A day late, and in no particular order, here's a short (an probably incomplete) list of my favorite Christmas movies:
- Holiday Inn. Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby fight over two women whose names I don't remember, and sing and dance their way through Irving Berlin songs for every major holiday, plus a few minor ones. This is deservedly at the top of most holiday movie lists.The origin of the song "White Christmas."
- White Christmas. Sort of a follow-up to Holiday Inn, with Bing Crosby again, Danny Kaye instead of Fred Astaire, and Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen instead of the two women whose names I don't remember. If they could have gotten Fred Astaire this would be the greatest holiday movie ever made.
- The Man Who Came to Dinner. Monty Wooley is a famous "man of letters" and extreme prima donna who falls on the ice and is forced to spend Christmas in the home of an upper-middle class Midwestern family. Also stars Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Jimmy Durante, Billie Burke, Mary Wickes, and some English guy who should have been Noel Coward but wasn't. Very mean-spirited and very, very funny. A bit stagey, but I love the movie so much that I forgive it.
- Christmas in Connecticut. TCM gave this two and a half stars. Are they on crack? When I'm watching this movie, I always think it's my very favorite holiday movie. (But then I think the same thing about every movie listed above.) Barbara Stanwyck stars as the "domestic goddess" author of a famous magazine column about the perfect home life on her farm in Connecticut. Except she's a fraud who isn't married, doesn't like kids, can't cook, and lives in a walk-up apartment in Manhattan. The movie follows her attempts to fool her publisher, Sydney Greenstreet. Also stars S.Z. Sakall, Una O'Connor and Dennis Morgan.
- Since You Went Away. This is an epic war-wife melodrama, not a Christmas movie. But the grand finale happens at Christmas so I guess it counts. I've written about it bunches of times so I'll just say it's perfect if you're feeling sappy around the holidays. Get out the hankie and indulge yourself.
- The Shop Around the Corner. Like Since You Went Away, this isn't a Christmas movie per se. But Slate.com did an article on why it's a better Christmas movie than It's a Wonderful Life and they're right. Slate mentioned the Nora Ephron remake You've Got Mail but forgot the earlier remake, In The Good Old Summertime with Judy Garland and Van Johnson.
Funny, but the only Christmas film that comes to my mind these days is "Go!"
I reject the notion that It's A Wonderful Life is only popular because a quirk left it in the public domain for 20 years. It's been big sport in recent years to try and knock IAWL off it's pedestal (probably because it has a religious theme), but On some rare occasions in popular culture, like IAWL or The Beatles for instance, what is most popular is also the best.
I think it has less to do with religion than with the fact that critics tend to attack anything that's massively popular. But then 90% of massively popular things are crud, just like 90% of everything is crud. For myself, I have nothing against It's A Wonderful Life; I'm just not crazy about Frank Capra.
Yeah, that's pretty much my point. I'm sure the critics hate themselves for loving the Beatles, but they just can't help it. Sometimes the masses get it right.
Not crazy about Frank Capra? Putting It's a Wonderful Life aside, The Apartment is genius.
Oh and 90% crud? I'd say that you were being kind with that number.
My feeling about Capra is that he had flashes of brilliance, like It Happened One Night, but I mostly find him treacly & overly sentimental. I haven't seen The Apartment but it sounds like I should. I'll record it next time it's on TCM.
I love the Beatles too! I gave my dad the new CD "Love" for Christmas, and then my brother in law gave it to me! Nice coincidence.