Cast: Susan Lucci, Wendy Crewson, Molly Parker, Lorena Gale, Nicole Parker, Taran Noah Smith
Credits: Producer: Jayme Pfahl; Director: George Kaczender; Writers: Paul Redford and Ed Redlich; ABC; 1995
Television version with Lucci as Elizabeth “Ebbie” Scrooge, a hard-nosed businesswoman who needs a visit from the Christmas ghosts to realize the joy of living.
Ebenezer
Cast: Jack Palance, Rick Schroder, Amy Locane
Credits: Producers: Douglas Berquist and Michael Frislev; Director: Ken Jubenville; Writer: Donald Martin; Nomadic; Television, 1997
Jack Palance plays Scrooge in this Canadian version of A Christmas Carol that takes place in the 1870s old West.
Edward Scissorhands
Cast: Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest, Kathy Baker, Anthony Michael Hall, Vincent Price, Alan Arkin
Credits: Producers: Tim Burton and Denise DiNovi; Director: Tim Burton; Writers: Caroline Thompson and Tim Burton; 20th Century Fox; 1990
Tim Burton’s beautifully surrealistic film is about an inventor (Vincent Price) who created Edward but didn’t have time to finish his hands before he died. Edward (Depp) has scissors for hands and lives alone in a castle high atop a hill overlooking a pastel-washed suburban town. He is discovered by Peg Boggs (Wiest) and taken down into a much more bizarre place than the dark castle, suburbia. At first this strange creature is a novelty, and people turn out in droves to see him. He begins to cut the hair of the town women who adore the shy boy. But things turn ugly when he resists the advances of Joyce (Kathy Baker), a bored woman and when Wiest’s daughter Kim (Ryder) takes a liking to Edward, angering her domineering boyfriend Jim (Hall). A group of teens, including Hall, use Depp to break into Hall’s house and scatter when the police arrive, all that is but Depp. He is arrested and soon the gossips have him almost raping Joyce and becoming a menace to society.
The Boggs family is happily unaware of the neighbors’ feelings, prepare for their annual Christmas party; Bill applies rolls of white cloth to his roof for snow, while Kim and Peg decorate the white artificial Christmas tree. Kim sees snow falling outside and finds Edward carving a glorious ice angel, the falling ice making a snow storm in the warm climate. 
Kim is enchanted and dances in the falling snow. Burton films this scene with slow-motion and close-up shots, making it unforgettable. As Edward is climbing down from the ladder, Kim is distracted by Jim and Edward accidentally cuts her. Jim causes a fuss and Edward must run for safety. Peg and Bill frantically search for him as he returns to their house where he finds Kim and she asks him to hold her, but he is afraid for he can only hurt her if he gets too close. She lifts his arms and places them around her, unafraid of the gentle Edward. But once again Jim arrives and the townspeople gather in the form of a Universal horror film torch-wielding mob. Kim tells Edward to run and he heads for the safety of the castle.
Kim finds him there but so does Jim. The two fight and Edward stabs Jim and he falls out a window. Kim realizes there is only one thing to do and the two say good-bye as she takes a spare hand from the inventor’s shop. Covered with blood, she walks outside and tells the waiting crowd the two killed each other and Edward’s body was covered by a cave-in. The subdued crowd turns and leaves behind the bodies of Jim and Edward, the haunted boy in the castle.
Years later an old woman tells the story to her granddaughter to explain why it now snows in the valley and why she never went back to find Edward.
Elf
Cast: Will Ferrell, James Caan, Edward Asner, Patrick Baynham
Credits: Director: Jon Favreau; Writer: David Berenbaum; New Line, 2003
Will Ferrell, an over-sized elf, leaves the North Pole and searches for his real family.
Elmo Saves Christmas
Cast: Charles Durning, Harvey Fierstein, Kevin Clash
Credits: Producer: Karin Young Shiel; Director: Emily Squires; Writers: Christine Ferraro and Tony Geiss; Children’s Television Workshop; 1996
Sesame Street’s beloved Elmo (Kevin Clash) meets Santa (Durning) and the Easter Bunny (Harvey Fierstein) in this sweet children’s direct-to-video film.
Elves
Cast: Dan Haggerty, Julie Astin, Ken Carpenter, Stacey Dye
Credits: Director: Jeffrey Mandel; Writer: Jeffrey Mandel; Action International Pictures; 1990
I’m not sure I understand this, but the horror plot involves evil renegade elves, Nazis and girls trapped in a department store who must be saved by Santa. I think.
Ernest Saves Christmas
Cast: Jim Varney, Douglas Seale, Oliver Clark, Noelle Parker, Robert Lesser
Credits: Producers: Stacy Williams and Doug Claybourne; Director: John Cherry; Writer: B. Kline and Ed Turner; Touchstone; 1988
Today’s children lack a comedian that they can call their own. The last generation had Jerry Lewis, and before him Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin appealed to audiences of the 1920s to the 1940s. If a career misfire hadn’t occurred to comedian Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman), he might have been this generation’s torch-bearer. But it seems the mantle of this generation’s comic fool has fallen to wacky Jim Varney, who starred in a series of feature films based upon his Ernest P. Worrell character. One of the most entertaining certainly has to be Ernest Saves Christmas (1988), a movie that like The Santa Clause, deals with passing the torch from an older Santa to a new one, done in such a way that the cynical children of today can still accept the magic of Christmas and of Santa Claus.
The movie opens in Orlando, Florida on December 23, as a well-dressed gentleman who looks like Santa Claus exits a plane engaging in small talk with another businessman. When asked if this was his first time in Orlando, Santa Claus (Douglas Seale) says, “I fly in once a year... but in a different way!” When asked where he’s from, he answers, “Up north.” Next asked about his line of work, he states, “Toys.” When asked how long has he been in this line of work, Santa smiles and says, “Longer than you can imagine.” Asked if he is here on business, Santa responds that he is here “to select a replacement, someone to take over my duties.” However, as this conversation occurs, younger children at the airport point and smile at the kind old man, who twinkles his eyes and smiles back. “Don’t think I quite have the magic for another Christmas,” Santa tells his companion. “”Now I have trouble recalling who was naughty, who was nice... who asked for a toy truck.” The concerned businessman rattles back, “Sounds like a database problem.”
Enter our hero, Ernest, who is driving a cab and is told by his lone customer to get him to the airport pronto. Immediately, Ernest goes into overdrive driving aggressively, switching lanes and rocking his passenger back and forth in his seat until the poor man falls out the side door. “I told him about that seat belt,” Ernest complains, pulling onto the side of the road, picking up the unconscious man and carrying him back to the cab. “Mister, you can’t get out here.” The man, lying on his side with a frozen look of shock on his face, is dropped off at the airport and deposited on the luggage rack conveyer belt. It is here that Ernest picks up his next fare, Santa Claus, who is leaving the airport.
Ernest immediately recognizes his passenger as Santa Claus and the old man smiles and states, “I am him!” Soon a lone Christmas tree falls off a truck carrying a shipment of trees, and Ernest reflects on the importance of trees as “a symbol of brotherly love,” and almost crashes his cab, stopping on the freeway, backing his car up, to shove the tree in the back seat (which breaks out the side glass) so his friend Vern will have a tree this Christmas. “Christmas is just about my favorite time, ever since I was a little kid. I always felt like it was my own personal holiday... I’m as one with the Yuletide,” he declares to Santa. Santa asks Ernest if he knows a Joe Carruthers (Oliver Clark), the man he is seeking out. Ernest sputters out that’s the guy from the Uncle Joe show that was canceled only weeks ago. Ernest assumes the man must be rich, but Santa informs him that a man who does a children’s show on local television once a week doesn’t do it for money. Obviously, Santa has his new replacement all picked out.
Meanwhile, a teenage runaway (but in this sanitized world, she is clean and wears trendy clothes with her hair done up just right), who skips out of paying for her meal at a corner restaurant, runs right into the path of Ernest’s cab, jumping in the front seat. Pointing, she cries, “That’s my mean uncle! He makes me work in the restaurant like a slave... don’t let him get me!” She introduces herself as Harmony Star (Noelle Parker), a name the world will remember, but we later find out she is really Pamela. Arriving at Santa’s destination, the Orlando Children’s Museum, Santa is unable to pay his $32.00 fare because all he has is play money, having forgotten that he put real money in a child’s game last Christmas. “What we have here is a failure... to accumulate,” Ernest states angrily. But thinking and calming down, Ernest tells the old man the drive is on the house and to have a Merry Christmas.
Santa Claus sees prime candidate Joe Carruthers present a dinosaur puppet show to the gathered children, always ending his shows with the magic words, “Please and thank-you!” As Santa introduces himself to Joe and begins to explain why Joe is the chosen one, Joe’s sleazy manager interrupts, telling Joe of an audition for a new Christmas movie. But before he auditions, the manager Marty tells him he must shave off his full beard and dye the gray out of his hair. Not wanting to desert the old man, Joe tells Marty to take care of him, but the only thing the agent does is call the police and have Santa Claus arrested, lined up for a mug shot, fingerprinted (he has snowflake prints) and thrown into a cell with hardcore undesirables. But Santa has them all singing “The 12 Days of Christmas” in no time flat.
When Ernest turns his cab in and reports that he gave Santa a lift for free, his boss explodes and fires him on the spot, throwing the contents of the trunk at him-Santa Claus’ forgotten Christmas sack. Delivering the free tree to Vern’s house, practically destroying the unseen man’s living room by tearing the wiring out of the wall, Ernest goes to his truck and remembers the red sack and decides to look inside. When he does, a light radiates from the bag as he hears high-pitched wails of laughter and commotion inside. With shock written all over his hounddog face, Ernest mutters, “He’s him,” realizing he has the responsibility to get that sack to Santa or Christmas is over before it begins. But when he returns to the Children’s Museum, the friendly and helpful clerk Mary (Billie Bird) refers Ernest to the police station and jail. “You mean he got busted,” Ernest rants.
Harmony, giving younger audiences someone with whom to identify, becomes the typical young teenager who believes that Christmas and Santa Claus are hum-bug! She rudely asks Ernest how Santa travels around the world and visits all the children in just one night. She asks why he travels by airplane and taxi-“Where’s his sleigh... his reindeer?”
Just at that moment at the airport, two Laurel and Hardy-esque maintenance workers are unloading several large wooden crates, hearing strange sounds from inside. Soon a hoofed leg breaks through, and the animals are free in the storage area, reindeer one and all. Some of the reindeer decide to defy gravity and walk across the ceiling. One shipper remarks, “Alien goats” before realizing that he is dealing with magic reindeer.
Ernest, speaking to Harmony, wonders aloud how Santa got into his childhood home, since they never had a chimney (these same questions are asked in The Santa Clause some years later). Ernest, who is proud he has things figured out, claims Santa must have gotten into the house through the forced air heating system, imagining Santa turning into a gooey blob and oozing through the vent covers. Harmony, always the cynic, utters, “You talk like you believe all this stuff!” And Ernest’s eyes become deadly solemn as he answers, “Of course I do! Christmas is a known fact; millions of people all over the world celebrate Christmas every year.” In disgust, Harmony states, “You’re a sick man, Ernest.”
Harmony, even though she does not believe in Christmas magic, is transfixed by Santa’s red sack; and she is always reaching in and pulling out a present; but, when it turns out to be a present for little children, she becomes disheartened. “What I really want for Christmas is one million dollars in small, unmarked bills,” but when she looks into the sack she never finds anything she wants. Soon Harmony and Ernest (slicked up and disguised as a state official) go to the police to get Santa out of the slammer, telling the officials there that they are making a surprise inspection for the governor; and when they find a man who claims he is Santa Claus (in reality, our Santa Claus) in a cell with regular prisoners, the Ernest inspector hits the roof. When the criminals defend Santa Claus, the inspector calls it “infectious insanity” that has spread to the so-called normal criminals. Somehow the prison authorities release Santa Claus to Ernest and all three get away. However, Harmony still doesn’t believe in the power of Santa Claus, and Santa says, “She’s been this way since that Christmas I brought her a doll instead of a baseball mitt... isn’t it true, Pamela!” Santa pleads to Ernest that they must convince Joe by 7 p.m. Christmas Eve to become the new man in red. The current Santa took possession of the red suit in 1889 from the former German Santa. “With the passing of time the magic fails. It is recharged with the passing of the torch from one Santa to the next.”
However, back on location of Joe’s first film, Joe is upset when the script requires him to use objectionable language when he confronts an alien monster. “I sorta can’t say that!” he gripes. He is told by the movie makers that this film is called Christmas Slay not Sleigh, and when Joe is told that it is the story of a space alien who terrorizes children during Christmas vacation, he becomes angered.
Soon a plan is concocted. Santa and his bag will take the bus to the Children’s Museum at 7 o’clock Christmas Eve. Ernest will go to the airport to fetch Santa’s reindeer and sleigh and bring them downtown by seven. And Joe, who must be convinced, will be at the Children’s Museum also by seven.
However, Harmony gets greedy and steals Santa’s actual magical sack, replacing it with an identical one filled with feathers. She plans to use what little money she has to buy a ticket out of town-Miami is the farthest she can afford. But she departs at 6:40 and has a long time to wait.
Santa sees Joe (who by this time has dyed his hair and trimmed off his beard) committing himself to a life in the movies. “I don’t know how to deal with something like this,” Joe pleads. And when Santa shows him the magic of his sack, all he sees is feathers. Not depressed, Santa has absolute faith that the real bag will be returned; and he implores, “Joe, search your heart. There must be something that can convince you of the truth!”
Two elves arrive on Eastern Airlines from Toronto, each disguised in trenchcoats and hats with dark sunglasses. They are in town to rendezvous with Santa’s reindeer and sleigh. By now Ernest is at the airport storage room seeking out reindeer when the elves arrive, take off their hats and show their pointy ears. After an aborted attempt to sneak the elves, reindeer and sleigh to the museum as the cargo of a Ryder truck, Ernest and the elves have to pilot the sleigh downtown-with lead-footed Ernest in the driver’s seat. Calling out the reindeer’s names, the sleigh gains power, glows and takes off into the sky at supersonic speed, Ernest screaming all the way up and down and across the heavens, finally ending up in outer space.
At the same time, Joe is making demands for changes in his contract before continuing with the film; and when he is told he is a nobody and has no right to make any changes in the movie, he walks out after first looking outside the window and seeing Santa’s kinetic sleigh prance all over the night sky.
Feeling guilty as she sits and waits at the depot, Harmony hears a big brother tell his younger sister that she is stupid to still be believing in Santa Claus; but Harmony tells him to leave his sister alone, that there is a Santa Claus. But she asks Harmony, “Then why do you have the sack?” And, with that thought, Harmony picks up the sack and storms out of the station, running at full speed toward the Children’s Museum.
Soon, everyone converges at the museum, Joe asking Santa if the job offer is still open; Santa responds, “For the right man!” Shaking hands (which begin to glow), Joe is instantly transformed into Santa Claus, suit, beard and all. Asking where the sleigh is, Ernest from outer space starts the sleigh in a nose-dive descent which ends about 20 feet from the ground when he manages to stop the sleigh on a dime; “air brakes” Ernest explains. Trying out his powers, Santa (Joe) is told by the former Santa that he promised a fine gentleman he met on the plane that Santa Claus would make it snow, and within seconds, in hot Orlando, snow is falling. Joe invites Ernest and Harmony (who has phoned her mother and is returning home) to accompany him on his rounds this year.
All alone, the former Santa Claus, again returning to being Seth Applegate, is asked by kindly and interested Mary if he is doing anything tonight. Applegate answers, “Not a thing.” Then devilishly, Mary suggests, “We’ll think of something,” as Santa’s sleigh disappears into the night.
Once again, the love of the Ernest character is an acquired taste, and it is a taste most appreciated by younger audiences who enjoy visual gags and broad, physical humor. Jim Varney is only as good as his material, and while he is master of his character Ernest, Ernest Saves Christmas succeeds by virtue of its clever script, interesting characterizations and sentimental tone. The film addresses many of the themes to be explored in later films such as The Santa Clause, as already mentioned. But Douglas Seal presents a sensitive portrayal of an old-fashioned Santa in a modern world who never once believes that the spirit of Santa Claus might be becoming passé. Since he never doubts himself, neither do we. Ernest’s childlike simplicity and goodness embracing the total holiday package make it easier for children to also accept that old Red Magic. Yes, yes, yes, moments occur in Earnest Saves Christmas that are groaners, so infantile that we wonder how anyone could find them humorous. But, somehow, Jim Varney makes believers of us all, charming his audience to laugh at all the stupidity and shed a tear at the more poignant moments (many of which occur). Ernest Saves Christmas becomes entertaining for both the young and the young at heart, succeeding all too well in keeping the traditional Christmas spirit alive.
The Family Man
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Tea Leoni, Jeremy Piven, Don Cheadel
Credits: Director: Brett Ratner; Writers: David Weissman, Marc Abraham; MCA, 2002
Nicolas Cage is a very successful and ruthless investment broker about to close a huge deal on Christmas Eve. On his way home he breaks up a fight at a convenience store. One of the participants is really an angel who changes Cage’s reality to give him a glimpse of the life he could have had. Cage wakes up the next morning in a old house with a wife and kids and a dull job as a tire salesman. After panicking he begins to adjust to his new life and even enjoy it. Just as things are getting comfortable and cozy, the angel gives him his old life back, and he now realizes what he was missing in his life and must find a way to regain his family.
A Fare to Remember
Cast: Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Challen Cates, John Ratzenberger, Jerry Springer
Credits: Director: James Yukich; Writer: Robert Reece
A busy executive (Cates) misses her plane and must take a cab from Seattle to Los Angeles to make it in time for her wedding. During the ride, she discovers the cabby might just be the man of her dreams. The title is a clever take-off on An Affair to Remember.
Female Trouble
Cast: Divine, David Lochary, Mink Stole, Edith Massey
Credits: Director/Writer: John Waters; New Line; 1975
John Waters pays his own sort of bizarre homage to the Christmas scene in A Summer Place when Dawn Davenport (Divine) doesn’t get the cha-cha heels she wants for Christmas and throws a tantrum. Over goes the Christmas tree and Dawn begins a life of crime. Warning: View only if you are familiar with (and enjoy in a perverse sort of way) the early films of John Waters!
Friday After Next
Cast: Ice Cube, Mike Epps, John Witherspoon, Anna Maria Horsford
Credits: Director: Marcus Raboy; Writers: Ice Cube, Matt Alvarez; New Line, 2002
Movie Tagline: Xmas in the hood! Craig (Ice Cube) and Day Day (Epps) have all their Christmas presents stolen by a scruffy Santa. They spend the rest of the film chasing Santa, trying to earn enough money to pay for their rent and holiday partying. Not for the little ones, but it is a funny sequel to Friday.
The Gathering
Cast: Edward Asner, Maureen Stapleton, Bruce Davison, Veronica Hamel, Gregory Harrison
Credits: Director: Randal Kleiser; Writer: James Poe; Television, 1977
A dying man (Asner) gathers his family together for one final Christmas. Won the Emmy for Outstanding Television Drama in 1978. Unfortunately the videotape of this film has been discontinued and interested movie buffs’ only option is to try to catch it on network television during the holidays.
The Gathering Part 2
Cast: Maureen Stapleton, Patricia Conwell, Bruce Davison, Veronica Hamel, Jameson Parker
Credits: Director: Charles S. Dubin; Television, 1979
Widow (Stapleton) again gathers the family together, this time to introduce the new man in her life. Follow-up to The Gathering.
George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker
Cast: Jessica Lynn Cohen, Macaulay Culkin, Kevin Kline, Darci Kistler
Credits: Producers: Robert A. Krasnow and Robert Hurwitz; Director: Emile Ardolino; Choreography; George Balanchine; Warner Bros.; 1983
To those who do not follow ballet and rarely know what is going on, this film is for you. Narrator Kevin Kline helps explain the sequences and leads the viewers through this visual candy treat.
The story involves Marie (Cohen) who dreams of her Nutcracker Prince (Culkin) and their adventures in the land of the Sugar Plum Fairy (Darci Kistler). The costumes and set design are splendid and the dancing delightful. The dances of the snowflakes and, later, the Christmas tree angels are especially charming.
The Gift of Love
Cast: Marie Osmond, James Woods, Timothy Bottoms, June Lockhart, David Wayne
Credits: Director: Don Chaffey; 1990
Television remake of O. Henry’s Gift of the Magi.
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Cast: Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Terry Kilburn, John Mills, Paul Henreid
Credits: Director: Sam Wood; Producer: Victor Saville; Writers R.C. Sherriff, Caludien West, Eric Maschwitz, Sidney Franklin (Based on the Novella by James Hilton); MGM, 1939
While not really a holiday film, Goodbye, Mr. Chips does feature a lovely Christmas scene between Charles Chipping (Robert Donat, who won the Academy Award for this performance, beating out the popular favorite Clark Gable for Gone With the Wind) and his beautiful wife Katherine (Greer Garson in an Academy Award–nominated performance) when Mr. Chipping (or Chips as his beloved Katherine calls him) has been promoted to housemaster. This classic film is a treasure in any season.
Gremlins
Cast: Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Hoyt Axton, Polly Holliday, Dick Miller, Keye Luke
Credits: Producer: Michael Finnell; Director: Joe Dante; Writer: Chris Columbus; Warner Bros.; 1984
Galligan receives a cuddly mogwai from his inventor father who acquired the rare pet from a mysterious Chinese man (Keye Luke). Of course, being a typical teenager, he forgets the all important rules and the adorable Gizmo spawns a crop of demon-like gremlins who create a terror-filled Christmas for the local residents. Our favorite scene is the maniacal gremlins singing along with Snow White in a movie theater.