This afternoon I went over to one of our local movie theaters and purchased a pair of tickets for John McTiernan’s 1988 thriller Die Hard, which my Dear Wife and I will go see Monday. Die Hard got a rerelease last week as many people mistakenly consider it to be a Christmas movie and because the writers’ and actors’ strikes have produced a notable lack of new movies this holiday season.
I love Die Hard (along with most John McTiernan movies), but it is in no way a Christmas film – it is at best a Christmas adjacent movie that happens to be set at Christmastime, but it does not tell a story with a Christmas subtext or theme.
Regular readers here know that Dear Wife and I are inordinately fond of movies – especially old movies – so it seems to be appropriate for me to put up a list, in no particular order, of some of my favorite Christmas/holiday movies that get watched at least every other year.
Irving Berlin’s White Christmas is the first on my list, staring Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney (George’s aunt), Danny Kaye and Vera-Ellen. The movie is directed by Michael Curtiz of Casablanca fame. The story is pretty minimal about a song-and-dance pair teaming up with a sister act to save the Vermont inn of an army buddy. But White Christmas is loaded up with fantastic Irving Berlin songs and incredible dance numbers. The song in the clip is “Count My Blessings,” my favorite from the show. As a side note, there’s a great stage adaptation of it that you might be able to see as either a touring company or at a regional theater.
Scrooged – Bill Murray’s modern update on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Murray plays a cynical television executive who is making everyone around him miserable. He gets visited by the usual specters, including Carol Kane as the Ghost of Christmas Present and David Johansen (AKA lounge singer Buster Poindexter) as the Ghost of Christmas Past. Also staring Alfre Woodard as the Bob Cratchit character and Karen Allen. Please note that this is a pretty mean-spirited retelling Dickens and not for the younger set.
The Man Who Invented Christmas – While we’re on the topic of A Christmas Carol, The Man Who Invented Christmas is an imaginative take on how Dickens came to write his holiday classic. This little-known movie has a great cast, including Christopher Plummer and Jonathan Pryce.
Remember the Night – From 1940, Remember the Night stars Barbara Stanwyck and Fred McMurray as a shoplifter and a prosecuting attorney who take a Christmas journey together. It also features a supporting cast of Beulah Bondi and Sterling Holloway (who you likely know best as the Disney voice of Winnie the Pooh). I confess I like this much better than the far-more-famous Christmas in Connecticut.
It Happened on 5th Avenue – This 1947 movie directed by Roy Del Ruth is about a hobo/street person who moves into a rich man’s New York home every winter while the owner is spending the cold season in Virginia. It’s a silly story, but who cares? It’s funny, it’s sweet, and it has Alan Hale, Jr. of Gilligan’s Island fame in a small role. The movie was originally going to be directed by Frank Capra, but Capra abandoned the project to direct our next film.
It’s a Wonderful Life plays at our local community volunteer-run The World Theater every year on Christmas Eve, and it’s great being able to reliably see this Frank Capra helmed Jimmy Stewart classic on the big screen. Assuming you don’t know already, Jimmy Stewart plays an everyman banker who becomes convinced the world would be a better place if he had never been born, and Clarence the Inept Angel shows Stewart’s character what the world would have been like if that had happened.
You’ll notice I don’t have National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on my list here. That’s because I think it is a horrible movie that does nothing beyond mocking its main character. I fully realize that it will sell out The World Theatre for three showings every year at Christmas time. I also realize that my criticism of NLCV would equally apply to my beloved Scrooged. Oh well, who said I had to be consistent?
Some honorable mention Christmas movies that you’ve probably already seen include:
- A Christmas Story that lives on cable TV over the holidays.
- The Bishop’s Wife with Cary Grant, Loretta Young, and David Niven.
- Home Alone, like Die Hard, is more of a Christmas adjacent movie than a true Christmas story. But it’s a lot of fun
- Gremlins is a scary/funny creature feature that actually does deal with Christmas issues.
- A Christmas Carol with Patrick Stewart, the Muppets and Michael Caine, or Reginald Owen, or…, or…. They all can be fun.
Whatever your holiday favorites, have a very movie Christmas!
On a completely different note, go see Godzilla Minus One in theaters over the holiday. Yes, it’s in Japanese with subtitles. Get over it. One of my favorite movies of the year.
Godzilla Minus One is an excellent look at the price we pay for war, for fighting, for fear… and what we must do to redeem ourselves. The movie tells the story of a Japanese pilot and the men, women and children who surround him in the waning days of World War II and the years following. Yes, it is a good monster movie, but it is much more a really touching story of our humanity.
It also shows that brave filmmakers with good stories to tell can still make great movies out of franchises that have been around for decades.
I have loved the recent MonsterVerse films from Universal and the Monarch series on Apple TV this winter, but Godzilla Minus One is at a whole different level. It has nothing to do with Christmas, but it’s a fantastic movie that is now moving into general release.