It's The Most Cinematic Time of the Year
The official TDNBW list of classic Christmas movies is here.
I’ll start this post off by saying I’m not the most holiday rah-rah guy. I don’t like change and the holidays are a big change to my regular schedule. I don’t mind the days off work, certainly, but with two toddlers my life is more like Wall Street 2: Daddy Never Sleeps.
One thing I make sure to do every holiday season is watch the same classic movies. Everyone has their list, and this is mine (and the correct one.)
In No Particular Order
I’m slightly embarrassed to say that this is a very new entrant to the list. My wife insisted last year we watch it (I was unaware it was even considered a Christmas movie.) I’m not well-versed in Tim Burton’s catalog, as I find his films unsettling. One of my daughter’s favorite movies over the summer was James and the Giant Peach. That 79 minutes is an absolute trip.
But I am an Edward Scissorhands convert. I really like the way it’s shot (Burton repainted the houses in a subdivision outside of Tampa in faded pastels to make it super generic) and how it just makes suburbia look super weird (which, to be fair, it is.) It’s a Burton film, so it’s still a trip, but one certainly worth embarking on.
Where to watch: Streaming on Max. Run time 105 minutes.
“Hey, wanna watch a movie about a guy that wants to kill himself during the holidays?” isn’t exactly the best pitch for a movie, which is probably why It’s a Wonderful Life was originally a box office flop. But once the copyright on it lapsed (and television broadcasters could make more money off it) it became a certified Christmas classic.
It’s hard to go wrong with Sicilian legend Frank Capra (It Happened One Night is one of the best movies to ever grace the big screen) and Jimmy Stewart is an American treasure. Both legends look back on this movie as one of their favorites, which is saying a lot given their storied careers.
The small-town vibes, bankers doing the right thing, and fixer-upper homes available for sale to families all harken back to a bygone era that may or may not have existed, but for a small amount of time this holiday season, you can get lost in it.
Where to watch: Amazon Prime (with subscription.) Run time 130 minutes.
I stumbled upon this movie a few years ago not sober while browsing the Turner Classic Movies section of Max - which is an absolute gold mine; we’ll do another post of the weirdest stuff I’ve found there. It was a risk that paid off (can’t say that about all movies I’ve taken a chance on in an altered state.)
The movie has no major stars - most of the bill are old theater heads or folks who did well in the transition from silent film to talkies but not much after (the film was released in 1947.) The premise is bizarre - homeless people squatting in a wealthy snowbird’s townhouse in Manhattan - but it works.
It’s not an absolute classic like It’s A Wonderful Life (Capra was actually the director in mind when this film was initially bought) and while it has aspects of a screwball comedy, I’m not sure it firmly falls in that category. It’s a whimsical Christmastime film (inexplicably with an Easter release.)
Where to watch: Not streaming on any major platform but can be purchased. Runtime 116 minutes.
Bing Crosby may have been an abusive father, but damn could the man sing. While the song “White Christmas” was actually the hit from Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn, he and Bing decided to go halfsies on the profits of a musical film solely based on the best-selling single of all time (until Elton John’s Candle in the Wind rewritten for Princess Diana’s funeral de-throned it.)
In truth, no one actually wanted to make this picture outside of Irving Berlin, Crosby, and Paramount. The original idea was to pair Crosby back up with Fred Astaire a la Holiday Inn. The problem was that the script was absolute trash. It was so bad not only did Astaire decline to do the movie, he asked out of his contract with Paramount. The whole script had to be rewritten for the movie to make any sense (and even then it bounces around - a lot.) Yeesh.
Eventual costar Danny Kaye didn’t want to do it either, but asked for such a stupid salary that he assumed the studio would tell him to go pound sand. Instead, the check cleared and he co-starred in it.
The movie itself is fine - the plot is all over the place (see above about the script), but the singing and dancing is top-notch, if you’re into that sort of thing. There are undertones of communism if you wonder why Bob Wallace and Phil Davis simply didn’t let the free market deal with General Waverly’s inn, but there’s also the hyper-capitalist example of influencer marketing (maybe the first instance of it?) when Wallace goes on Ed Harris’s television show to promote the inn. Certainly a roller coaster of a film, but a classic nonetheless.
Where to watch: Streaming on Netflix. Run time 120 minutes.
You could make a movie with Jimmy Stewart driving for two hours through a snowy countryside and I’d watch it during the Christmas season. Luckily, The Shop Around the Corner is more entertaining than that.
Before Tinder and Bumble and Grindr there was…snail mail correspondence via newspaper classifieds. The film opens (after a riveting conversation about goose liver) with a steamy letter written by an anonymous postal paramour to Alfred Kalik (Stewart):
My heart was trembling as I walked into the post office and there you were, lying in box 237. I took you out of your envelope and read you - read you right there - oh, my dear friend.
How that made it past the Hays Code I’ll never know.
The movie is based on a play, so it’s dialogue-heavy with a lot of intellectual sparring between Kalik and Klara Novak (played by Margaret Sullavan), who don’t realize they’ve swiped right on each other. I won’t ruin more of the plot, but because it’s a Jimmy Stewart Christmas-time movie, suicide is involved.
This is probably the best film of the bunch, so if you only watch one I would suggest it be this one.
Where to watch: Streaming on Max. Run time 99 minutes.
Something about the holidays just brings out the randy when it comes to Old Hollywood. Robert Mitchum may very well be the first Mr. Steal Your Girl, as the plot of this film is basically him making bolder and bolder overtures to a single mom war widow whom he met working in a department store. So bold, in fact, he asks her to marry him in front of her fiance at Christmas dinner after the guy had gotten him out of jail.
The irony of Mitchum being an absolute asshole in this film is that his role in it was supposed to rehabilitate his image after getting arrested for weed possession and serving time at a prison farm in California. So RKO figured instead of having him continue to do Westerns and noir, they make him steal a single mother out from under a perfectly harmless - if aggressively boring - lawyer all because some kid wanted a train set. Wild times.
Mitchum is an absolute legend and became one of Hollywood’s biggest stars despite the devil’s lettuce.
Where to watch: Streaming on Max. Run time 86 minutes.
Four Christmases typically wouldn’t be considered a classic holiday film. A potentially top 5 Vince Vaughn performance (I could be swayed otherwise) is amplified by Reese Witherspoon’s well-played antidote to Vaughn’s typical haughtiness. The real comedy lies in the rest of the cast with some excellent performances by the pairing of Jon Favreau and Kate Mixon, Robert Duvall as Vaughn’s father, and Mary Steenburgen as Witherspoon’s mother.
The reason this movie is even on the list is entirely personal as this film does not come close to classic Jimmy Stewart performances or Robert Mitchum trying to bed single mothers to get you to forget about his marijuana habit.
Back in 2010 Erica and I found ourselves in Prague in February visiting my brother who was studying abroad. Within hours of landing, I sampled some local cuisine that gave me food poisoning, ice began falling off of roofs in the city center sending people to the hospital, and Charles Bridge was closed for renovations.
Erica and I holed up in our longer-stay Marriott (we hadn’t really begun making money yet) and just watched HBO on repeat. It would be one movie in English, then one in Czech. The English movie was, as you might have guessed (but not expected in February), Four Christmases. While we snuck out of the hotel to see some highlights of the city (the castle, caught an opera at the State Opera House), our trip ended abruptly when Erica’s beloved grandfather passed away and we had to fly home early for the funeral.
Now this was back when you were held hostage entertainment-wise on long international flights. There were no individual seat-back entertainment systems like we take for granted today - everyone watched the same thing. What was the movie on this particular flight you ask? Four fucking Christmases. Again, in February. It has almost become a superstition to watch this movie to appease some cinematic god to not wreak further havoc in our lives. Now you can watch it, too!
Where to watch: Streaming on Hulu and Max. Run time 88 minutes.
Grab Bag Sections
WTF NFLX: Keeping with the movie theme, something that Netflix and the other streaming companies need to do is let you sort or search by runtime. You’ll notice I include the runtime for each movie: we’re all busy people and very often I’ll plop down on the couch after a long day and don’t want to get into an epic film. Every now and then I’ve seen a “shorter movies” category, but I want control to set a limit of 90 or 120 minutes (or a custom number) when browsing movies. Sarandos, Iger, and peers: make this happen.
Album of the Week: Again, sticking with movies, we’ll look at one of the best movie soundtracks of all time.
Don’t worry about the plot (it’s depressing), but it is an incredible movie and has a young Jeff Goldblum, so definitely worth a watch (runtime 105 minutes). The soundtrack is near perfection from start to finish. “A Whiter Shade of Pale” and “The Tracks of My Tears” are highlights on an album filled with absolute bangers.
The one downside? Ending it on “Tell Him” by The Exciters. The second the bells start clanging on that song I’m out. I can’t explain it, I just don’t like it.
Quote of the Week: “Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin'...That's goddamn right.” - Morgan Freeman as Red in The Shawshank Redemption
See you next week!