Tweleve Days of Christmas: Day Five

Have yourself a merry little suicide? For Frank Capra, the holidays were the perfect time for dejected men to find redemption after being snapped from the brink.  This occurs in two of his classic movies.  The obvious Capra film that falls into this category is the Christmas standby It's a Wonderful Life (1946), where Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey reconsiders suicide with some help from his guardian angel Clarence.  The second is Capra's 1941film, Meet John Doe, where the titular character (played by Gary Cooper) almost jumps form the top of City Hall on Christmas Eve, after being used by a scheming political magnate to be the spokesperson for the common man.  Instead of an angel, John Doe finds the will to live when common men everywhere come to his rescue to show that men can triumph over society's evils. In the end both men learn that there's something worthwhile in life, but the suicide angle seems a little extreme...

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day Four

Bogie and Bacall

What is it about vintage Christmas trees and tinsel?  It seems like all Christmas trees of a certain era were considered outcasts if their boughs aren't dripping with long luscious tinsel tendrils.  Let's commemorate some of the glorious firs of yesteryear...

The Bishop's Wife (1947)

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day Three

There are few Christmas specials that are as iconic as A Charlie Brown Christmas.  You can buy your own Charlie Brown tree and the Vince Guaraldi soundtrack has found its way into permanent rotation in Christmas playlists.  For me, perhaps the most iconic part of the special is when the Peanuts gang breaks into spontaneous dance.  If you think about it, it's a pretty simple scene.  Every character on screen must have no more than a dozen cells devoted to their individual dance motion, and those movements are repeated over and over again, yet somehow it's magic. It makes me wish that everyone would break into their own spontaneous Charlie Brown dance.  Here's the original and a pretty convincing imitator...

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day Two

Two morally questionable retro ads for today's Christmas offering...

  Santa hocking cigarettes?  No it's just Alan Hale, father of Gilligan's Island's Skipper.  But doesn't he look just like Santa.  He's obviously very classy with his cigarette holder.  He's probably a big Holly Golightly fan.  And look, Coke isn't the only company who uses Santa's image to decorate their packaging.  Way to go Chesterfield. 

Oh look, it's 1963's NRA poster family.  These squares don't hold a candle to Red Rider.  Clearly this mother isn't worried about her kids shooting their eye out. I wonder why the middle child gets a double barreled shot gun?  Mom and Dad have probably just gotten through with reading one of those Pinko books on middle-child syndrome. 

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day One

Although I'm not a huge fan of the film, White Christmas (1954) consistently comes up as one of those perennial Christmas favorites.  I don't think that I would have a such a problem with the film if it had a different name.  But, as it is, for a film with the word Christmas in the title, there's barely any scenes that involve Christmas.  Sure, in many of the musical numbers the performers are wearing red, and there's the requisite singing of White Christmas by Bing Crosby, but ultimately had the studio that produced White Christmas had not wanted to bank on the popularity of the song, the film could have easily been released as a regular old, let's put on a show, musical. 

The film revolves around a showbiz duo (Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye) who team up with a sister act (Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen) to help save their former general's Vermont Inn.  Of course, romance blooms between the four leads, and by the end the inn is saved and the group puts on a magnificent show.

If you're looking for an old fashioned Christmas extravaganza, you're bound to be disappointed by the five to ten minutes of the run time that is actually devoted to yuletide revelry.  If you're looking for a delightful technicolor musical, you could do worse.  To save you from watching the entire film and being disappointed by the lack of Christmas, here's one of the two Christmas scenes... enjoy!