fear of something most of us can tolerate (heights). For my money, the best desperate Stewart performance is in The Man Who Knew Too Much. Overall, kind of a corny movie, but there are a few minutes after his son is kidnapped where his whole world is falling apart, his wife is hysterical, and he’s essentially alone in the middle of Marrakesh. You can see that he’s barely holding it together. I have a hard time watching that movie because I find the mixture of Day’s hysteria, the loss of a child, and Stewart’s desperation a little too real. This still shot shows a bit of the flavor of that movie.
So I guess I like Wonderful Life because it reminds me of better performances in better movies. Maybe all Christmas movies are like that. Or are there some gems none of us know about?
Ron
I have to admit that “A Christmas Story” is my favorite.
superking
You’re completely missing the point of It’s a Wonderful Life if you think George is an “even-keeled regular guy.”. George is a man who had great dreams, and could have accomplished them, but was thwarted at every turn by circumstances out of his control. In the end, it is the evil of the bankers that drives him to that bridge, and the point of the scenes with Clarence is to show that even if he didn’t like his life, he was crucial to the well-being of thousands of others in his town. It’s a Wonderful Life is a fantastic movie that goes underappreciated because it is played so often.
kerFuFFler
I’m with Ron—-A Christmas Story is terrific fun.
superking
Meant to add that for my money Christmas Vacation is the best Christmas movie.
Comrade Dread
“Elf” is probably my favorite these days.
“It’s a Wonderful Life” got horribly overplayed. Same, for me at least, with “A Christmas Story”.
WereBear
We love to watch The Ref at this time of year.
Yes, it really is a Christmas movie.
Mr WereBear is on a mission to see every known version of A Christmas Carol, but even he drew the line at the right wing version.
FFrank
well if you go by so bad it’s good it’s “Ernest Saves Christmas”
If you take a tiny sip of beer every time Earnest does something stupid you’re hangover will last weeks.
JPL
I do love Ralphie in a Christmas Story and Mr. Parker. Darren McGaven was great.
Criticize me if you must but I also like Love Actually. Several other folks must like it because Hollywood keeps trying to create movies with a similar theme but most are bombs.
jibeaux
Oh, Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, and Elf, are all good for me.
Although it’s depressing that when Clark Griswold gets the jelly of the month club for his Christmas bonus, that’s more than I’ve gotten in five years.
JPL
@WereBear: There’s a right wing version? How can that be!!!!!!!!
also, too is there a version of “It’s A Wonderful Life” where Potter saves the town?
Keith G
Scrooged. The best of the genre.
I do like a lot of films that have the holidays in the B or C storyline:
Meet Me In St Louis. One of my favorite musicals (or anything). Judy singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas always crumples this vagabond ghey boy.
Glenda
The best Christmas movie ever has got to be Die Hard. With a sign that says “Now I have a machine gun. Ho. Ho. Ho.” in blood, on a corpse, how can you go wrong? At least, that’s what the men in my family keep telling me.
workworkwork
Add my vote for ‘A Christmas Story’.
However, our guilty pleasure for the Christmas holiday is ‘Love Actually’. Yes, it’s sappy and sentimental but my wife and I are sappy sentimentalists and always get a good weep out of watching this. Plus, we love the cast and there are one or two gems hidden in the story – Martin Freeman and Joanna Page as the two body doubles, for example.
Of course, another favorite for this time of year is the BBC adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s ‘Hogfather’. Very much the anti-‘Love Actually’ in its lack of sentimentality but it manages to tell a good story while exploring why we humans do what we do at this time of year and why it’s important we continue to do so. (For one thing, it makes sure the sun keeps rising.)
“How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ (the Boris Karloff/Chuck Jones version, of course) is another classic. I had a beagle as a youth, so I always love to see Max.
MikeBoyScout
1. It’s a Wonderful Life
2. A Christmas Story
3. Die Hard
Napoleon
For those that may not know this the house used in A Christmas Story has been restored to be like it was in the movie:
http://www.achristmasstoryhouse.com/
debit
Must sees in my house for Christmas: Scrooged, Die Hard and a Christmas Story. Although, after Die Hard we must then proceed to Galaxy Quest for more Alan Rickman.
Mox Nix
Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Brennan and Edward Arnold in Capra’s Meet John Doe.
He should have jumped.
Tokyokie
For those who prefer movies about the dark side of Christmas, check out the Finnish gem Rare Exports. Let’s just say that in some cultures, Santa isn’t such a jolly fellow.
In a similar vein, I like Gremlins and Bad Santa, too. But there’s daylight in those.
p.a.
A Christmas Story. I needed to take a break from it for a few years due to overexposure, but I think I’m ready for a viewing again. Wonderful Life I can appreciate 1/yr. I think Nicholas Cage and Tea Leoni in The Family Man made a pretty good homage to Wonderful Life, and I like the less-than-hollywood ending.
Saw Hamlet last night, and there were jokes among the audience as we were leaving about enjoying the ‘light holiday fare…’
norbizness
The best Henry Fonda movie is the one where he shoots the family of gingers in Once Upon a Time in the West. From that era, there are certainly some thoroughly uninteresting actors, Stewart being a huge example. Wayne was occasionally interesting (his psychopath in The Searchers), Bogart just plain had better dialogue, and strangely enough Edward G. Robinson was the one who played against his original type (gangster) the most.
p.a.
@debit: Galaxy Quest is a supremely underrated movie. Well done.
syphon
There is copyrighted material being discussed on this web site. According to SOPA, this website will be shut down.
Have a good day.
Bill
I’m an old “Miracle on 34th” fan, preferring the ’59, but I’ll go for anything that bashes overcommercialization.
RSA
I’m a fan of those rarely seen gems, Rudolph and The Grinch.
Schlemizel
@superking:
I actually find the movie very depressing. Here is George, a decent, honest, hard-wroking guy whos life is made unpleasant by the people around him, often because he tried to do the right thing. The Pharmacists causing him hearing lose by beating him for pointing out the RX would have killed the customer?WTF?
And when he finally decides he wants the ultimate peace he is guilted away from it because all those ungrateful bastards would be worst off without him. So he goes back to his old life and you just have to wonder what fresh hell the world will dump on him next.
WereBear
Us too! And the original, Boris Karloff, How the Grinch Stole Christmas is a must.
The live-action with Jim Carrey is simply a nightmare.
vernon
Trading Places
Beat Street
Edward Scissorhands
Nat’l Lampoon’s Xmas Vacation
Libby
I love all the Christmas movies. Fav is A Christmas Carol, with the Alastair Sims version as number one of course. But the George C. Scott comes in second and the Patrick Stewart version was pretty good too. Love most of the old musicals. Still watch the end of Wonderful Life from where George finds ZuZu’s petals, just about every year. Love it when George runs through town. Cry every single time at the end.
Oddly, I’ve never seen A Christmas Story. Maybe this year, since it seems to run on a continuous loop right through Christmas Day.
Schlemizel
@p.a.:
Galaxy Quest is one of the few movies I have on DVD – I may have to make watching it a Christmas tradition! At least it will be something different.
amk
DIE HARD – I.
What ? It’s a fucking christmas movie with fucking terrists. Lots and lotsa of them.
Boudica
@Schlemizel: George lost his hearing when he dived into the icy water to save his younger brother from drowning.
Cat Lady
A Wish for Wings That Work, and A Midnight Clear take a couple of interesting looks at the meaning of Christmas. Love, Actually is really fun to watch – Billy Bob Thornton’s president is great. George C. Scott as Scrooge is the best.
Boudica
And I have to put in a plug for White Christmas because I love Danny Kaye.
Moonbatting Average
Home for the Holidays!!
(ETA: seconding Christmas Story and Die Hard)
Joey Maloney
@debit:
And after that I move on to Dogma.
For Christmas movies, you remember that one from a few years ago where Arnold Schwarzenegger and another dad both wanted to buy the same toy on Christmas Eve and there was only one left in the whole city? Not that one.
Waldo
For a really bad Santa there’s “Silent Night, Deadly Night.” Serial killer Santa? That’s just wrong. But don’t take my word for it — my nieces and nephews find it terrifying. Every year.
Moonbatting Average
Oh! Totally forgot:
Nightmare Before Christmas
Bad Santa
ChrisB
I’m a sucker for the original Miracle on 34th Street with Edmund gween as Kris Kringle.
JGabriel
The Book of Life by Hal Hartley is pretty good (and funny) holiday film — more of a New Year’s Eve film than Christmas.
Brief synopsis: Jesus (Martin Dononvan) comes to Earth with Mary Magdalene (PJ Harvey) to carry out his father’s will and destroy the planet at the end of the second millenium. Thing is, Jesus is feeling a little ambivalent about this whole apocalypse project…
.
Schlemizel
@Boudica:
Thanks, I’m sure you are right, its been years since I saw the movie & I probably screwed up the details. It just seems so sad to me, I didn’t get a sense of joy from it that many people seem to. I avoid it now.
John M
@Schlemizel: You’ve got it all wrong. As another commenter notes, he lost his hearing when he dove into the water to save his brother. The pharmacist hit him because he was drunk (because he received the telegram informing him that his son had died in WWI) and because George hadn’t delivered the prescription. He was very emotionally apologetic when he realized what he had done. It takes some really hard-bitten cynicism to see old man Gower as a villian.
Schlemizel
@Joey Maloney:
It was Jingle All the Way (SIGH – I hate knowing that)
Sinbad! Although it did have Phil Hartman in a small roll.
Rafer Janders
@superking:
Ever since I heard the theory that George actually dies on the bridge, I’ve been fascinated by it. Think about it: George goes to the bridge, jumps off and dies. Then the whole “what if George never lived” sequence is just his dying hallucination, or George in Paradise — because what would Paradise be for such a man? It would be finally knowing that his sacrifices actually mattered, that giving up all his hopes and dreams wasn’t a terrible waste, that it all meant something. It would mean redemption.
When you watch the movie in that light, it’s an entirely different — and sadder and deeper — experience.
Still, I can’t help bawling like a baby at the end every single time.
Yevgraf
Bad Santa is my favorite. The foul mouthed interactions between the characters, Santa’s sex scenes, violence on kids and drunken loserdom all say “Christmas” to me…..
Linda Featheringill
@Schlemizel:
I agree.
If George had been able to live out one of his dreams, just one of them, he wouldn’t have been so ready to end it all.
Although I always find it amusing that the picture of Mrs. George being a single librarian being a bad thing.
thruppence
Alastair Sim’s 1951 Scrooge is required at our home. Little seen? Christmas in the Clouds. Light romantic comedy and mistaken identities at a struggling ski resort run by Native Americans with the great Graham Greene as a soft hearted vegetarian chef. awwwww
Krankor
The MST3k versions of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and Santa Claus are the mainstays of our household. Although I must admit if you go a’ wassailing singing Let’s Have a Patrick Swayze Christmas all you get is cheap, canned wassail.
Kristine
A CHRISTMAS CAROL with Alistair Sim as Scrooge. I still think he was the best.
(and I see @thruppence got there before me. And @Libby. Glad I’m not alone.)
Schlemizel
@John M:
Not as a villain but George as a victim when trying to do the right thing. Thats what bugs me about the movie, every time George does the right thing he is punished for it.
Downpuppy
@Boudica: White Christmas is the biggest ball of cheese ever filmed. Crosby is looking old & bitter, the General is pathetic, the Vermonters absurd.
Vera Ellen makes it all fun. It’s been on AMC every night for the last week, & I haven’t missed it!
Tokyokie
@norbizness: C’era una volta il West (Once Upon a Time in the West), considered by many the greatest spaghetti Western of all time. (Although I prefer Il buono, il brutto e il cattivo (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), and Alex Cox would tell you Il grande silenzio.)
@Joey Maloney: Jingle All the Way, co-starring Sinbad. Maybe Arnie was picking up a toy for the kid he had with the baby sitter.
And you’re welcome.
Jeff Fecke
@Schlemizel:
I think “It’s a Wonderful Life” doesn’t resonate the way it once did. The story’s moral is an interesting one, and one that isn’t very popular now: your dreams are great, but fulfilling your dreams isn’t necessary to have a wonderful life. Being a good person, working hard, and taking care of others is. (Also, marrying Doris Day doesn’t hurt.) Of course, that was a time when working hard was rewarded; unfortunately, the Potters won the day in most of the country.
Froley
@superking:
I agree entirely. I blame the fact that for many years they would show edited versions of the movie that would cut a lot of the scenes that illustrated how desperate George becomes (dreams shattered at every step). It’s a classic about the nature of duty.
Original Lee
@Libby: I saw A Christmas Story for the very first time this past weekend. It’s pretty good. I especially like the part where the dogs steal the turkey. (Not really a spoiler)
Original Lee
@debit: Then you need to add Quigley Down Under for yet more Alan Rickman. I tend to avoid Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, because I can’t stand Kevin Costner, which is too bad, because I love Rickman as the sheriff.
Jeff Fecke
@Original Lee:
Can there be spoilers about films that are 28 (!) years old?
J
@superking: agreed!
On Topic I think, and probably obvious, but just in case: anyone who likes Christmas Story and doesn’t know the Jean Shepherd stories behind it (collected in Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories), is in for a real treat. The movie is good, of course, but…
Schlemizel
For some reason my beloved has decided to watch every dreadful made for TV Christmas movie on Hallmark Channel this year. Simplistic plots, flat dialog, one-dimensional characters, predictable endings, flaccid acting, I have to leave the room before diabetes sets in.
There are several dozen versions of A Christmas Carol, a couple of them are pretty good (they have been mentioned here) but How about Mr. Magoo’s version? Surprisingly dark for a kids version, truer to source than some of the adult ones If I remember it correctly.
JGabriel
Jeff Fecke:
I think you mean: Donna Reed.
.
jibeaux
Did you know last year I found out that one of my friends, a 39 year old relatively normal socially engaged American female, had not only never seen a Christmas Story but had never heard of it? The phrase “you’ll shoot your eye out” meant absolutely nothing to her. I mean, Osama bin Laden had probably heard of the infidel godless Christmas Story movie.
Boudica
@Downpuppy: I like Vera Ellen, but would someone please feed her a ham sandwich? Her waist is so tiny in that film.
Yevgraf
My favorite part of A Christmas Story is a nifty little throwaway. Every time Ralphie checks the mailbox for the ovaltine decoder (and even when it arrives), he leaves his parents’ mail in the box.
That kills me every time.
Jeff Fecke
@JGabriel:
Yes. Her. (It’s early.)
Schlemizel
@Jeff Fecke:
Yeah, I get that. The idea of duty over dreams was very important to a generation that had survived the Great Depression and WWII.
I saw that in my dad, who worked in a factory for 3M for 50 years because it was his duty to take care of his family. It killed his dreams & he took that out on his family but he did his duty (unlike his one brother who abandoned his family & disappeared).
rikryah
I enjoy Christmas movies in general, and I love me some Jimmy Stewart. You are correct about him and so-so movies. one of my favs of his is Call Northfield-777, about a wrongly imprisoned man. I don’t think it would have worked with another actor.
I love George Bailey. I love his scene on the bridge where he’s at the end of his rope, or thinks he is.
elmo
Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol is must-viewing for me every year, even though I could probably recite the whole thing from memory at this point (I’m 45.) When I really want to irritate my partner, I’ll sing the entire “I’m all alooooone in the wooooorrld” song from the movie; when we get a really big turkey for Thanksgiving it’s always “The one as big as me?”
I love that movie. Sniff.
Chris
@Jeff Fecke:
I find it ironic that the movie apparently wasn’t seen as that special when it came out, and didn’t become really popular until the 1970s/80s… right when the “taking care of others” ethic was being run out of the United States on a rail.
Hawes
“You’ll put your eye out, kid.”
By the time Christmas actually gets here, I prefer Bad Santa, and I know it’s not a “movie” but the animated Grinch with Boris Karloff is always great.
Until I see Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes Christmas Shopping, I will remain unconvinced that the genre isn’t dead.
Rosalita
I’m in with Boudica and Downpuppy. It’s not Christmas unless I watch White Christmas. I love Crosby and Kaye together and I’m a dance junky. “Counting Your Blessings” is one of my favorite songs.
Chris
@Jeff Fecke:
Well, I would have appreciated it if my sister hadn’t told me that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father before I saw the movie.
the antibob
Favorite holiday movie (for grownups): Hi Life.
“The simple but clever plot, which involves a gambling debt, a bartender collecting overdue IOUs, and a tangled web of lies, sets in motion the trajectories of a dozen or so characters wandering the streets of New York one chilly December night. ” (Amazon review)
Plus caroling.
Available on NetFlix Instant Play.
Breezeblock
What?? No love for Holiday Inn??
I do love A Christmas Story and Elf. Just watched Allistair Sim as Scrooge last night.
Original Lee
My absolute favorite Christmas movie of all time is We’re No Angels, with Humphrey Bogart, Peter Ustinov, Aldo Ray, and Basil Rathbone. We always watch it at least twice over the holidays.
The original How The Grinch Stole Christmas with Boris Karloff is also a must.
Holiday Inn is also a favorite, only because my husband is deeply cynical. If I insist on watching this one, then he gets to insist on Die Hard I.
rlrr
Let’s not forget The Star Wars Holiday Special…
quannlace
‘The Bishop’s Wife’ Cary Grant as the dapper angel, but David Niven gives a nice, understated performance as the embattled bishop. And the little girl who plays his daughter is the same kid who was Zu-Zu in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’
Scott
“A Christmas Carol.” The one with George C. Scott. It’s the best one, period.
Original Lee
@Jeff Fecke: Yes. Yes there can. Any movie I’ve never seen counts as new to me!
rlrr
@Chris:
Rosebud is a sled and Bruce Willis is really dead.
Svensker
Christmas Vacation is a must see, as well as George C. Scott’s Christmas Carol. For desert, there’s Miracle on 34th Street, the old one. And occasionally the Santa Clause (especially for the Judge Reinhold sweater scene).
Special Patrol Group
Diner
Night Shift
Both are great but not really Xmas movies, they only take place around Xmas time. Performances in both movies are likely high water marks for most of the actors.
quannlace
I love that one too. “I want a dozen orchids. Loose. Looking like they don’t care.’
I just wish they could cut out the Lincoln’s Birthday segment. Whoo-eee, Bing, what were you thinking?
Joy
@Boudica: Vera Ellen was actually anorexic. They had to give all of her costumes turtlenecks because her neck was so disfigured from her eating disorder.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Everyone knows that “It’s a Wonderful Life” is a horrible movie, because they try and make George out to be the hero, when everyone (read: Douchehat) knows George was the villain and Potter was the real hero.
….seriously, I still can’t believe someone believed that sincerely enough to do a fucking column on it.
huckster
The Apartment
okay, it’s not really a christmas movie, but Shirley MacLaine is smoking hawt, jack Lemmon is freaking awesome, and Fred Macmurray is a total heel
Mudge
To me, Christmas movies are movies built around the central issue of Christmas. I’ve never considered “It’s A Wonderful Life ” to be one, although it is almost exclusively shown around Christmas. Christmas helps in the resolution of the movie, but is not essential. “Die Hard” is the same. Christmas is incidental and the movie can be shown any time of year. “A Christmas Story”, “Elf” and “A Christmas Carol”, along with others, have Christmas as the core of the story. They don’t play well in July.
Many movies have a Christmas scene (I believe “Little Women” does). That does not make them Christmas movies.
Of those mentioned, I never miss “A Christmas Story”. It has so many indelible vignettes that come straight from my childhood. The bullies, the tongue on the pole, shooting your eye out, the aunt who sent you a crappy gift. Since, is it TBS, has a marathon, it’s easy to catch.
Froley
Okay, since we’re talking about “A Christmas Story”, does anybody else get unsettled by the sexuality of the “who’s mommy’s little piggy” scene? I remember seeing that when I was a kid and getting a little flushed. Some kids had Skinemax, I had the light bondage of holiday classics.
Joe
29th Street
Danny Aiello, Anthony LaPaglia
Goodfellas meets It’s A Wonderful Life. I highly recommend it.
geg6
I am not ashamed to admit it…I love A Christmas Story and Love Actually. I own a Ralphie action figure. And I especially love Hugh Grant dancing around his PM office to the Pointer Sisters. I do not give a shit how much any of you want to make fun of me for this.
Steeplejack
@Original Lee:
AsiangrrlMN is the resident
obsessiveexpert on Alan Rickman, but I would also throw in Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990), a quirky romantic comedy about a dead husband who comes back.Egypt Steve
Wanted to fifth the motion on George C. Scott’s “A Christmas Carol.” Do I remember correctly that it was a made-for-TV movie, not a cinematic release? But I always thought it was a very creditable version of a great Dickens.
I always picture Scott saying something like “Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons? Wade into them! Spill their blood! Shoot them in the belly!”
tomvox1
He also made a lot of undeniably great movies. Aside from Rear Window, I suggest you rent the Anthony Mann Westerns, particularly Winchester 73 and The Naked Spur. Much tougher Stewart than we’re used to and in the latter, one of the most remarkable pieces of screen acting ever when he is “punished” by the baddies (no spoiler I).
Tokyokie
@Schlemizel: I saw that there’s a TV Christmas movie this season starring Billy Ray Cyrus and a plot featuring crippled children. I almost went into insulin shock reading the capsule.
Waynski
@Schlemizel: I’m with you on McGoo’s Scrooge. His performance is transformational. Never see it anywhere these days though.
JGabriel
@Rosalita:
I never saw it until a year ago, and, uh … I’m sorry but it’s really not a very good film.
I suspect it’s reputation is based more on the nostalgia who saw it when they were young, and the popularity of the song, than its cinematic qualities.
.
Bill K
It’s not hard to figure out where Mr. Stewart went where he “dredged up something very scary from some dark place inside.” “It’s a Wonderful Life” was his first movie after returning from combat duty as a flight leader for over 20 missions in a B-24 over Germany. As the first target in a 1000 bomber formation there seems to me to be plenty of opportunities for desparate thoughts.
JPL
@geg6: No criticism from me. See my comment at #8. I own both movies…
rlrr
Life of Brian works as a Christmas movie and as an Easter movie.
gelfling545
Two holiday favorites here are The Muppet Christmas Movie, which is essentially Kermit’s “It’s a Wonderful Life”, and The Thin Man.
Dave
In fact, George Bailey never lived. Welcome to Pottersville.
JGabriel
@geg6:
Is that permission?
.
Cheap Jim
On the question of Scrooges, I think it matters what you like better. George C Scott was a great Evil Scrooge. On the other hand, it’s hard to beat Alistair Sim standing on his head.
Me, I’m a Sim man.
grishaxxx
@WereBear: I love “The Ref” as an xmas movie, too – nails the sanctimony (which even the major characters recognize as false) and rewards rebellion on the side of honesty – very hard won, too; some dreams are just too dreamy, some pretensions just not worth it. And some lost souls can redeem you, in spite of themselves – yay!!!
NobodySpecial
Did I miss it, or did no one mention “A Charlie Brown Christmas”? The scene with the tree gets me every single fucking time.
Joy
@gelfling545: The Muppet Christmas Carol with Michael Caine is fun too!
Librarian
I would just like to remind everybody that Jean Shepherd, one of the greatest American humorists ever, did a lot more things other than “Christmas Story”- his radio shows, TV shows and books- and I suggest looking into them.
Waynski
@geg6:
I don’t have an action figure, but I’ve got a little figurine of Ralphie right before Santa helps him down the slide with his boot. It’s on my desk and I’m looking at it now. On my wife’s desk is a depiction of Flick getting his tongue stuck on the pole. I guess it’s clear where our sympathies lie.
JGabriel
@JPL:
Yes.
It didn’t do very well at the box office — which at least says something good about modern America.
.
Percysowner
Christmas Story is on my list, of course as is the delightful Hogfather. I also love Box of Delights a very old BBC production. Christmas in Connecticut and Meet Me in Saint Louis are great as well. I don’t care if they “count” or not.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
What? Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father?
Oh, great. Now my 152nd viewing of the movie is ruined!
EdTheRed
@vernon: I’m gonna second “Trading Places” – I break out the DVD every holiday season. Not a Christmas movie per se, but set during the holidays, plus you get Dan Akryod staggering around in a filthy Santa suit, stuffing an entire side of salmon into his shirt, and some New Year’s revelry on that Amtrak train.
Oh, and my favorite description of the commodities business: “Sounds to me like you guys a couple of bookies.” “See, I told you he’d understand.”
Bonus points for Senator Al Franken’s bit part.
JGabriel
Has no one mentioned Bill Forsyth’s Comfort and Joy?
Fie on you all.
.
Comrade Rich
@J: Agreed on the Jean Shepherd love. A Christmas Story is a mélange of many Shepherd stories. Others (including the story of the BB gun) come from his book, In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash.
His description of the Old Man versus the furnace had me cracking up as a kid. “Sonofabitch!”
geg6
@JGabriel:
Sure. For this reason and this reason only, that is. ;-)
@Mudge:
Yes, exactly. I remember the first time I saw it, I was enjoying it immensely but it all clicked with me during the scene where Ralphie’s little brother is being shoved into that snowsuit and is unable to move his arms and, later, unable to run in it. My mother used to do that with my little sister and, like Ralphie, I had no patience with the trials and tribulations of the little sister who always had to tag along. Another scene is the swearing sequence when the furnace blows up. My dad swore just like that in exactly those situations.
pk
I don’t know if “Groundhog Day” classifies as a christmas movie, but I love it. Love the theme of having the jackass hero live his day over and over again till he gets it right.
Steeplejack
@J:
Agree that Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters is a classic. For those who don’t know it, it’s a hilarious collection of Rust Belt memories in which Shepherd deconstructs the classic American growing-up experiences–not just Christmas but the summer vacation road trip, the county fair, prom night (the title story), etc.
One of Shepherd’s best stories, which is not in Wanda Hickey but is of a piece with it, is his take on summer camp, “The Mole People Battle the Forces of Darkness.” I’ll have to see if that’s in one of his later collections.
Ira-NY
Have you ever considered that “A wonderful Life” is “A Christmas Carol” from Bob CraTchit’s point of view?
Villago Delenda Est
@rlrr:
George Lucas really wishes that you would…
Alex
The Muppet Christmas Carol constitutes the apex of American cinema in the last quarter century.
Karounie
When I was young I loved, loved, loved Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol (yes, Dickens, with Mr. Magoo as Scrooge.) It’s probably not as good as I remember it but it’s better than anyone who hasn’t seen it would imagine.
It has some sweet, moving songs: “I’m all aloooone in the world…” and the scene with the Ghost of Christmas Future in the cemetery is genuinely frightening, made all the more poignant because Mr. Magoo is known for being nearsighted and has to crawl on his knees up to about 10 inches from the tombstone and sort of hug it to read Scrooge’s name.
I’m going to show to my eight year old and see if it still has any juice in the 21st century.
Waynski
@pk: I’d call it Christmassy in theme, but it is named after another holiday, so I think it’s out. You’re right though. It’s a good movie.
Villago Delenda Est
One thing SNL did absolutely right was the “lost” ending to “It’s a Wonderful Life”.
Now, substitute the Koch Brothers, Dick Cheney, and Rupert Murdoch (among others) for Mr. Potter, and that’s what needs to happen.
badpoetry
Like others have mentioned- A Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim. He’s the only one who’s transformation seems really real. He seems genuinely cold and mean in the beginning, the scenes from his past that drove him to become that way seem to ring true, and his giddy happiness at the end of the movie is infectious and wonderful. The key scenes that make the transformation seem real are the memories of old Fezziwig, the death of Tiny Tim, and the absolutely heartbreaking scene where Scrooge sobs, “Forgive me, Fan! Forgive me, Fan!”, over and over. There’s also a great scene in that movie where the Ghost of Christmas Present reveals two starving children clinging to his ankles, and he says something like “The boy is ignorance, the girl is want. Beware them both, but most of all, beware this boy!” I still get shivers. And that scene closes with Scrooge asking “Have they no refuge?” And the Ghost famously replying, “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”, echoing forever.
WereBear
@Percysowner: I just introduced Mr WereBear to Christmas in Connecticut last year.
A Barbara Stanwyk holiday movie that really is about Christmas, yet delightfully madcap.
DFH no.6
Was watching “It’s A Wonderful LIfe” (love that movie, always will — you haters can DIAF) with my brother and sister in-law and their kids a few years back, and at one point I just threw out the comment, “George Bailey and Potter — hmmm… I wonder which one is the liberal and which the conservative?”
My niece (HS age, and a little Republican-in-training, at the time) responded with, “Oh, that’s just a Hollywood stereotype”.
I countered with, “Sure, ok. But even though no one in the movie refers to either one at all with any such labels, you know exactly which one is which, don’t you? Why is that?”
My niece is now a young college graduate liberal Democrat living and working in NYC.
And her parents (who had been lifelong Republicans since I first knew them in the early 70s) were with my wife and me at Obama’s inauguration, freezing on the Mall, with my now-redeemed sister-in-law loudly calling out the president’s name.
So miracles do happen.
Oh, and definitely “Bad Santa” and “Die Hard”, also, too.
evap
people, how can you forget Mr. Smith Goes to Washington! One of my all-time favorite movies.
A Christmas Story for sure. When I was a teenager in NJ, I used to fall asleep listening to Jean Shephard’s radio show and I read all of his books, so I knew all the stories in the movie even before it was made. They did a great job bringing them to life.
And there’s always Meet Me in St. Louis, not really a Christmas movie, but it feels Christmasy anyway.
satby
Well now, I may hate Christmas music but I love good Christmas movies (though I’m one of the old duffers who never bothered to see Christmas Story, just never appealed to me; and I live a few miles away from where Prancer was filmed but never watched that either). My personal faves are Christmas in Connecticut and Wonderful Life, in that order.
jayackroyd
http://xkcd.com/988/
I think this applies to movies as well.
Eb S.
ABL reminds me of Scut Farkus. She’s got yellow eyes.
Chris
@DFH no.6:
High school age Republican in training… I remember those years. Grew out of them, glad she did too.
tt crews
“Christmas in Connecticut” (1945) has become one of my favorites.
Luscious Babara Stanwyck writes a Martha Stweart type magazine column but she doesn’t really live the life (including being married and having a baby) she writes about. When her boss invites himself for Christmas, hilarity ensues. The baby washing scene, in which she borrows a baby and misidentifies its gender, is terrific.
bemused
@tt crews:
One of my favorites too.
Shinobi
@WereBear: I LOVE THE REF. We just watched it the other night while making gingerbread houses.
Violet
I love Billy Bob Thornton in ‘Bad Santa’.
kindness
When me & my siblings were kids one of the ones we used to watch every year and loved loved loved was Laurel & Hardy’s Babes In Toyland. Just fun.
Kerry Reid
@huckster: It’s TOTALLY a Christmas movie! That Christmas Eve scene at the bar with the drunk Santa and Mrs. MacDougall (“Margie to you”) is fantastic. And it’s a movie about Christmas that focuses on folks who aren’t married with kids and living in the country.
(“The Apartment” is probably my favorite movie, period — not just for the holidays.)
I also like “Christmas in Connecticut,” where Barbara Stanwyck has to pretend to be living the Currier and Ives dream.
Rafer Janders
@jibeaux:
I’d never seen “A Christmas Story” until I saw it this last Tuesday evening.
I know, I know. How did that happen, right?
Steeplejack
Elf is the “modern” Christmas movie that works for me. Manages to get the feeling right in a semi-hip, not too sappy way. And it has some great moments: Will Farrell bouncing off the couch and diving onto the Christmas tree, Farrell yelling at the department store Santa: “You sit on a throne of lies!”
I haven’t watched A Christmas Story in a while. It always reminds me that one year (’85?) I got an early present of a VCR from my father, and the first two movies I recorded were A Christmas Story and Night of the Comet, a pretty good Valley-girls-meet-zombies movie. So I always think of those two movies together. Weird.
Another (very minor) Christmas movie that comes to mind is Remember the Night (1940), with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray. It shows up on TCM occasionally. Not a really great movie, but it captures, in a Hollywooden way, a post-Depression Christmas in a small town. I think it was the first time Stanwyck and MacMurray starred together, and the script is by Preston Sturges, so there’s that. Maybe it’s just that I sometimes like forgotten movies because they give you an angle on their time that you don’t get from the big blockbusters. The way our time may be better captured, in some ways, by those stupid Hallmark and Lifetime movies than by the big “message” movies.
Also, could The Shop Around the Corner be considered a Christmas movie? I seem to remember it’s set at this time of year, although it’s not a big plot theme. Terrific movie, though, and one in which James Stewart acquits himself pretty well.
WereBear
@tt crews: This is how rom-coms are supposed to be done: all the misunderstandings and misconceptions have sufficient pressure to keep piling up and complicating each other.
The more modern version, wherein they are all idiots and five seconds of thought would fix everything, is a pale shadow of a story.
Rhoda
Christmas in Connecticut: I just watched it off the DVR last night; I think I recorded it this weekend or sometime last week from TCM. It’s funny. Barbara Stanwyck is just gorgeous; as usual. But what really makes the movie is the gorgeous print; it’s just excellent. A vibrant and bright black and white movie. I loved watching the movie, the great actors, the set, the entire thing is a pleasure.
I’m going to have to buy the DVD.
artem1s
not a movie but loved every one of Aaron Sorkin’s Christmas episodes on West Wing (and Sports Night and Studio 60). This is one of my favorites
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXlPSXuJFDQ
Culture of Truth
Ditto.
staci
I can’t believe nobody said “Heidi”. That is classic Shirley Temple.
schrodinger's cat
My favorite Jimmy Stewart movie is Rear Window, it also my favorite Hitchcock movie.
Rafer Janders
The only reason I like those is Jimmy Stewart. He made a lot of so-so movies, but I’ll be goddamed if anyone can do desperation better than him. When he’s rolling around Potterville getting ready to jump off that bridge, you can see that he dredged up something very scary from some dark place inside, and it adds a touch of reality to the melodrama.
“It’s a Wonderful Life” aside, Stewart spent most of his early career in the Thirties and Forties playing affable, even-keeled guys. It was really on in the Fifties that Anthony Mann and then Alfred Hitchcock discovered that, despite that affability (or, rather, because of it) Stewart was incredibly effective at playing sweaty desperation. The audience was really able to feel him come unstrung because they’d known him as a regular fellow, and the contrast between his everyday persona and the depths of despair he allowed himself to show made it all the more effective. Check out, for example, some of his Anthony Mann westerns like The Naked Spur and Winchester ’73. And of course Hitchcock’s Vertigo is one of the best depictions of irrational obsession ever put on film.
My theory is that after Stewart came back from WWII (unlike faux-heroes like John Wayne and Ronald Reagan, who never served, he was a bombardier pilot in the Army Air Force, flying combat missions over Germany) he was able to tap into his inner hysteric through memories of all those cold lonely fear-filled missions dodging flak.
Downpuppy
I almost forgot Silent Night, Lonely Night!
Lloyd Bridges is visiting his ex-wife in an asylum in Amherst, and ends up sleeping with Shirley Jones.
Very TVMovie serious. Great to watch stoned.
Downpuppy
@JGabriel: Hey! I never said White Christmas was good.
Quality and Christmas movies don’t mix.
Take A Very Brady Christmas. Please.
Schlemizel
@Comrade Rich:
Sheppard had a short run series on PBS years ago – I wish I could find them on DVD or YouTube. They were great 30 minute slices of life stories often about his old man, beer and the family.
Rafer Janders
@Steeplejack:
If you have not seen Truly, Madly, Deeply, I urge you to. It is, at its core, a movie about grief and moving on, which makes it a bit of a hard sell, but it’s simply wonderful and utterly romantic. And you’ll never hear “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore” the same way again.
Steeplejack
What really gets me in the Christmas mood is A Charlie Brown Christmas and especially Vince Guaraldi’s music for it. In fact, gonna have to dig that out today. It’s way overdue.
In the meantime, another Christmas favorite, John Coltrane’s “Greensleeves.”
Also, Blackadder’s Christmas Carol is very funny.
Chris
@Rafer Janders:
Supposedly, John Wayne’s guilt over the fact that he, unlike so many of his fellow stars, never served is part of the reason he became such an ultra-conservative “super-patriot,” trying to apologize for his real-life failings by portraying the character he never was in real life.
I seriously doubt if Reagan ever experienced even that much guilt, though.
John M
@Schlemizel: He perceived it as punishment when it was happening. In the end, his decades of sacrifice led to a community that loved him and would do anything for him when it finally was his moment of need.
Michael Carpet
“All Mine to Give” — if you can watch it and not puddle up you are made of sterner stuff than me.
Schlemizel
@Tokyokie:
OMG! That sounds like a recipe for a saccharine explosion that could end life on this planet as we know it.
With Billy Ray you know the acting will be flatter than Nebraska.
John S.
Others have mentioned them, but my top three are definitely:
1. Scrooged
2. Trading Places
3. The Ref
I’ve seen them all dozens of times, and will never object to seeing them more.
gelfling545
@Kristine: My video of this has disappeared. In need to buy another one asap or Christmas will be all messed up!!!
bardgirl
The Lion in Winter has always been my favorite Christmas movie. It lacks the treacle that makes other Christmas movies so horrible.
Tom Hilton
@badpoetry: Really well put. Yes, Sim is definitely the most believable Scrooge (both before and after), and the movie doesn’t shy away from the darker aspects of the story.
@Rafer Janders:
True as far as it goes, but in his early (pre-star) roles he wasn’t always such a nice guy. See After the Thin Man, e.g.
CatHairEverywhere
Love, Actually
Christmas in Connecticut
While You Were Sleeping
Desk Set
Scrooged
The Grinch (cartoon and Jim Carrey)
Black Adder Christmas Carol
Vicar of Dibley Christmas episodes
Holiday Inn
and many more…. All evidence to the contrary, I do actually turn off the tv and read.
Rafer Janders
I’ll sixth the motion for George C. Scott’s “A Christmas Carol”. I watch it every year, and every year I cry. Key parts:
Edward Woodward simply is the Ghost of Christmas Present, no argument.
The scene where the Ghost of Christmas Present pulls his robes apart to show the two starving children Ignorance and Want. It’s chilling.
When Scrooge is taken to his old school and sees himself sitting alone, and the Ghost of Christmas Past notes that he had no real friends, and he answers “Ali Baba not real?…No, he made do, this boy.” So unutterably sad.
David Warner’s total devastation and loss in the scene where he comes back home after visiting Tiny Tim’s grave, and his family’s attempt to cheer him up.
Steeplejack
@Rhoda:
Apropos to this, I just discovered that sometime in the last week or so TCM has added an HD channel. At least it just showed up on my Cox Cable system here in NoVa. Doesn’t make a big difference for old movies, but now you can see widescreen movies in full widescreen mode instead of letterboxed (or having to “zoom” them). Cool.
Christmas in Connecticut will be on TCM at 10:00 p.m. EST Friday.
Rafer Janders
This scene from the Scott version is one that I feel every conservative should watch and learn from:
Scrooge: [on Tiny Tim] Tell me, Spirit… Will he live?
Ghost of Christmas Present: I see an empty place at this table. I see a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child will die.
Scrooge: No. Say he’ll be spared.
Ghost of Christmas Present: If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, none other of my species will find him here. But if he is to die, then let him die…”AND DECREASE THE SURPLUS POPULATION”!
Scrooge: You use my own words against me?
Ghost of Christmas Present: Yes! So perhaps, in the future, you will hold your tongue until you have discovered where the surplus population is, and WHO it is. It may well be that, in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than MILLIONS like this poor man’s child.
Steeplejack
@Rafer Janders:
I have seen it.
Adolphus
I am really late to this fine thread. I have nothing to add, but noticed a lot of people turning of It’s A Wonderful Life and Christmas Story because they claim it has been overplayed.
Small tip: Just because it’s on TV doesn’t mean you have to watch it.
I avoid Christmas Story all year until Christmas Day when I watch it exactly once. It maintains it’s freshness that way.
The Old Man is great. Best non-cursing in movies with the possible exception of Annie Wilkes in Misery.
Special Patrol Group
Paul Shaffer reminiscing about this.
PEP
The Scott version of A Christmas Carol is a fave because he seems genuinely remorseful for his past and actually goes into Scrooge’s accusation that Christmas is a false holiday- the true meaning of Humbug and his realization that he’s wrong. Love the Stewart version simply because Dominic West is a wonderful Fred in it. Also, too, I always say The Lion in Winter is a holiday treasure for me.
Rafer Janders
Another great little moment from the George C. Scott version:
Scrooge: But you were always a good man of business, Jacob.
Marley’s Ghost (in anguish): Business? Mankind was my business! The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!
bemused
I don’t remember who mentioned “Christmas in the Clouds” but thanks. I just watched the trailer and I don’t know how I’ve missed this one. Looks a good movie to watch with family home for the holidays. I was surprised to hear a familiar song in that trailer by Keith Secola who grew up in my area. He performed here a few years back with a special feature, a drum circle with local native americans.
Comrade Mary
I didn’t see It’s a Wonderful Life at all when I was growing up, so it was never a part of my Christmas ritual. In fact, the first time I ever saw it, it was in the middle of a summer night when I was in my early twenties. I was just flipping around the channels one night and started to look at some old black and white movie showing some kids tobogganing down a hill, when one broke into the frozen pond, his brother had to save him, and … and .. OK, that’s where I started crying for the first time, then the druggist scene, and so on …
So I never really saw it as a Christmas movie, just a nice, sincere movie that earned my tears. Oh, and it was also the movie with one of the goddamn, hottest sexiest scenes ever: the one where George and Mary are talking on the phone, pressed up close together, very aware of the chemistry they have and fighting it, until they finally kiss.
Whoa. :: fans self:: I never looked at Mr. Stewart the same way again. Rowrrr!
amused
@Steeplejack: You beat me to Blackadder’s Christmas Carol! The best one, IMO, after the Sim one.
R-Jud
Many other people have already mentioned Alastair Sim’s Scrooge. Watching that is the last thing I do on Christmas Eve before heading to bed, usually with a bottle of Champagne.
And nobody here has mentioned one of the best Jim Henson adaptations EVER: Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas, which has got to be a high-water mark for Paul Williams’s music. The author of the original storybook, Russell Hoban, died yesterday.
Rafer Janders
I realize I’m going on about Scott’s “A Christmas Carol”, but as I’m writing, I’ve come to realize that seeing it as a teenager was actually a key moment in my moral education, in teaching me some values of compassion and charity that should be valued above all, and that’s why I keep coming back to it.
That’s not a bad Christmas moment, right there.
John Walters
Comfort and Joy, 1984 film by Bill Forsyth, director of Local Hero. Available only on VHS.
Odd, offbeat comedy about a Glasgow radio DJ. His girlfriend leaves him at Christmastime, he decides his life has no purpose, so he starts looking for some good deed to do. He winds up trying to settle a turf war between two rival ice-cream-truck purveyors, Mr. Bunny and Mr. McCool. Fun, goofy film; the atmosphere is reminiscent of Local Hero.
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack:
The Shop Around the Corner is absolutely a Christmas movie — G and I watch it on Christmas Eve every year. IMO, it ain’t a Christmas movie unless you have a nice dose of melancholy underlying the whole thing, and that wonderful scene at the end where newly separated Mr. Matuschek befriends the lonely office boy is so sweet.
So far this year, we’ve watched MST3K: Santa Claus (available on Netflix streaming!), Miracle on 34th Street, Christmas in Connecticut, and last year’s “Dr. Who” Christmas special, with the great Michael Gambon as the Scrooge-like character. I was actually really impressed with that one — they did a great job of adapting the “Christmas Carol” type of plot to the “Dr. Who” format.
Plus I couldn’t resist the image of taking a sleigh ride with a shark pulling the sled.
Tokyokie
@Chris: Yeah, well his super-patriot shtick helped run Sterling Hayden, who worked for OSS during the war running arms across the Adriatic to Yugoslav partisans, out of Hollywood.
For fans of the fake he-man Wayne, I like to point out that Alvy Moore (county agent Hank Kimble on Green Acres) landed on Iwo Jima as a Marine, whereas Wayne pretended to land on Iwo as an actor. So tell me who the tough guy patriot really was?
schrodinger's cat
Does Meet John Doe count as a Christmas movie?
Wag
Elf
That is all
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
I had forgotten the Dr. Who Christmas thing. That was pretty good. The whole reboot of Dr. Who (in his various incarnations) has been a success.
erlking
Watching The Lion in Winter is one of my favorite Yule traditions. Nothing like hearing Katherine Hepburn say, “I’d hang you from the nipples but you’d shock the children.”
I’m also a fan of A Midnight Clear. Battle of the Bulge movie with an excellent performance by Ethan Hawke.
Yes, my family thinks I’m nuts but these two cut through the schmaltz and treacle for me every year.
chrismealy
@Steeplejack: I think you’re underselling “Remember the Night.” It’s terrific! Sappy and terrific.
lawguy
@Schlemizel: You do know that Wonderful Life was a failure and lost money when it came out? It only became a hit when the boomers found it on late nite TV. So I’d suggest that it didn’t resonate with the people it was aimed at.
DFH no.6
@Comrade Mary:
Absolutely!
To me, it’s the hottest such scene in any of the hundreds of movies (likely more than a thousand) I’ve seen over the years.
Still gets to me that way, too, every time I see it (every couple years or so). My wife of lo, these 33+ years feels the same.
Maybe my favorite scene in a movie full of such gems (to me, rank sentimentalist that I apparently am).
dance around in your bones
I loved the Christmas music thread so much, I can’t wait to read the Christmas movie one.
You guys are stellar; danke velle. Tashakor. Muchas gracias.
P.S. I am often laughing like a loon in my room, and the family sez ‘what’s up?’ and I say Balloon Juice, you just gotta read it. I’m trying to make BJ addicts out of everyone in my family, hahahahaha.
maya
@R-Jud: Ha! I found that Emmett Otter DVD in a thrift shop. I just sent it off as an xmas present to a friend’s little boy who is named Emmett.
I also have to join the list on Allistar Sims, A Christmas Carol. Towards the end when Scrooge goes to his nephew’s house and is ushered in by the maid while a duet is singing Barbra Allen in the parlor is my favorite part.
handsmile
I see that no has been brave enough yet to admit it to the Christmas canon, but perhaps my favorite is Scrooge with Albert Finney. A Christmas Carol musical may be considered a travesty by some, but every single film version of Dickens’ magnificent moral fable has done some violence to it.
No other actor, not even Alastair Sims, has more fully captured the emotional range of the title character. Finney’s bravura performance, portraying Scrooge from a teen to an elder, is all the more remarkable when one realizes that he was 34 at the time of the film’s production. Also, Alec Guinness’ portrayal as Marley Ghost’s has no equal.
The film is also responsible for delivering unto a grateful world the classic, “Thank You Very Much (That’s the nicest thing that anyone’s ever done for me)” and the cynic’s anthem “I Hate People.”
To maintain some measure of scruple, I must add that the scene in which Scrooge descends into Hell (often excised in television broadcasts) is a shocking and utterly inexplicable abomination, one so out-of-character with the rest of the film as to almost scuttle the whole thing.
With that major caveat aside, the acting, the songs, the finely detailed production design all combine to make Scrooge the most joyful version of A Christmas Carol, and that is a sentiment appropriate for the season.
piratedan
I have to make a mention for While You Were Sleeping, possibly Bullocks best effort and an incredible cast of folks in support roles. The story itself strikes a dagger deep into my rom/com heart (right up there with Notting Hill imho) with very high rewatchability.
and kudos to those MST3k shoutouts, they are a staple in my house too, to deflate those of us who forget what the holiday season is all about, which is merchandise.
Steeplejack
@chrismealy:
Yeah, I probably sounded a little unenthusiastic above. I liked the movie, but sometimes I get a little reticent with recommendations on obscure stuff because I get a “WTF?!” reaction from less movie-besotted friends. Glad to hear someone else has even heard of the movie, much less seen it and liked it.
ETA: It’s amazing how many people do not want to watch a black-and-white movie. At all.
lawguy
@Tokyokie: Eddie Albert also ran a landing craft at, I think Tarawa back and forth between Japanese snipers and landing marines. Who woulda thought.
sherparick
@Jeff Fecke: It was Donna Reed who played Jimmie’s wife in “Its A Wonderful Life.”
I must admit that the more I watched it the more intrigue I became with it because the Hollywood ending kind of makes one forget the far more interesting movie that came before it. Its very dark from the point where Thomas Mitchell’s character loses the money (which Lionel Barrymore’s character scoops up with a smile that reminds me my cat with a mouse) to the point he comes to himself on the bridge. Really, Stewart could played this kind of character, a with some good in him but ith a dark, crazy streak, and you don’t know how it will end up. I am a big fan of “Winchester ’73,” “Bend in the River,” “Nadked Spur,” “The Man from Laramie” and “The Far Country” where Stewart was directed by Anthony Mann. Hitchcock used him well in “Rear Window” and “Vertigo.” (I always liked Hitchcock’s original “Man Who Knew To Much” with Robert Donat better than Stewart’s version.
On the whole, I like “Scrooged” as the best modern version of “A Christman Carol.” I have notice that TCM has remastered a lof to 30s movies and the 1936 version of a Christmas Carol with Gene Lockhart looks great (Lockhart plays Cratchet).
p.a.
@Waynski: I got, as a Christmas present no less, ‘the lamp’ nighlight. Great gift.
quannlace
That’s how I feel about ‘Portrait of Jennie.” Whenever it pops up on TCM, I watch it mainly for the gorgeous cinematography. Such rich black and white’s. It’s like a visual valentine to NYC.
Cris (without an H)
Yeah, but most of us are “let’s see what’s on” kind of watchers, and when something is broadcast frequently it’s easy to catch bits of it here and there. (Strangely, you always seem to tune in on certain parts more than others.)
I only have broadcast, so I’m generally spared the marathon showings. It’s kind of nice.
handsmile
@Mnemosyne: (#173)
A brilliant selection: Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner. (And one that offers another superb performance by Jimmy Stewart, a sub-theme of this thread. Few other Christmas films better present the crass commercialism and melancholy that makes this season one to endure for so many.
khead
@R-Jud:
Riverbottom Nightmare Band!
p.a.
@R-Jud: Isn’t (wasn’t) he the author of Riddley Walker?
JBerardi
My family likes to watch The Godfather on christmas. Maybe we’re weird, but we must not be the only ones; it’s always on TV christmas day.
SJ
Christmas Evil AKA You Better Watch Out (1980).
Bad Santa (2003)
Christmas Vacation (1989)
A Christmas Story
Holiday Inn (1942)
The Ref (1994)
agorabum
Harold & Kumar’s 3D Christmas. Does a good job of really reveling in the 3D, and actually has a good heart to it.
I’ve seen a lot of praise for George C Scott, but no one mentioned his other great Christmas movie, Patton. (well, there is a scene that mentions the fact that it is Christmas…).
dance around in your bones
Slooooooowly making my way through this thread, but yes! Galaxy Quest Galaxy Quest Galaxy Quest!!!
Not sure what the hell it has to do with Xmas, but….Galaxy Quest!!
R-Jud
@p.a.: Yes, same guy. And obviously, Riddley Walker is more noteworthy as a contribution to fiction, but not Christmas-related. And could you cast Muppets for it? I think not.
@khead: I’m not hungry. I’m HOOOOONGRAAAAAAAAAY.
Kilkee
Speaking of Christmas shows: href=”http://www.americanrepertorytheater.org/node/5983″>
What are the odds that it’s a mere typo?
dance around in your bones
Also, what about Dogma? It has Alan Rickman as Metatron!, Alanis Morisette as Gawd, George Carlin as Ignatius Glick, the beauteous Salma Hayek…..well. We could go on and on.
Just watch it, ok?
CaptainFwiffo
A Christmas Story is pretty much perfect. Unlike most Christmas music, it actually tolerates being played in the background for 24 hours straight.
Each scene can stand alone as its own little story, and they can be enjoyed completely out of order. That makes it perfect for playing during whatever family activity is going on.
You can take a 5 minute break from your annoying aunt, or playing with your niece, or carving the ham, or whatever, and watch “double dog dare”, or the scene where they’re changing the tire, or the thing where his brother won’t eat, or where they’re getting dressed for school, or running from the bully, or the Bumpuse’s hound dogs, or the thing with the lamp, or the other thing with the lamp, or the fantasy about chasing off the outlaws, or eating Christmas dinner at the Chinese restaurant, or the bunny outfit, or the scary Santa scene.
gelfling545
@quannlace: I love the movie but hadn’t watched it in years. Then my daughter hauled it out & when it came to Lincoln’s birthday said “Mom, what the …?”
I had totally forgotten the whole blackface thing. I guess it’s a mark of progress that this in no longer acceptable but you have to wish it just had never been.
gelfling545
@handsmile: My granddaughter (now 13) watches this repeatedly during the holiday season. She has now borrowed my copy to take to school where they are (against all policy) not practicing drills for state testing but actually reading Dickens. They will then compare different film versions of the tale. Her teacher is clearly a rebel.
Steeplejack
@quannlace:
Same with Laura. I’ve seen it so many times that now I catch myself focusing on the posh Manhattan apartment and nightclub settings.
Kilkee
@Kilkee: Nevermind: apparently only MY screen shows it as “The Snow Queer.” Go figure.
Brachiator
@Libby:
Agree with you about the Sims version, especially because he seems so happy at the end, when he has become reformed. A hoot to watch.
I had the great pleasure of seeing Patrick Stewart perform his one man show of A Christmas Carol. Amazing stuff. One man, but you could see and feel a stage full of Dickens characters.
@Chris:
It’s A Wonderful LifeThe film received 5 Academy Award nominations, so it was pretty well received. It found new life on TV because its copyright was not renewed and local stations all over the place could run it to fill time.
@JGabriel:
On a recent podcast journalist Andy Ihnatko takes a chain saw to the movie, Occupy White Christmas.
ruemara
I adore Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. I wish people would play it on telly. Also, too. Love, Actually and It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story, so, stuff it haters. Plus all the best sci-fi and fantasy releases came out at Christmas, so Harry Potters and LOTR watching abounds at Chez Mara.
Brachiator
@Comrade Mary:
An LA Times critic once lambasted the movie because he hated the alternate universe in which Mary is a lonely spinster because George never existed. Getting up on a very high horse, he branded the movie as utterly sexist because it dared to suggest that a woman could not live without a man.
But this is horseshit. The scene you talk about bristles with barely contained passion. And from all the kids the Baileys have, it’s clear that they clearly … enjoy each other.
And there is a lovely contrast between alternate Mary’s loneliness and a scene that occurs early in the film when you learn just how strong Mary’s love is. As children, Mary goes to the drug store where young George is working, orders a soda, and as he is fixing it, leans over:
For a “lighthearted” holiday film, IAWL is surprisingly complex in acknowledging depth of feeling.
Bonus, cause it easily comes to mind, Otis Redding, That’s How Strong My Love Is.
khead
@R-Jud:
Ain’t no hole in the washtub…
I loved that show when I was a kid. Every summer at some friend’s cookout I will start singing “Barbeque” but usually no one there knows what the hell I am talking about. Tragic.
quannlace
But it’s so obviously a film school movie. Way, way too impressed with itself and trying to hard to impress us.
Trooptrap Tripetrope
I love “A Christmas Story” but I’m always irritated that Melinda Dillon’s hairstyle is right out of 1983. No woman in the early 40s ever wore her hair that way.
DFH no.6
@Brachiator:
Yes, another wonderful, heartfelt scene from IAWL.
My wife’s favorite female movie characters are Mary (Donna Reed, who my wife strongly resembled when she was a lass) in IAWL, and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) in “The Matrix”, because they are both fated to only love “The One”.
She has always told me I am her “one”, and that she would have been a spinster librarian like Mary in IAWL if she had not met me.
I don’t believe in any such thing for anyone, but it would, I suppose, be pretty if it were so (like many fairytales, such as eternal life after death in paradise).
That’s what many fables and movies are for, I think – mollifying, if only for a short time, the cynicism and despair.
Kola Noscopy
THE HOMECOMING
The original “Waltons” story, but before it became the horrible “The Waltons” TV series. In this quiet, beautiful film, Patrician Neal is the mom and is awesome.
Simple, lovely.
Svensker
@handsmile:
Love love love that movie. And I love Jimmy Stewart. His clips on Johnny Carson (on youtube) are just wonderful.
Librarian
I would like to mention a movie that I haven’t seen yet here: “The Man Who Came to Dinner”. Monty Woolley as Sheridan Whiteside. Absolutely hilarious. The character of Whiteside was modeled on Alexander Woollcott. Jimmy Durante’s character was based on Harpo Marx.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
That scene bugs me because it just seems lazy. “Hmm, we have to have a scene showing how Mary would end up … oh, hell, let’s just make her the spinster librarian and forget the whole thing.” IMO, it would have been much more interesting to see her married to Sam Wainwright and completely hardened to life like everyone else.
Plus one suspects Capra’s Catholicism coming into play, especially since the character is named Mary.
Mnemosyne
@gelfling545:
When I was a little kid, I loved loved loved the animated Disney version of Peter Pan. Now I can’t even watch it because the politics are so embarrassing. And I’m someone who will argue that the Jim Crows in Dumbo aren’t completely racist since they’re the only characters other than Timothy who are kind to Dumbo and convince him that he can fly.
Worst “great director” offender: Preston Sturges. If a black person shows up in one of his films, you can be certain that it will be a shoe-shuffling, head-bobbing caricature.
R-Jud
@khead: If you come to one at my parents’, you’ll start a whole yardful of people singing it.
@quannlace:
Having attended film school at the time that came out I can tell you that’s exactly what Dogma is: a junior-year jerk-off’s “shock!” film, with a huge budget. I get annoyed with performers I like who were in it (including the Rick-Man).
Sadly, Kevin Smith is one of the few people in film I’m only one degree removed from, since we’re from the same part of New Jersey. I’ve got two cousins who attended Henry Hudson High at the same time, though not in the same year, as Kevin Smith, and the older one knew him somewhat. Also, my parents were married in the Church of the Improbable Plot Point in Red Bank, NJ, (although the actual scenes in the film might’ve been shot in Pittsburgh).
DFH no.6
@Mnemosyne:
For a wholly different take, see my (well, my wife’s) response up at 213.
Due to her own, deeply-felt personal reasons (such as her belief in the role of fate in people’s lives, and her overall “sentimental” romanticism, I suppose) the “Mary as the spinster librarian” scene is one of my wife’s favorite in any movie.
For those same reasons it would obviously not be anything of the kind to her (and those like her) in your alternate staging of the scene (though yours is intriguing and interesting to an old cynic like me who does not believe in fate).
I don’t think it was laziness on Capra’s part. Who knows – maybe he actually was, like my wife, a believer in “the one”.
Anyway, the “spinster librarian” fits well with the childhood scene between Mary and George at the soda fountain.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Mnemosyne:
Maybe if the movie would have been directed by Fritz Lang. Of course in that version Potter would have been shot in his office by Gloria Grahame.
CatHairEverywhere
Not a Christmas movie, but I always end up watching My Favorite Wife this time of year, because I come across it when I am recording my other TCM favs. I like the Doris Day version too. (Move Over, Darling)
Can’t believe I am the only one to mention Desk Set! You all have to watch it, if only to laugh at the computer.
Mnemosyne
@Shawn in ShowMe:
Seriously, how much would you pay to see a Fritz Lang Christmas movie? He does sometimes have an oddly sentimental streak (such as in The Big Heat, where Grahame’s tough moll sacrifices herself for Glenn Ford) so it would be fascinating to see the collision between paranoid fatalism and Christmas sentimentality.
WereBear
@Librarian: Has become a Christmas favorite at our house.
gogol's wife
I’m making my way slowly through this thread (about halfway now), but I see it’s still going, so I just have to put in a plug for “Christmas in Connecticut” with Barbara Stanwyck, S. Z. Sakall, and Sidney Greenstreet. Sidney Greenstreet asking Barbara to make him a flapjack is so precious. And Alastair Sim in “Christmas Carol” is one of the greatest performances ever recorded on film.
gogol's wife
@Rhoda:
Always read the whole thread! Always read the whole thread before you think you’re adding something! (This is addressed to me, not you)
gogol's wife
@staci:
Yes, that’s great, the snow globe scene! But also the finale of her singing “That’s What I Want for Christmas” in Stowaway.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Mnemosyne:
I daresay that BJ is one of the few political blogs on the web where you could make an off-handed remark about The Big Heat and get immediate feedback. I love this place.
A Fritz Lang Christmas movie would be a wonder to behold. As is stands we’ll have to settle for visions of Gloria Grahame morphing into Debbie Marsh in Bedford Falls.
JD Rhoades
@Glenda:
This is the correct answer.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Absolutely disagree.
The very cinematic contrast is between a little girl with a love so strong she could declare it “until the day I die” and the young woman in the alternate future with no love at all.
The other beautiful contrast is that young Mary knows George better than he knows himself, but he is totally unaware of her love for him. But the older, alternate Mary doesn’t recognize George at all. To make her as hardened as everyone else would have been mere repetition. The audience would expect it. To make her a lost soul is genius. Even alone, she is still, in the alternate universe, missing George.
But the genius is that this Mary is earthy and sensual. As I noted before, one of the things that I love about these characters is that they clearly love to have sex. They are not popping out kids just out of a sense of religious duty.
Also, too, while the real Mary is earthy, the alternate Mary isn’t simply a spinster; we see that all the passion that she should possess has been drained from her.
@gogol’s wife:
If these actors were still around today, I could easily see the uncreative marketing types pushing A Maltese Falcon Christmas.
Tehanu
All of mine have been mentioned — Christmas in Connecticut (especially S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall and Sydney Greenstreet), Scrooged, A Christmas Story, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, the Alastair Sim, Patrick Stewart, and Blackadder versions, The Ref, White Christmas — a terribly hokey movie but with some of the greatest singing and dancing you’ll ever see — and now I come to think of it, The Man Who Came to Dinner is set at Christmas too, so kudos to whoever mentioned it and reminded me. I also treasure an old VCR recording I made (right off the broadcast) of an episode of a sitcom that Jon Cryer was in about 20 years ago, called The Famous Teddy Z.. The episode was “Al Floss’s Christmas Carol”, with the wonderful actor Alex Rocco playing Scrooge as a corrupt Hollywood agent. To tell the truth, I’m a sucker for practically every version of A Christmas Carol, however good or lousy!
daddy O
29th Street
It’s a very good, unknown movie. Watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3Ooyu_wFlk
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
But there is this:
This is also touched on in an essay and comments at a Criterion Collection web site on the film.
But back to Xmas themed movies. I love this little gem I found in an old NY Times article:
Ah, Christmas!
gelfling545
@erlking: “There will be pork in the skies come morning!” A great performance by all concerned and, at least among people of my acquaintance, very little known.
ThresherK
@quannlace: Many broadcast versions have excised the “Abraham” tapdance number. (That was Fred Astaire’s routine, BTW.)
That’s a pisser, because Astaire’s dance was boffo, and a great homage to a giant of his profession.
Just, eww, blackface. I thought the sun had set on the “respectability” of blackface by then. Makes me wish those folks who went around ruining movies by colorizing them in the 1980s could “de-colorize” that part of it.
And a shout out to Bob Crosby and the Bobcats: Real swing music in Hollywood flix with top-level dancers is a rare thing.
DFH no.6
@Brachiator:
Thank you for your response to Mnemosyne.
You put that much, much better than I did (or could).
Those two scenes are perfectly matched just as they are.
dance around in your bones
I hear what you guys are saying about Dogma but I didn’t go to film school so I still enjoyed it ;)
♫ ♬ Maybe I think too much, oh yeah! ♫ ♬
greenergood
@superking: When I was back at my mom’s last month, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ was playing on the Turner movie channel on the little telly in the kitchen. About half-way through she off-handedly said, ‘Oh yes, It’s a Wonderful Life – that was your father’s favourite movie’, and I watched intently for the rest of the film. I’d never seen it before, and had no idea it was my dad’s favourite film. My mom is an 80 yr old Republican, whose dad was a civil servant during the Depression, i.e. had a job. My dad’s dad went through the Depression in a much more precarious situation – and even just seeing the last 50 minutes of It’s a Wonderful Life, I can see why it might have been my dad’s favourite movie – and why my mom wouldn’t really see why it would be.
Cris (without an H)
Let’s set George Lucas on that task.
Brachiator
@DFH no.6:
No problem. This film has grown on me over the years, and I enjoy talking and writing about it, and try to understand others’ viewpoints as well.
The funny thing is that for various reasons, for a long time I had never seen the first part of the film, some of the scenes of George’s boyhood. When I finally saw the whole thing, the soda shop scene just knocked me out. I still think it somewhat daring to show a young girl making such a bold declaration of love. And it is slyly humorous that George doesn’t have a clue. It adds to the weight of the later non-recognition scene.
It also reminds me of one of my best woman friends. One day she walked up to this guy she thought looked interesting while on her lunch break and chatted with him. Discovered that they had both lived in Germany for a while, and had other things in common. She decided a few days later that she would marry him. He never knew what hit him. They’re still going strong.
Schlemizel
@lawguy:
Sorry you have me confused with someone else – I didn’t think Its A Wonderful Life resonated when it came out that was someone else.
Death Panel Truck
@jibeaux: My favorite line is when Ralphie decodes the message on his spy ring:
“Be sure to drink your Ovaltine. A crummy commercial? Son of a bitch!”
NotMax
Classic:
Scrooge (Alistair Sim)
A Christmas Carol (Seymour Hicks)
Film:
The Dead (John Huston’s adaptation of James Joyce)
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
The Man Who Came To Dinner
TV:
A Christmas To Remember (Jason Robards, Jr. leaving no piece of scenery unchewed)
Deck The Halls epsiode of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (season 1)
Cheryl from Maryland
Futurama’s An Xmas Story (a robotic Santa terrorizes the world because his programming to determine naughty or nice was flawed)
and
O Brother Where Art Thou (I dunno why, it’s just a tradition)
and
The Simpson’s first Christmas episode where they get Santa’s Little Helper (the dog).
Scuffletuffle
I watch “Snow Cakes” every Christmas. Love it.
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
I forgot about The Dead. That is really a devastating film.
Admiral_Komack
@Brachiator:
Thank you for this.
I always want to basically fast-forward the movie and get to the part where Clarence reveals the alternate history to George.
When I watch it this year, I will slow myself down to watch it.
Admiral_Komack
@Brachiator:
100 Years…100 Cheers: America’s Most Inspiring Movies is a list of the most inspiring films as determined by the American Film Institute. It is part of the AFI 100 Years… series, which has been compiling lists of the greatest films of all time in various categories since 1998. It was unveiled on a three-hour prime time special on CBS television on June 14, 2006.
The announcement of the series was made on November 16, 2005, and a ballot of 300 films was released to a jury of over 1,500 cinematography leaders.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI%27s_100_Years…_100_Cheers
Guess which film is No. #1?
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Sorry, no sale. It’s the way it’s presented that really bugs me. Oh, sure, Mr. Gower is a hopeless drunk, Violet is a whore, Uncle Billy died in an insane asylum, and hundreds of soldiers died because Harry wasn’t there to save them, but Mary’s is the worst fate of all, because she’s a llll…. lllll…. llll…. librarian!
I laughed at that big reveal the first time I saw it, and I still can’t help laughing at the melodrama of Mary’s fate worse than death of working at the library.
Admiral_Komack
@Brachiator:
@Mnemosyne:
“Sorry, no sale. It’s the way it’s presented that really bugs me. Oh, sure, Mr. Gower is a hopeless drunk, Violet is a whore, Uncle Billy died in an insane asylum, and hundreds of soldiers died because Harry wasn’t there to save them, but Mary’s is the worst fate of all, because she’s a llll…. lllll…. llll…. librarian!”
*And out of that group of people, WHO was the one person George wanted to see?
MARY.
It wasn’t just that Mary was a librarian…look at the character in (what I call) the alternate timeline, and compare her to the Mary that George knows.
George’s Mary was a spirited, sensual woman.
Mary The Librarian seemed to have the spirit drained out of her, leaving only a shell.
For George, a man who loves Mary, his wife; a Mary that does not know him, who even FEARS him…for George that is the worst fate of all (and we are talking about GEORGE, a person who was brought to the alternate timeline by Clarence Oddbody).
The Pale Scot
@Original Lee:
We’re No Angels fer sure.
And don’t forget “Adolph”