I Love Lucy, perhaps the most popular TV situation comedy of all time, hosted a special Christmas Eve special December 24, 1956, which used the holiday to present a “Best of” reprise of some of the earlier episodes. Featuring the classic team of Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance and William Frawley, and Keith Thibodeaux as Little Ricky, the ensemble added the warmth of Christmas to the comedic shenanigans.
Ricky is hanging stockings on the fireplace mantel, with Lucy making sure each stocking’s position is properly balanced. Little Ricky, dressed in his pajamas, is excited that this is Christmas Eve and sits in his little chair directly in front of the fireplace, awaiting Santa Claus. However, the folks tell him that Santa won’t bring the Christmas tree or the presents until he is fast asleep. To which Little Ricky asks why, and Lucy turns over the explanation to Daddy. Ricky tells his son that Santa’s sleigh circles around the neighborhood rooftops awaiting his signal, and Little Ricky fills in the fact that the Sandman must be the one who signals when children are all fast asleep. Then looking up the chimney and not seeing steps, Little Ricky wonders how Santa gets safely down the chimney. Daddy turns this one over to Lucy, she says Santa slides down the chimney like a fireman slides down his pole. Ricky buys it and goes off to sleep.
Immediately Fred and Ethel enter the apartment carrying a tree they just purchased from the neighborhood tree lot. Ricky asks how much it costs, and Ethel says the tree’s on us, which of course causes Fred to complain, “The tree cost five bucks!” Ethel, expecting such a reaction, says, “We have our own Scrooge here... it’s a present from me and Ebenezer!”
Lucy goes to the closet and brings out the ornaments and boxes of decorations. However, she notices that one branch on the right is unbalanced, so Fred will have to go down to the cellar and bring back his saw. After decorating trees with Ricky and Lucy for 15 years, he has the saw inside his coat and starts trimming. But as soon as one branch is cut on one side, Lucy sees another limb that needs to be trimmed on the other. Fred keeps trimming as the first flashback story occurs, the night that Lucy told Ricky, at the club, that she was pregnant.
At the end of the story, all four friends are crying, reflecting upon just how much better Little Ricky made their already grand Christmases. However, Fred says he’s crying for a different reason, showing everyone the tree which now looks butchered and uneven. Ethel yells at Fred to go down to the lot and buy another tree, and we will pay! Soon Ricky leads the gang in a chorus of “Jingle Bells,” but every time Lucy joins in, she sings so far off key that the others stop dead in their tracks. “I don’t seem to sing well lately, anymore,” Lucy confesses. “Lately,” one person comments, “Anymore!” another adds. This brings us to flashback two, with Ethel, Fred and Ricky, at the club, singing a barbershop quarter number, with the fourth member, George Watson, in the barber chair, his face covered with a towel. 
However, the toweled face is soon revealed to be Lucy, who sings off key, forcing the others to silence her by shoving a brush with shaving cream into her mouth.
Fred delivers the new tree, better looking than the first, and since it was late, he was only charged half a buck, and the guy threw in some mistletoe. Beginning to decorate the tree, Lucy tries to get Ricky to offer a hint about her Christmas present, but he tells her to wait until tomorrow morning. Holding the mistletoe above her head, Lucy gets a passionate kiss and hug from Ricky. Ethel, borrowing the same mistletoe and holding it above her head, yells, “Freddy, go ahead!” Fred, looking solemnly at his wife, quips, “You’re an incurable optimist,” but then even he melts and kisses his wife. Soon the lights are strung on the tree, and for the first time in 15 years, they light immediately. However, suddenly the lights out go, forcing the group to check each individual light, something they now consider an enjoyable ritual. This leads into flashback three, the night Lucy went into labor causing massive panic among Fred, Ricky and Ethel in getting Lucy to the hospital.
By now the tree is completely decorated, and presents line the entire living room, especially Little Ricky’s new bike and drum set. Ricky begins to stir, and all four adults, now dressed in their complete Santa Claus outfits, decide to hide in the kitchen. However, a fifth Santa Claus, Fred, comes in the kitchen from outside, so how could five Santa Clauses possibly be in the kitchen? “Just a minute,” someone says as they all pull down each other’s beards, revealing their true identity. However, when pulling the beard of the stranger, he screams out “ooouch” letting the others know his beard is real. Then, mysteriously, he fades away amidst the tinkling of Christmas sounds. Dumbfounded, Ricky, Fred, Ethel and Lucy yell out, “Merry Christmas, everyone” as the show ends.
This Christmas motif serves as a wonderful comedic framing device for the producer to replay all the significant Little Ricky segments (including the announcement of his birth and Lucy going into labor), since the Christmas show is focused on the child and the happiness the five-year-old brought to the Ricardo household. The other flashback is merely icing on the cake, playing up Lucy’s pathological urge to perform at the club and sing when she has such a horrible voice. The final surprise with Santa adds a dash of magic, and the sight of seeing the entire cast dressed as Santa is a delight. While this is not one of the classic episodes, this special episode does bring the charm of the holidays to the I Love Lucy cast, and for that reason alone, it becomes quite special.
I’ll Be Home for Christmas
Cast: Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Jessica Biel, Gary Cole
Credits: Director: Arlene Sanford; Writers: Harris Goldberg, Tom Nursall; Based on a Story by Michael Allin; Buena Vista; 1998
College student Jake (Jonathan Taylor Thomas) is angry his widowed father has remarried, so he decides to skip Christmas with the family. His father tries to bribe him into coming home by promising to give him a vintage Porsche if he makes it home by Christmas Eve. Jake decides to ride home with his girlfriend, but doesn’t make it when he is kidnapped by fellow students, dressed in a Santa suit and stranded in the desert. He goes through a series of comic misadventures cross country as he tries to make it home. Of course, by the time he gets there he’s learned the true meaning of family, friends and Christmas. Another film the kids will enjoy.
I’ll Be Seeing You
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple, Spring Byington, Chill Wills
Credits: Producer: Dore Schary; Director: William Dieterle; Writer: Marion Parsonnet (Based on the Radio Play “Double Furlough” by Charles Martin); Vanguard; 1944
We were unable to find this film anywhere and are relying on the Variety review for a description. “...a timely story about Christmas and a shell-shocked war vet. It ties up the immediate problem of the soldier psychiatric [patient] finding himself in civilian life with the perennial problem of a convict readjusting herself to society after paying her debt. A poignant, romantic drama, done with taste and honesty, and acted superbly, it is sure box-office.
“A quietly moving, sensitive story about two misfits adapting themselves to the world and each other... The story covers a girl on Christmas furlough from the state penitentiary, where she is serving a term for manslaughter, and an Army sergeant on furlough from the hospital where he is being treated as a neuro case. The sergeant got his shellshock after a bayonet wound in the South Pacific; the girl accidentally caused the death of her employer when she resisted his unsolicited advances.
“They meet on a train, the girl going to visit relatives for the Xmas holiday, the soldier going anywhere... The girl invites the solider to her aunt’s home and, in the 10-day leave both have, the soldier strives successfully to shake off his nervous ailment while falling in love with the girl. The latter, also in love with him, and trying to help the soldier in his rehabilitation, keeps her prison secret from him. When he finds out, there is a crisis, but it settles as the two renew their love again for the future when both will be free... There are many memorable moments, as the Christmas scene when the plum pudding is served and the family sings carols.”
This film is not available on videotape, but perhaps by searching the television movie listings we may one day be able to view what seems to be a charming Christmas film.
In the Good Old Summertime
Cast: Judy Garland, Van Johnson, S.Z. Sakall, Spring Byington, Buster Keaton
Credits: Producer: Joe Pasternak; Director: Robert Z. Leonard; Writers: Samson Raphaelson, Frances Goodrich, Ivan Tors and Albert Hackett (Based on “The Shop Around the Corner” by Miklos Laszlo); MGM; 1949
The sweet holiday love story The Shop Around the Corner was remade by MGM in 1949 as In the Good Old Summertime. Rather than latter-day Budapest as in the original, the film has gone back in time to Chicago at the turn of the century with art director Cedric Gibbons, along with Randall Duell, turning the Technicolor film into a visual treat. Reportedly the film was originally developed for June Allyson, who didn’t have an extremely strong singing voice. Allyson bowed out because of pregnancy, to be replaced by Judy Garland. Consequently the songs don’t do justice to the talent of Garland who only gets to cut loose on “I Don’t Care,” but the energetic number seems too modern for the film setting.
Often dialogue is word from word from the original, but the adultery theme is tossed into the junk heap.
The owner of the shop, Mr. Oberkugen (S.Z. Sakall), has been dating his bookkeeper Nellie (Spring Byington) for years without offering a proposal (he’s waiting to become a concert violinist-the poor woman will never see her wedding day; Oberkugen’s playing could make a grown man cry). His bad temper is due to Nellie telling him she has a date-with another man. He orders everyone to stay late causing Veronica Fisher (Judy Garland) to miss her rendezvous with her pen pal. As in the original, Veronica’s nemesis at work, Andrew Larkin (Van Johnson), is her secret love. Realizing the employees are being kept unreasonably, Nellie apologizes to Oberkugen, who then allows the workers to leave. Rudy Hansen (Clinton Sundberg) helps the nervous Larkin get ready for the big night. As they approach the restaurant he makes Rudy look for the lady and describe her. Finding it is Veronica, Larkin leaves in a huff and goes to hear his neighbor Louise play her violin at another eatery. On his way home, he passes the restaurant only to see Veronica still seated at her table. He enters and the two trade insults.
The next day Veronica calls in sick and, at the urging of Rudy, Larkin goes to see her. The duo begin to get better acquainted as he happily helps take care of a baby left in Veronica’s charge, when her aunt brings in a new letter. Larkin tells her to bring her boyfriend to the engagement party of Nellie and Mr. Oberkugen.
That afternoon Nellie pulls Larkin aside and begs him to do anything so Mr. Oberkugen can’t play his violin at the party. Oberkugen has entrusted his precious Stradivarius to Larkin, who takes it home with him. Louise sees the instrument and assumes Mr. Oberkugen has lent it to her for an audition that night with the symphony.
Poor Larkin arrives late at the party without the violin. Oberkugen insists he get it. Larkin gets Louise’s old violin and reluctantly takes it to the party. Oberkugen’s clumsy nephew Hickey (Buster Keaton) hurries to the front of the room to give it to his uncle when he trips (as only Buster Keaton can do) and crushes the instrument. Larkin confesses it wasn’t the real Stradivarius, which was at the audition. Veronica, Hickey and Oberkugen wait backstage at the Symphony Hall with a policeman; but when Oberkugen hears Louise play the violin, he cannot have Larkin arrested. He merely fires him. Veronica, feeling a little jealous, thinks Louise is Larkin’s girlfriend. The next day, Christmas Eve, Larkin arrives early to let the employees into the shop, and Nellie makes him wait while she gets a letter of recommendation. Oberkugen, praising Larkin in the letter, realizes he has made a mistake and makes him manager. Larkin enters the storeroom to hang up his coat and, while trying to propose to Veronica, only winds up having another argument with her. He tells Rudy the whole thing is off, but then listens as Veronica sings “Merry Christmas” (by Fred Spielman and Janice Torre-a pleasant little song, but it certainly isn’t “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”) and his bad temper melts away.
As they close the store Oberkugen happily announces that this was their best day ever. Hickey apologizes to Larkin for taking Veronica to the party. He tells him he didn’t realize she was in love with Larkin, thus encouraging the new manager to put the moves on Veronica. As in the original, he turns out lights in the shop as he tells Veronica of meeting her fiancé. Disillusioned, she sits beneath a Christmas tree as Larkin strokes her hair and finally tells her he is her “Dear Friend.” Garland’s reading of the “psychologically I’m very confused, but personally I don’t feel bad at all” line is actually more effective than Margaret Sullavan’s, as the statement ends with an embrace and the camera pans up the tree.
Judy Garland has matured before our eyes, and in this performance her voice has traces of the caustic wit she was known for. The prior year she had made the musicals Easter Parade with Fred Astaire and The Pirate with Gene Kelly, turning in two dazzling performances. In 1950 she would make her last film for MGM, Summer Stock. Her “Get Happy” number in that film would be one of the best musical numbers she had ever performed.
One of Van Johnson’s first film appearances was as a chorus boy in RKO’s Too Many Girls with Lucille Ball in 1940. He would have his first starring role in Warner Bros.’ Murder in the Big House in 1942 and that same year would become an MGM contract player working in many musicals including Easy to Love and Brigadoon.
Inside Story
Cast: Michael Whalen, Jean Rogers, Chick Chandler, Douglas Fowley
Credits: Producer: Howard J. Green; Director: Ricardo Cortez; Writer: Jerry Cady (Based on A Very Practical Joke by Ben Ames Williams); Fox; 1939
This film is not available on videotape and we are relying on a review from The Motion Picture Guide. “Whalen is a reporter with a heart. He wants to find the loneliest woman in New York and show her an old-fashioned Christmas on a farm. He meets Rogers, whom he believes to be a stenographer. Actually she’s a tough nightclub owner, but her toughness wears down with the Christmas spirit, and she learns to enjoy the simpler things life offers.”
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
Cast: Mickey Rooney, Scott Grimes, Barrie Youngfellow, George Gaynes
Credits: Director: Peter H. Hunt; Writers: Frank Cardea and George Schenk; HGV; 1984
Rooney turns in a fine performance as Mike Halligan, a retired police detective, who, on the eve of a trip to New York City to show his beloved grandson the grandeur of a real New York Christmas, dies and is sent to heaven. But he begs to return to make the trip and the archangel agrees if he helps find a missing angel who is sent to New York each Christmas to spread holiday cheer. Halligan’s daughter and son-in-law follow them to New York, the son-in-law vowing to place Halligan in a rest home.
Although the filmmakers’ intentions were good, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear ultimately rings a hollow note as we are expected to believe an impassioned plea by Halligan on a Christmas Eve newscast will save the city from a mean-spirited holiday.
As an audience we can relate to Halligan’s memories of the charm of a New York Christmas (even if we have never been there, we can vicariously enjoy the city’s charm via Home Alone 2 which shows the city in all its decorated glory). But the decorations are missing (the city council voted to ban them this year), the Santas all look like North Pole rejects and we know it would take more than one speech to turn these New Yorkers into merrymakers. The change in the son-in-law also seems too abrupt and ultimately unbelievable. As for a happy ending, well, the Christmas spirit is brought to the city and Halligan’s family, but as he and grandson Robbie take a carriage ride through the park, he dies. The End.
Not a terrible film and enjoyable to a certain extent, but if you have limited viewing time, there are other films that rate higher in holiday cheer.
It Happened on Fifth Avenue
Cast: Don DeFore, Ann Harding, Charlie Ruggles, Victor Moore, Gale Storm, Grant Mitchell
Credits: Producer/Director: Roy Del Ruth; Writers: Everett Freeman and Vick Knight (Based on a Story by Herbert Clyde Lewis and Frederick Stephani); Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay; Allied Artists, 1947
Each November third, Aloysuis T. McKeever moves into the vacated mansion of Michael O’Connor (Charlie Ruggles) for the winter while O’Connor resides in Virginia. McKeever’s idyllic home life is shaken up when he invites Jim Bullock (Don DeFore) to stay with him. Jim is an ex-serviceman who can’t find housing. He has just been evicted by minions of O’Connor, who is tearing down Bullock’s apartment building to build offices. They soon take in Trudy (Gale Storm), a girl they think is poor and all alone in New York. Trudy is really the daughter of O’Connor, who has run away. Into this mix comes two service buddies of Jim’s and their families. Christmas is approaching and O’Connor has found Trudy working in a music store. She tells him everything and convinces him to pretend to be poor and out of work so he can meet the man Trudy has fallen in love with-Jim. Jim and his buddies plan to buy an abandoned Army base and turn it into ex-soldier housing. O’Connor is unknowingly bidding against them. O’Connor, tired of doing dishes and following the orders of McKeever in his own house, tells Trudy they must all be out of there the next day. Trudy calls in reinforcements in the form of her mother, Mary (Ann Harding). She pretends to be a cook and keeps O’Connor in line. McKeever recognizes the two still love each other and encourages them to get married. They do still love each other but Mary thinks O’Connor hasn’t changed and still loves his money best.
On Christmas Eve, the extended family spends a merry holiday together. Mike and Mary realize how important the little things in life are. Trudy and Jim plan to be married as soon as the deal goes through. Jim is downcast to find they have been outbid by O’Connor and decides to take a job in Bolivia. But O’Connor, whom they all know as Mike, tells him he has managed to get him an appointment with O’Connor. Jim and his buddies are speechless when they find their old friend Mike is actually O’Connor. He signs over the base to them, and the film ends happily as everyone gets what they truly desired.
Like The Cheaters, It Happened on Fifth Avenue preaches the rich are really miserable and cannot be truly happy until they go back to their poorer roots and join the ranks of the average person.
This film is a Christmas treat that everyone will enjoy. It is not available on video, so you have to scan the television listings hoping it will show up for the holidays.
It Happened One Christmas
Cast: Richard Dysart, Christopher Guest, C. Thomas Howell, Cloris Leachman, Wayne Rogers, Marlo Thomas, Orson Welles
Credits: Director: Donald Wrye; Writer: Lionel Chetwynd (Based on the Screenplay It’s a Wonderful Life and the Story The Greatest Gift); Television, 1977
Television remake of It’s A Wonderful Life with Marlo Thomas as Mary Bailey Hatch and Orson Welles as Henry Potter. Wayne Rogers plays her loving husband George Hatch. Can’t compare to the original but curious nonetheless.
It Nearly Wasn’t Christmas
Cast: Charles Durning, Risa Schiffman, Wayne Osmond, Beverly Rowland, Bruce Vilanch
Credits: Producers: Harvey Bibicoff, Irwin Meyer and Jimmy Osmond; Director: Burt Brinckerhoff; Writer: Golda David, Alan Jay Glueckman and Stanley Isaacs; Television, 1989
Santa (Durning) decides children don’t need him anymore. His wife (Rowland) sends him out to the city to find the truth. He helps a little girl travel to California to find her father and, by reuniting the family, realizes children do still need Santa Claus.
It’s a Wonderful Life
Cast: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Travers, Beulah Bondi, Ward Bond, Gloria Grahame
Credits: Producer/Director: Frank Capra; Writers: Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Frank Capra and Jo Swerling (Based on The Greatest Gift by Philip Van Doren Stern); Liberty; 1946
Frank Capra is renowned for producing his particular brand of “Capra-corn” for the movie masses, and often he is criticized for creating a world 
view where everyone does the right thing. In other words, Capra is accused of creating unrealistic schmaltz and sentiment. However, Capra’s 1946 Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life is an anomaly, for it really isn’t a Christmas movie (not until its final third-when Uncle Billy takes his $8,000 Savings and Loan deposit to the bank on Christmas Eve-does the movie settle into presenting the Yuletide spirit), nor is it light and frivolous Capra-corn. Instead its dark and deeply psychological tone approaches film noir. While the movie doesn’t have a femme fatale, it does have the sex-obsessed (and specifically George Bailey obsessed) platinum blonde sizzler, Violet, played by Gloria Grahame, who was often cast as a seductress. And James Stewart’s performance as George Bailey twists and turns from his youthful dreams of becoming an architect/world-traveling dreamer to disillusioned and disappointed yet fatalistic servant to the family business. By the movie’s end, George is despondent and places his life insurance policy in his vest pocket and contemplates suicide by jumping off a bridge into the chilly waters below. He is devastated by his scandalous monetary situation after Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) looses $8,000, which means “bankruptcy, scandal and jail.” A climatic sequence occurs in Martini’s bar, as George Bailey, hunched over his drink, every muscle and fiber crumbing under the weight of the world, gets an unexpected surprise when the husband of the school teacher Bailey screamed at over the phone comes over to him and sucker punches him in the mouth, dropping him to the floor. For such a so-called sentimental movie, It’s a Wonderful Life casts the bleakest of spells over the holiday spirit by photographing the movie, at this point, at night, in a bar, on a isolated bridge or on nearly deserted streets-all punctuated by a hard-driving snow that would whip the humanity out of even the most gentle human being. George Bailey, at his wit’s end, buries his face in his hands and prays to God for escape. The final half hour of the movie contains a tone of utter desperation, of absolute hopelessness, which accentuates the spiritual and moral disintegration of a formerly optimistic character.
Interestingly enough, James Stewart’s performance transcends his movie persona, with his George Bailey starting out with the typical small-town kinda-shy characterization which Stewart performed so often. But by the movie’s middle and ending, his golly-gee decent Everyman transforms into a multi-layered onion, with deeper layers gradually being revealed which show his facade of hope being crushed by the cruel circumstances of his life, resulting in his groveling before and begging his lifelong enemy Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore in a career-defining performance as the modern-day equivalent of Scrooge) for help, for a loan. And we shudder when Potter verbalizes the long-standing grudge he has held against the Bailey family, especially George, and how he plans to have George arrested for misappropriation of funds (while Potter knows that Uncle Billy mistakenly wrapped the $8,000 deposit money in a newspaper that Potter grabbed, when Billy was bragging about George’s younger brother Harry winning the Congressional Medal of Honor in the war). The moment George pleads for help from this morally bankrupt individual, the audience realizes that Bailey has literally hit rock bottom. The character’s shame is also our shame.
But Capra’s chief gift as co-screenwriter and director is his ability to weave the failings of one man’s life and twist such failings around so they ultimately are seen as triumphs and successes. Using a frame introduced in A Christmas Carol, Capra reinvents the formula by having George Bailey, who has hit spiritual bankruptcy, reexamine the worth of his own life and explore how his life touched the lives of others (by simply witnessing the “what if” world-what if he never existed!). Here George comes to understand when he saved his younger brother’s life when they were children, he rescued a war-hero-to-be who saved the lives of many men in his regiment. And in another childhood sequence, George sees pharmacist and boss Mr. Gower, who has just learned of his own son’s death, accidentally mix poison in capsules to be delivered to a patient. George protests to the point that Gower slaps the boy around the face and head, causing his deaf ear to bleed. In the ending fantasy sequence, we learn that Gower, if it hadn’t been for George, would have served 20 years in prison, emerging from his sentence a drunken, broken barfly. Mary (Donna Reed in a superb performance), George’s wife, would have remained a spinster and librarian. Uncle Billy, without George’s guiding hand, would have lost the Savings and Loan to Potter and end up in an asylum, and many friends and neighbors, who are now living in nice middle class homes, would have been living in over-priced shacks in “Pottersville.” Not only would those immediately associated with George Bailey have lived unsatisfying lives, but the entire town of Bedford Falls, every citizen who held an account with the Bailey Savings and Loan, would have suffered if George had not been born.
This is fine and well for the wonderful citizens of Bedford Falls, but what about George Bailey himself, the world dreamer who is sentenced to a life imprisonment in Bedford Falls-was it as wonderful a life for him as well?
George Bailey had his life planned out... four years of college, then travel, then become an architect who would design cities of the future and 100-story skyscrapers. But destiny has other plans for Bailey. First, his father suffers a stroke and dies, and the Savings and Loan board votes, surprisingly, to not sell out to Potter, stating that George must run the company if it is to survive (how can George let his father down???). Plan B, George gives his college money to his brother Harry who will assume George’s position at the Savings and Loan in four years, allowing George to attend college and live out his dreams. Four years later, brother 
Harry comes home married, having been offered a lucrative job in the field of research by his father-in-law. Harry, who tells George he will not let him down, intends to refuse the job of a lifetime, but George will have no part of that. While others are inside celebrating, George mopes around outside, his facial expressions and body language revealing the torment inside. Resigned to once again do the right thing, George takes his travel brochures from his vest pocket and throws them away, grimly accepting the fact that he is once again trapped by destiny to run the home business, forced to put his own life on hold. After he and Mary are married and taking a cab out of Bedford Falls, finally traveling and beginning an extended honeymoon, there is a run on the bank, which calls in the loan for the Savings and Loan, forcing Uncle Billy to give them all their available cash. Billy closes shop several hours early, inciting a near riot when clients start to line up demanding their money. The only salvation is for George and wife Mary (it’s more her idea) to offer their $2,000 honeymoon fund to appease the customers by giving them at least some of their money back. By closing time, 6 p.m., they have exactly two dollars left, enough to survive the crisis and continue doing business. But once again, and perhaps permanently, George has sacrificed his own plans for the good of the people of Bedford Falls.
Obviously, Frank Capra is exploring the theme that the disappointments that fate doles out might in fact create the true meaning and purpose in an individual’s life. It’s a Wonderful Life illustrates the refrain of a popular Rolling Stones song: “You can’t always get what you want... but you find sometimes, you get what you need.” Right up until Christmas Eve, George Bailey has been self-sacrificing and doing for others, literally giving his customers at the Savings and Loan the money right from his own pockets, but he still feels proud, often looking at his father’s portrait, that he has defeated evil Mr. Potter by offering the community a fair opportunity to borrow money and own their own homes (something very important in post-WWII America). However, when Uncle Billy misplaces the $8,000 and threats of scandal and a prison sentence beckon, George Bailey looks around his house and does not see a happy family any longer. Instead he sees the top of the rail on his staircase constantly fall off, the shabby clothes his children wear, the run-down house that he provides his own family-and he considers himself a failure, a miserable person who never wanted the life that now curses him. He sees his brother as a war hero, and also as a fugitive from Bedford Falls, a man allowed to live his dreams. He sees Mary’s former beau and friend Sam Wainwright making a fortune in the emerging plastics industry. He even sees sexy manbait Violet leave town (with some financial aid from himself). Obviously, it’s a wonderful life for anyone except George Bailey at this point.
However, on that fateful Christmas Eve, after reliving the recent history of Bedford Falls minus the existence of George Bailey, George finally opens his eyes and sees the impact his life has left on others and starts to feel self-fulfilled. However, the sentimental Capra-esque ending where the community chips in money in a communal basket, with telegraph wires arriving stating Sam Wainwright is ready to offer up to $25,000 to bail out Bailey, everything falls into place as even war hero Harry arrives just in time for the entire town to sing a chorus of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” to close the movie in the spirit of Christmas cheer,. Yes, the ending creates a tone in direct contrast to the film’s noirish bleakness which has permeated the movie for the past 45 minutes, yet somehow, in the spirit of Christmas, the ending works quite beautifully and it only reinforces the bravura performance that James Stewart has created. Bailey starts out as the good-hearted man, becomes the put-upon martyr, ultimately spitefully showing his broken spirit and suicidal urges, and lastly learns the value and importance his life offers to himself, his immediate family and his entire community. In a little over two hours, the character of George Bailey has undergone significant change (even the graying of his hair demonstrating that a lifetime of experience has occurred in a mere 132 minutes) making Bailey one of the finest screen performances James Stewart would ever create.
Amazing, but It’s a Wonderful Life took on classic status only after post-war small town America became a distant memory and perhaps even because it became nostalgic. Even to Americans living in 1946, Bedford Falls probably seemed like some place out of a fantasy, but a generation (or more) later, Bedford Falls becomes idyllic, that small-town community where everyone knows your name and cares about your welfare, a place that we wish we all came from or that place that might be the perfect retirement community. And even if our dreams never come to be, we’d like to think that the life that we have lived, perhaps not the life that we planned, has meaning, importance and self-satisfaction and that we too, just like George Bailey, will be able to count on our friends in the community to do for us what we did for them (assuming we did for them). That in our less than perfect world all kindnesses are returned and people look out, at least a little, for one another. Unfortunately, such is an imaginary world of the movies, but as lived by George Bailey, a man who truly faced his abyss and returned renewed and spiritually stronger, this sentimental fantasy seems more than ever laced with a hard dose of reality that still has the ability to make a crusty and cynical audience perhaps a tad more willing to buy into the dream that Bedford Falls provides. In other words, to accept the philosophy that it is indeed a wonderful life we live.
Jack Frost
Cast: Michael Keaton, Kelly Preston, Joseph Cross
Credits: Director: Troy Miller; Writers: Steve Bloom, Jeff Cesario, Mark Steve Johnson, Jonathan Roberts; Warner Bros.; 1998
Keaton portrays a musician, named Jack Frost, who is killed in a car accident before he can connect with his son, who feels neglected because of the long hours his father works. Jack comes back as a snowman to help his son get over his untimely death. Rather a strange holiday film, not warm and fuzzy, but the scenes of the snowman skating and snowboarding will enchant the kids.
Jingle All the Way
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sinbad, Phil Hartman, Rita Wilson, Robert Conrad, James Belushi
Credits: Producers: Michael Barnathan, Chris Columbus and Mark Radcliffe; Director: Brian Levant; Writer: Randy Kornfield; 20th Century Fox; 1996
Overworked and stressed out father Arnold Schwarzenegger faithfully promises his wife he will bring home a Turbo Man for his son. Arnold is forced to battle another father, an overwrought postal worker (Sinbad), for the last Turbo Man in the city. Kids will have fun with this action/family film. Our favorite scene is when Arnold runs afoul of shady Santas led by Jim Belushi.
Jingle Hell
Cast: James Brennan, Lisa Gunn, Annetee Hunt, Pete Barker
Credits; Director: Will Tully; Writers: Kelly R. Bryan, Carter Anne McGowan; Television, 2000
Peg and Seamus decide to have the entire family celebrate Christmas with them. This includes five grown children, their mates and children. Merry Christmas indeed.
The Kid Who Loved Christmas
Cast: Cicely Tyson, Sammy Davis, Jr., Della Reese, Esther Rolle, Ben Vereen, Vanessa Williams
Credits: Director: Arthur Allan Seidelman; 1990
After his adoptive mother is killed, a boy is taken away from the husband. The child writes to Santa Claus for help. We were unable to find a copy of this film to view and had to rely on other sources.