by Taylor Zaccario
There are certain staple titles that I revisit every Christmas season: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Ernest Saves Christmas, Elf, Santa Claus: The Movie, The Grinch (the cartoon and the Jim Carrey version), Meet Me in St. Louis, and all the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials. For the past few years, I always watch Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve.
I decided that this year (2021) I would try some other Christmas movies, ones I never saw before. Some I liked a lot (Remember the Night), others I did not (Fred Claus).
Listed below are 5 of the many Christmas movies I watched for the first time this year. They are listed in order from favorite to lesser favorite.
Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet, S.Z. Sekall, Una O'Connor. Written by Lionel Houser, Adele Comandini, Aileen Hamilton (Story by). Produced by Arthur Jacobs. Directed by Pete Godfrey
What if Martha Stewart was a big ol' phony and had to convince Rupert Murdoch that she wasn't? That's essentially the conceit of this lightweight but amusing screwball comedy.
Journalist Elizabeth Lane (Barbara Stanwyck) writes a popular magazine column about the lavish meals she cooks for her hubby and baby at their utopian Connecticut farm. She's the envy of housewives everywhere. But Elizabeth's perfectly pressed pants are on fire. She's a liar, liar.
Elizabeth's got no man! No little bundle of joy. No farm in Connecticut. No farm anyplace. And don't expect her to boil a cup of water, let alone whip up a lavish meal. Her scam's been cruising so nice and easy that not even her publisher, Alexander Yardley (Sydney Greenstreet), knows she full of it.
But the swindle hits a speed bump: Yardley invites himself and war hero Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan) to spend Christmas at Elizabeth's nonexistent farm. The fellas want to enjoy that tasty home cooking they've read so much about. Elizabeth knows her career is headed for the proverbial dumper if Yardley finds out she's a phony-baloney. She decides to pull off a highly orchestrated ruse.
To do so, she enlists the aide of some compatriots: Felix Bassenak (S.Z. Sekall), the chef she's been cribbing recipes from, and John Sloan (Reginald Gardiner), her needy and clingy suitor. Felix will provide the cooking. Sloan will pretend to be her husband. He'll even let Elizabeth use his Connecticut farm to pull off the charade. The catch? She's got to actually marry him. The problem? She falls in love with the war hero. The other problem? The war hero thinks she's married.
At times, Christmas in Connecticut feels like a holiday episode of Three's Company. One of those episodes where the characters run themselves dopey, trying to convince Mr. Furley that Jack is gay. Nevertheless, it's a good episode.
Casual movie fans might find the most amusement from the comedic performances of two iconic film noir actors. To many, Barbara Stanwyck will forever be the quintessential femme fatale in Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity. When Stanwyck wasn't playing murderous adulterers, she was equally adroit with comedic roles. Sydney Greenstreet, best known as Casper Gutman in The Maltese Falcon, serves up a hilarious performance as the imperious and easily duped publisher.
What really seasons Christmas in Connecticut are the spicy character actors. S.Z. Sekall sizzles (say that 20 times fast) as the avuncular chef. In one heart-pounding/head-scratching scene, Sekall pretends a baby swallowed a pocket-watch just so Stanwyck can get alone time with Morgan. Bride of Frankenstein fans will pop celebratory bottles when Una O'Connor shows up. She again plays her usual role as a housekeeper with expert shrill verve. And lest not forget Dick Elliot as a put-upon judge. You may not know his name, but perhaps you know Elliot's face from one of the 240+ films he was in?
The movie makes me long for the days of great character actors. We just don't have them anymore. It's something modern films are lacking. Maybe that factors into the poor reception to the 1992 remake of Christmas in Connecticut, directed by a pre-Jingle All the Way's Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Christmas in Connecticut is a charming, agreeable Christmas movie. A mix of screwball, comedy of errors, and a very dated reinforcement of old-fashioned gender roles. You'll have to excuse the later. It was 1945. What the hell did they know?
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Starring: Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Natalie Wood, Phillip Tonge, Edmund Gwenn. Written by George Seaton. Story by Valentine Davies. Produced by William Perlberg. Directed by George Seaton
Through some glitch in the Matrix, I never saw the original Miracle on 34th Street. Actually, it's more than that. Stubbornness and an unhealthy fidelity to the 1994 remake were at play. The remake came out when I was a kid, and that's the one I grew up with. After watching that iteration for the billionth or so time, my mom bought me a VHS of the original 1947 version.
I outright rejected its existence. My tiny brain couldn't process a world in which Mara Wilson and Sir Richard Attenborough weren't in the cast. Shame, shame, shame on my tiny little mind. The 1994 version will always grip my heart in a way the original cannot. However, I concede that the 1947 classic is the better film.
Whichever the iteration, Miracle on 34th Street is either a heartwarming tale about the importance of youthful innocence or a bone-chilling psychological thriller about one man's delusional collapse into mental instability.
An old man named Kris Kringle is an onlooker at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Kris exposes the parade's Santa for being a drunken bastard. Macy's event director, Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara), hires Kris to play the role himself. He's such a hit with crowds that Doris asks him to continue on as the Macy's department store Santa on 34th Street.
Kris pleases everyone with his commitment to the role. He takes the part so seriously that he even sends parents to the rival store, Gimbels, to find toys not in stock at Macy's. Kris's honesty endears himself to the customers. The company executives love the good P.R. he's generating. Even Mr. R.H. Macy himself is happy. This is a minor miracle considering the real R.H. Macy died 1877.
Meanwhile, Doris's young daughter, Susan (Natalie Wood), becomes fascinated with Kris. Doris has already told Susan that there is no real Santa Claus. You can imagine Susan's confusion (and everyone else's) when Kris confesses that he is THE Santa Claus. The actual Santa. At least, he believe this.
The revelation doesn't go over quite well and leads to a big competency hearing in court. The State of New York v. Kris Kringle. Will Kris go free? Will he be tossed into Santa's bag of toys, beaten with a candy cane, and hauled off to Bellevue? You got to watch to find out.
There's a reason this movie is a classic. It's terrific. I want to believe that the producers flew up to the North Pole, signed a one-movie contract with the real St. Nick and told him he'd be credited as Edmund Gwenn. Unlike Elizabeth Perkins's overly cold, bitter performance in the '94 remake, Maureen O'Hara's Mrs. Walker is a more sympathetic and tragic figure. Any speck of magic in her world has been swept away by the heartbreak of divorce and the atrophying side effects of working in big business. Natalie Wood is spot-on playing a little girl caught between the early adulthood being thrusted upon her and a childhood she's not fully committed to let slip away. How much of that was acting?
Despite a lot of sentimentalizing, the film has a lovely twinge of cynicism. Miracle on 34th Street is surprisingly progressive in portraying the early symptoms of a Yuletide season infected with consumerism. The burgeoning over-commercialization of Christmas is palpable, like the first sounds of lapping water before a tidal wave. But the distrust in capitalism never becomes heavy-handed. A modern day take on the material would have that inclination.
For so many reasons, New York City is prime terrain for Christmas movies. Miracle on 34th Street might be the closest thing we get to a time machine that transports us back to NYC in the 1940s. The film was shot on location. We see real footage of the 1946 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The film preserves both old New York and a gaggle of terrific actors for posterity.
Miracle on 34th Street was nominated for 4 Academy Awards. It won three, including Best Supporting Actor for "Edmund Gwenn" playing himself: Santa Claus.
Fitzwilly (1967)
Starring: Dick Van Dyke, Barbara Feldon, John McGiver, Dame Edith Evans. Written by Isobel Lenart. Based on the novel "A Garden of Cucumbers" by Poyntz Tyler. Produced by Walter Mirisch. Directed by Delbert Mann
Carefree fun in a consequence-free environment. That was the 60s! Well, that's the 60s presented in Fitzwilly. Here it doesn't matter how many innocents you cheat or screw over. It's all for a good cause!
Victoria "Miss Vicki" Woodworth (Dame Edith Evans) is a philanthropic dowager. She lives a regal existence in her posh Manhattan mansion. Miss Vicki is blissfully unaware that she's dead broke. Thankfully, her staff loves her mucho. They're willing to go to any criminal lengths to keep Miss Vicki thinking she's rolling in dough.
Her dutiful butler, Fitzwilly (Dick Van Dyke), leads the household staff on a series of heists, thefts, and con jobs. They swindle the money necessary for Miss Vicki to maintain her fancy lifestyle and delusions. But the best laid plans of mice and majordomos are threatened by Miss Vicki's new personal secretary, Juliet Nowell (Barbara Feldon). Juliet senses something is rotten in the house of Woodworth and might just ruin Fitzwilly's plans for a major heist on Christmas Eve.
I pride myself on a near encyclopedic knowledge of obscure movies. However, I hold my head in shame. Not only had I never seen Fitzwilly, I never even heard of it. Thank goodness I follow TCM on Instagram. Much, much, much less remembered than Miracle on 34th Street, this movie also serves up some excellent views of New York City (this time in the 60s) and another terrific cast.
I believe I read in a textbook once that it's biologically impossible to dislike Dick Van Dyke. When Fitzwilly came out, Van Dyke had already appeared in Mary Poppins and completed his successful eponymous sitcom. He's in top form playing (for him) an uncharacteristically disagreeable butler. Barbara Feldon's film career was just getting rolling. Though Fitzwilly was her feature film debut, Feldon could be seen each week on TV as Agent 99 in the spy spoof, Get Smart.
The casting saves the film. It would be easy for this movie to feel exceptionally mean-spirited and ugly. The characters are essentially amoral and manipulative. Fortunately, the affable actors spread a protective coating across their characters's sharp edges. The cast's amiability helps you to root for such unscrupulous people. With the exception of Albert (John McGiver), who feels guilt as a former minister, no character expresses remorse for the crimes they've committed. It's not even a Robin Hood deal. This gang robs from the rich and the charity shops. Even Juliet's doe-eyes turn into blind eyes when she starts to get gaga over Fitzwilly.
But, hey! Free love. No consequences. Good old fashioned Christmas skullduggery in the name of lying to a disoriented old woman. It's the 60s! And as Austin Powers observed, "yeah, baby!"
Lady in the Lake (1947)
Starring Robert Montgomery, Audrey Totter, Leon Ames, Jayne Meadows. Written by Steven Fisher. Based on the novel "The Lady in the Lake" by Raymond Chandler. Produced by George Haight. Directed by Robert Montgomery.
Oodles and oodles of film adaptations based on Raymond Chandler's detective novels have come at us. The most lauded of them all is The Big Sleep, directed by Howard Hawks and starring Humphrey Bogart as Chandler's iconic detective, Philip Marlowe. But the prize for most unique adaptation must be handed to Robert Montgomery's 1947 version of Lady in the Lake.
Unique does not always mean good. It certainly doesn't here.
Two elements set this film apart from all the other adaptations. Firstly, screenwriter Steve Fisher transposed the novel's summertime setting to Christmas. Secondly, the entire film is seen from Marlowe's POV. We only see what Marlowe (Robert Montgomery) sees. It was the most elaborate and sustained use of the "subjective camera" ever attempted at the time. Montgomery's face is rarely visible. We see him reflected in mirrors and in an opening prologue where he (as Marlowe) explains the conceit of the film. "You'll see it just as I saw it," Marlowe says.
Be prepared Chandler fans (I'm one) for more dissimilarities between Chandler's original text and Fisher's script. There's more than just a Christmastime difference. The film's most inexplicable change is the omission of the titular lake. In Chandler's novel, the scenes at Little Fawn Lake rank among the book's best. In the film, Marlowe simply summarizes what happened. In a film titled Lady in the Lake, we never actually see the lady in the lake.
Marlowe also gains a taste for writing in the film version. He's written a story based on one of his many cases. He meets with a publishing executive, Adrienne Fromsett (Audrey Totter), ostensibly to discuss his story. But like most leggy blonde dames in these kind of tales, Miss Fromsett has ulterior motives. She hires Marlowe to track down the missing wife of her boss, Derace Kingsby (Leon Ames).
There's no point in divulging any more about the plot. The mystery is the fun part. The subjective point of view nonsense is the distracting part. It's a gimmick that doesn't work. The technique looks too contrived and unnaturally restrictive. The camera movements are clunky and awkward. The gimmick distracts from everything else. Montgomery, as both the film's director and lead actor, never successfully pulls off the illusion that we're inside his skull, peeping out his peepers.
Montgomery was a fine actor. He shined brighter in films like Here Comes Mr. Jordan and Night Must Fall. Both performances earned him Academy Award nominations for Best Actor. But he's all wrong for Marlowe. He conveys none of the iconic detective's world-weariness or sardonic tongue. He lacks the basic attitudes needed for an on-screen tough guy, particularly in his voice. The best portrayers of Marlowe, like Bogart and Robert Mitchum, imparted Marlowe's ancient and un-nursed wounds simply through the timbre of their voices. Montgomery's voice is too common and feathery. Not good for an audio-only tough guy.
Rivaling the camera's awkwardness is Audrey Totter's performance. She gets the most screen time because Marlowe constantly looks at her. Totter's mannerisms and expressions are too broad and excessive. People with their eyes shut could still see her every gesture. The only actor who stood out to me was Leon Ames, and that's only because he was in a much better Christmas movie, Meet Me in St. Louis.
Like the camera, the Christmas elements add nothing. Apart from a beautiful opening credits sequence involving Christmas cards, Christmas is a tack-on. The addition of the holiday was meant as an ironic contrast to all the dark streets, wise-cracking coppers, and watery murders. Like the rest of the film, it's an unorthodox experiment that ultimately sinks with the lady to the bottom of the lake.
Holiday Inn (1942)
Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Marjorie Reynolds, Virginia Dale. Written by Claude Binyon, Elmer Rice. Story by Irving Berlin. Produced and Directed by Mark Sandrich.
Nowadays, Holiday Inn is mostly remembered for three things: 1) Inspiring the name of the real life hotel chain, 2) introducing the song "White Christmas" to the world, and 3) for its blackface dance number.
As any decent person knows, blackface is soooooo 1842. Even in 1942, the sequence was so far from appropriate that the light from the sun won't reach it for 12 billion years. The dance scene was meant as an homage to minstrel shows. Instead, it remains in perpetuity as a disgusting reminder of shockingly ignorant times.
Some will choose to skip the film entirely because of this sequence. That's their understandable right to do. You always have that option. You can also pound that "skip" button when the sequence called "Lincoln's Birthday" rears its nasty little head. That's what I will do when I watch the film next year. There are many larger conversations to be had about a scene like this. Lets save that for another post.
Holiday Inn was the idea of legendary songwriter Irving Berlin. He conceived a musical set around different holidays throughout the year. The film is a showcase of Berlin songs and the actors who perform them, not a place for plot to muck up the proceedings. The story is difficult to find. Not even the James Webb Telescope could locate it. Here's as much as you need to know:
Jim Hardy (Bing Crosby) and Ted Hanover (Fred Astaire) are song & dance partners. That is until Ted, being a colossal D-bag, runs off with Jim's fiancé, Lila Dixon (Virginia Dale). Heartbroken, Jim leaves show business behind and buys a quaint farm in the country. When he turns out to be ill-suited for yanking a cow's udders, Jim takes the next logical step: he turns the farm into a nightclub that opens only on holidays. Jim hires an aspiring singer/dancer/actress, Linda Mason (Marjorie Reynolds), to perform at the inn. Their burgeoning romance is threatened when Ted rolls up at the Holiday Inn. He wants to turn Linda into both his new dance partner and new fiancé.
The film was later remade very, very, very, very loosely as the more well-known White Christmas, named after the breakout tune from Holiday Inn. The "remake" was intended to reunite Crosby and Astaire. Instead, Danny Kaye replaced Astaire, and they are joined by Vera-Ellen and George Clooney's aunt, Rosemary. While I prefer White Christmas, there are several reasons to give Holiday Inn a chance:
Fred Astaire didn't get many opportunities to play a great scumbag like Ted Hanover. The "firecracker" dance, where Astaire literally tap dances around exploding firecrackers, is one of the most mesmerizing dance numbers you'll ever see. Bing Crosby's honey-sweet voice was the perfect filter for Berlin's songs, and his original version of "White Christmas" remains the best. One of the great crimes against the world is that Marjorie Reynolds never became a major movie star. She is perfect as the show biz novice, torn between her love for Jim and her ambition for tinsel with Ted.
Because the "story" takes place across several different holidays, the movie lacks that continual drive of Christmas that others of its kind possess. However, if your halls aren't decked by Reynolds and Crosby singing "White Christmas", I'm afraid there's no (Bob) hope for you.
(Technically, I liked this one more than Lady in the Lake. I just can't put a movie with blackface anywhere but on the bottom rung. Yuckkk.)
