The Five Christmas Movies I Must Watch Every Year

There is nothing more refreshing than that moment when you have finished your holiday preparations.  You sit down with your favorite adult beverage and dive into one of those Christmas movies you watch year after year.  The perennials.

Yet, as the years go by, they start to get a bit, well, overplayed.  While most of them are terrific, the repeated air plays start to get as heavy as rancid egg nog.

For instance, about twenty years ago, somebody discovered that "It's A Wonderful Life" fell into public domain. So, it got played by television stations and networks everywhere. I swear I saw it once dubbed on Korean television. And some of the prints were just awful. More blemishes than Joan Van Ark on the day before her next Botox treatment. I also got personally bored with the Frank Capra saga about six years ago after I produced and directed a live stage production of the script. After two weeks of living and breathing the dialogue, I was ready to shove that bell down Zuzu's throat.

The overkill factor also goes into effect for "Miracle on 34th Street." It's shown in color. It's shown in black and white. It's shown and shown and shown.  If only Natalie Wood had surfaced as much...

The TNT Channel has also done a terrific job in sucking the life out of "A Christmas Story." Now, this is a marvelous holiday movie that should be seen on a big screen. But, TNT loves to play these marathons where the film is shown on a loop. For two days running. Their programmer is the one who truly needs to have his eye poked out. 

So, my suggestion is that movies like those mentioned above should be rested for a few years.  Give them a breather.  If you skip them for, say, five years, they will still work just as well when you pop them back in your DVD once again.  And guess what?  George Bailey won't jump off that bridge.  Edmund Gwenn will get bubble gum all over his beard.  And that stupid kid will still get his tongue stuck on that frozen metal pole.

That said, there are five Christmas movies that I never ever will skip.  Must-sees that get my holiday season just right.  Luckily, in Los Angeles, there are even opportunities to see them on a big screen during the Yuletide festivities.  Some are choices you have heard of.  Others are not even considered "Christmas" fare.  But, this week, I will be watching...

Christmas in Connecticut: This is a mid-40s classic from the Warner Brothers back lot. In fact, they don't even get off a soundstage. For a movie from that era, it is still surprisingly modern. Because star Barbara Stanwyck plays a character very similar to Martha Stewart. A magazine writer who specializes in being an expert on hearth and home. And supposedly the greatest cook on the planet.

Her publisher hits on a publicity stunt where Stanwyck will provide a home-cooked Christmas meal for an injured soldier. Except nobody knows the woman can't cook and hasn't got one single domestic talent. The plot spins out into several directions from there, but it is all delicious screwball-y fun. And any movie that features S.Z "Cuddles" Sakall is okay in my book. This is a perfect film to watch while wrapping gifts on Christmas Eve day.

Love Actually: Forget "Fred Claus," and any other Yuletide crap that Hollywood has passed off the last few years. The best Christmas movie to be produced in the last ten years is "Love Actually." It's one of those ultra-episodic scripts where about 15 characters have different storylines that may or may not be connected. It's a little confusing at first, as you meet practically the entire London phone book. But, hang on and you will get a wonderful present. 

Sure, there are about five characters and three storylines too many. But, they will scoot by quickly and you can revel in the more compelling tales. Laura Linney as a secretary who can't commit to any romance. Liam Neeson who is trying to be a parent to his young stepson as they both experience their first Noel without the recently-died Mom. The shaky marriage between Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson, who breaks your heart as she listens to a Joni Mitchell CD version of "Both Sides Now." I even liked Hugh Grant as a Tony Blair-like British Prime Minister. And there is a rendition of "All I Want for Christmas is You" that gives you goose bumps. If you've ever wanted to spend Christmas in London, this is the ideal virtual way to do so.

The Man Who Came to Dinner: This is technically not a Christmas movie, but it should be, since all the action happens around the holidays. This 1941 movie is another one that never leaves a Warner Brothers soundstage, but it really doesn't have to. You may know that this was originally a big hit on Broadway as written by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman. And two members of that cast, Monty Wooley and Mary Wickes, reprise their roles in the movie, which features the most razor sharp dialogue ever captured on celluloid. 

There's not one unclever moment in the entire six reels. Who can't identify with the holiday guest who just won't leave? In this case, it's renowed critic and lecturer Sheridan Whiteside, who sprains his ankle and then sets up camp in somebody else's house for the holidays. As portrayed by Wooley, Whiteside is loosely based on Alexander Woolcott and he has one great barb after another. He's described this way: "He would have his mother burned at the stake if that was the only way he could light his cigarette." I wish people talked like these characters in real life. 

When Whiteside's nurse (Mary Wickes) forbids him from eating some candy, he retorts, "My great Aunt Jennifer ate a box of candy every day of her life. She lived to be one hundred and two, and when she had been dead for three days, she looked better than you do now." If that's not enough, throw in the fact that this is the only movie in history that co-starred Bette Davis and Jimmy Durante! Grab a box of your own candy and savor this great Christmas treat.

Since You Went Away:  Yeah, yeah, you've never heard of it.  I did list it as #25 on my list of Top 25 Favorite Films of All Time, but perhaps you missed that entry.  And you say it's not a Christmas movie??

Oh, pish and tosh.  The film opens and ends on Christmas day one year later.  Good enough for me.  And it embodies everything that Christmas is all about.  As I have written before...

"Since You Went Away" came out in 1944 and it is 100% devoted to the homefront during WWII. For what "Mrs. Miniver" and "Hope and Glory" did for the London bombings (and I have a good friend who lived through that), "Since You Went Away" wonderfully depicts life in the United States when most men were overseas someplace and completely out of touch with their family and loved ones. David O. Selznick produced it and hoped to do for World War II what his earlier effort "Gone With the Wind" did for the Civil War. Yes, it's almost three hours long, but it sails by and, for me, is a big screen version of the best macaroni and cheese you can ever eat.

Claudette Colbert plays the mother of Jennifer Jones and Shirley Temple (here, she's a teenager and Bill Robinson-less). The family is semi-well-to-do and lives in Everytown, USA. Hattie McDaniel, who was obviously highlighted in Selznick's phone book for all servant roles, is their housekeeper and there is not a single stereotypical note to her performance. You never see the father as he has just left for active duty on Christmas Eve as the film opens. What follows is a year in the life of the Hilton family with Dad gone.

You visit USO dances. You experience food rationing and scrap metal drives. You watch as neighbors lose loved ones in battle and then sense the uneasiness as others in the community grapple to find the right words to comfort them. It is probably the truest picture of life in our country as that war raged on in Europe and the South Pacific. The courage. The resiliency. The dread. It is all here in this terrific slice of Americana.

The tearful railroad goodbye scene between real-life lovers Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones is still referenced by film historians today. And Claudette Colbert was so warm and inviting that I wished I was part of the family. And, in a way, I was.

I came to see this movie for the first time about 15 years ago. I've probably seen it once a year ever since and always during Christmas week.  For me, it is a annual reminder of my grandmother, who was a mother during World War II. And she shared virtually all of the stories that are portrayed on screen. On cold winter Sunday afternoons, I would sit in her living room and hear about rationing and community dances and the fear that wrapped around you when a letter from the government arrived in the mail. She lost a son in France in 1945---I was named after him. This movie gives me more than a history lesson. It gives me back my grandmother one more time.

"Since You Went Away" turns up on Turner Classic Movies. It is worth three hours of your time. I defy you not to well up at the end of Act 1 or just prior to the finale. I double defy you.

White Christmas:  Sadly, "White Christmas" is starting to fall in that category which I was grousing about in the opening of this entry.  The Christmas movie that is starting to look like your tree on January 15.  Dried out and ready for the dumpster.  You can thank some cable networks like the woefully annoying AMC for playing it over and over and over.  Last week, I caught them showing it three times in succession.

Gee, thanks, idiots.  Because you're destroying another movie that landed on the list of my Top 25 Favorite Films of All Time at slot #23.  Sure, after repeated viewings, this film starts to look like "Off White Christmas."  But, still, it holds a special place in my heart and I've even gotten to see it on a big screen here in Los Angeles where the Vistavision sings almost as well as Rosemary Clooney.

Yeppers, here comes another flashback.  As I have written before...

Those of you who get Christmas cards from me may recognize that I have been sending a card with the poster to the right for several years. I think I still have a few boxes left, so don't be surprised if it turns up again in your mailbox sometime this December. Besides, they were on sale.

Here's another movie I came to later than most. From a distance, it always looked a little plastic. And it stars Danny Kaye, an actor and comedian whom I have never understood. Add to that my general ambivalence to Bing Crosby, who I consider, when he is sans Bob, rather Hope-less. For the longest time, I listened to all the critics, who said that, if you're looking to hear Bing sing "White Christmas" in a movie, you should go to "Holiday Inn" from 1943. And I did. "White Christmas" just never looked to be my cup of egg nog.

And, then, about 20 Christmases ago, I saw it.

Maybe it was a direct result of some things going on in my life at the time. Perhaps, it was a serendipitous moment in that particular holiday season. But, it hit me like a thunderbolt. Now, I could never envision going through the annual Christmas traditions without watching it. Last year, I got to see it for the first time on a big screen in a packed theater with an exurberant audience. And it roped me in all over again. Right from the moment that Paramount's Vistavision logo exploded onto the screen to the last frames of the movie when the Pine Tree Lodge is celebrating a snowy Christmas Eve. 

One more time. I was moved to tears.

I can certainly understand why the critics always scoffed. The plot is so tired that even a Vitamin B-12 injection couldn't revive it. Bing and Danny are two Vegas-like performers who wind up, for a bunch of silly reasons, camped out at some heat wave-plagued Vermont ski lodge and pursuing this singing sister act, played by Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen. Rosie plays the older sister, despite being younger than Vera-Ellen, but who cares? The women steal the picture right out from under Bing and Danny. The two actresses add such incredible vitality as soon as they come onto the screen you would think the reels were suddenly infused with a double shot of caffeine at your local Starbucks. 

With supporting players Dean Jagger and Mary Wickes adding, respectively, some choice poignant and comedic moments, you suddenly find yourself standing in front of a tray of the most delicious cinematic Christmas cookies. 

You sit for two hours watching everybody put on one of those Mickey-and-Judy barn musicals while they all wait for the inevitable Christmas Eve snowfall. And it all blends together perfectly, as if somebody finally got you just the right tie to match a new shirt.

Songwriter Irving Berlin obviously emptied out the bottom of his lyric trunk to come up with 11 or 12 songs for the movie. But, besides the title song, ditties like "Sisters," "Count Your Blessings," and "Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me" are so warm and inviting, the producers of the film should have marketed a complimentary blanket for home viewing. 

Watch for up-and-coming George Chakiris, years before "West Side Story," among the dancers. His wordless close-up during one number apparently had women across the nation swooning and they subsequently flooded the Paramount fan letter office. And how Rosie Clooney fills out a black velvet cocktail dress should be shown in Webster's Dictionary as the official illustration for the definition of "eye candy."

If it all sounds a bit hackneyed, so be it. I'm not alone. I understand that "White Christmas" was the highest grossing film of 1954 and that says something for a movie that came out at the end of the year.

Once again, my initial appreciation might be jaded. I was ripe for the comforting arm of a good movie. I had both my parents housed in separate hospitals with illnesses. Unfortunately, my dad was in the final stages of his cancer and this year would be his last Christmas. My mom was sequestered elsewhere dealing with one more smoke-provoked bronchial episode. I spent the holiday season shuttling between semi-private rooms located on opposite ends of Westchester. And I felt incredibly alone.

"White Christmas" gave me a little bit of hope and brightness for some darker days that would come. And it still shines for me every year.

Watch these five movies this weekend and your life will be better for it.  My Christmas gift to you.

Dinner last night:  Cervelat sandwich and side salad.