White Christmas (1954)

Yet another Christmas movie that starts in World War II, Michael Curtiz's White Christmas was the top grossing movie for 1954 and an instant holiday classic. A sort of a remake of Holiday Inn, it was supposed to reunite Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, but Astaire turned down the part saying he had retired. The screenplay was then rewritten for Donald O'Conner, but when he dropped out, Danny Kaye was tapped for the film. The rest, as they say all too often, was movie history. The film follows the adventures of Bob Wallace (Crosby) and Phil Davis (Kaye), two song and dance men who hook up during the dark days of WWII and go on to become famous as directors and producers of their own variety show. After closing down their show for the Christmas holiday, Bob and Phil go to see a potential act for their show, the Haynes sisters, Betty (Rosemary Clooney) and her younger sister Judy (Vera-Ellen). Phil and Judy hit it off right from the start, but Bob and Betty need a little encouragement, so Phil wrangles Bob into joining the girls in Vermont, where they're performing at the Columbia Inn. When they arrive at the inn, Bob and Phil discover that it's owned by their old commanding officer, General Tom Waverly (Dean Jagger). The boys are delighted to see him, until they find out from the receptionist, Emma (Mary Wickes), that the inn is losing money. See, it's not snowing. In Vermont. During ski season.

Well, Bob and Phil can't let an old pal from the army down, so they bring all of the cast and crew from their show to Vermont to rehearse over Christmas. But there are bigger problems brewing. General Waverly is feeling forgotten. After all, he's a general, one of the men who won the greatest war of all, an important leader, and he's stuck running a failing hotel and nightclub. So Bob and Phil come up with another great idea - they'll get as many men as they can find from the general's old division to come up to Vermont to show the general that he's not been forgotten. In the process of arranging all of this, though, Betty thinks Bob is going to use the general's hard-luck story to make a fortune for himself. Which he'd never do. But she won't listen to reason. After much misunderstanding and several testy moments, everybody gathers onstage to praise General Waverly. And as Bob and Betty and Phil and Judy sing "White Christmas," it starts to snow outside. The general is happy, the inn is saved, our two happy couples are headed for marital bliss, and everyone lives happily ever after, which is how a Christmas movie should end. Well, shouldn't it?

White Christmas holds a special place in my heart. I first saw the movie in December 1970, just a few months after my grandmother had died, and the film reminded me of her in some strange way. Maybe it was the set design, maybe it was the music by Irving Berlin, maybe it was the presence of actors who hailed from my grandmother's day. Whatever it was, this film became part of my mental backdrop against which my life has played out. That's what great films do. They seep inside of you and form a part of your subconscious metaphor of the world, the archetype against which you measure everything else in your life. I could have picked a lot worse movies to do this with. I mean, imagine if it had been Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space! But White Christmas is a fun, happy, carefree movie, another of those films that would be better termed a "holiday movie" than a "Christmas movie." It really has nothing to do with Christmas other than the time of year during which it is set. But who really cares about that. There's singing and dancing and beautiful sets and gorgeous costumes and wonderful music by Irving Berlin and its all wrapped up in a luscious widescreen technicolor package (called VistaVision) that will knock your socks off.

White Christmas is filmed in VistaVision and it has a runtime of 120 minutes.

We're No Angels (1955)

We're No Angels is one of my favorite Christmas movies. It's a film with escaped prisoners - thieves and murderers - who enter the store and home of the Ducatel family, intent on robbing and murdering them, but are instead reformed and redeemed by the spirit of the Christmas. It's also the only Christmas story I know of wherein two characters die and everybody's lives are made better by their passing. Odd, I know, but it all works in Michael Curtiz's little known-gem of a movie.

Joseph (Humphrey Bogart), Jules (Peter Ustinov) and Albert (Aldo Ray) have escaped from prison in French Guyana and made their way into the port city of Cayene. Jules picks the pocket of a young naval officer and finds only a letter addressed to Felix Ducatel (Leo G. Carroll). The trio decide to deliver the letter themselves in order to get a reward. Once at Felix's store, Joseph signs them on to repair the leaky roof. He reasons that after dark, the three of them can sneak down into the store, kill the Ducatel's and steal everything they need to escape. From the roof, they spy on the Ducatels and discover that Felix, his wife Amelie (Joan Bennett), and daughter Isabelle (Gloria Talbott) are in serious trouble. Felix went bankrupt back in Paris, and he was bailed out by his evil cousin Andre Trochard (Basil Rathbone). In return for the favor, Cousin Andre took everything Felix owned and sent him to French Guyana to run Andre's store. But Felix has a poor head for business, the store is losing money, and Cousin Andre is threatening to throw Felix out.

The letter that the convicts delivered to Felix reveals that Cousin Andre and his nephew Paul (John Baer) have arrived in Cayenne and are waiting in quarantine on the ship in the harbor. The only person who is thrilled by this news is Isabelle, who is in love with Paul. When she reads in the letter that Paul is to marry another woman for financial gain, she faints. The three desperate criminals rush to her aide. Albert and Jules carry Isabelle to her room, while Joseph - an embezzler and forger - begins looking over Felix's books. The trio begin to take pity on the Ducatels, who are nice people caught in a horrible situation, and they decide to make the Ducatels' Christmas just a little bit better. Joseph steals a Turkey for dinner, while Jules steals flowers from the governor's garden. They cook the Christmas dinner and decorate the house. They even clean up after dinner, the whole time claiming that they're going to kill and rob the Ducatels just as soon as they wash the dishes. After the Ducatels have gone to bed, Cousin Andre and Paul arrive, and the fun really begins.

Andre is the epitome of the wrench, grasping, money-grubbing miser. He has no time for sentiment - it has no cash value. All he cares about is the bottom line, and Felix's is underlined in red ink. Joseph does what he can to help hide Felix's poor business sense, while the others attempt - without much success - to play match-maker between Isabel and Paul. When Andre discovers that the inventory doesn't tally up, he threatens to have Felix arrested. Joseph, Jules and Albert decide that Cousin Andre has lived too long, so they hold a trial, find him guilty and sentence him to death. While they're trying to decide how to kill Andre, he takes Albert's only possession - a small wooden cage containing an extremely lethal viper named Adolph. What follows is one of the best scenes in the movie, as the three calmly try to decide who is going to rush in and tell Andre not to open the cage. By the time they decide, it's too late. That night Joseph forges a new will, dividing Andre's estate evenly between Paul and Felix, but Paul destroys the will in the morning. Without a will, Paul - as Andre's closest relative - will inherit the entire estate. As our trio tries to figure out what to do about Paul, he unexpectedly discovers Adolph lurking in one of Andre's pockets, and the Ducatels are minus another nasty relative. Joseph forges another will, leaving everything to Felix. Then the three of them play match-maker once again, fixing up Isabel with the handsome, young naval officer whose pocket they picked the day before. By the end, Isabel is in love, Felix and Amelie are wealthy, and Joseph, Jules and Albert are new men.

We're No Angels is a wonderful story of redemption. The spirit of Christmas works its magic on these three hardened criminals. At the beginning, they'll stop at nothing to escape from Devil's Island. By the end, they're doing everything in their power to help three complete strangers upon whom they have taken pity. Humphrey Bogart turns in a great performance as the forger Joseph, who was convicted of fraud for selling stock in an "air factory." Aldo Ray is great as the lusty Albert, who killed his uncle when he wouldn't loan him the money he needed to impress a young woman. Basil Rathbone turns in his standard performance as the cold, distant, unfeeling Andre Trochard. But it's Peter Ustinov that steals every scene he's in as the lovable Jules, who murdered his wife on Christmas day for "giving a friend a Christmas present."

We're No Angels is also one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. The humor is subtle though, the lines delivered in a dead-pan way that makes the jokes all the more funny. When Amelie asks Joseph if he can spare her a few minutes of his time, he replies, "A man condemned to life can always spare a few minutes." When Jules goes off to steal the flowers from the governor's garden, Albert reminds him not to step on the grass. "Of course I won't step on the grass," Jules tells him. "What do you take me for." And when Andre dies, Felix tells Joseph, "It's true I never liked my cousin, only because he was not likeable. He had a number of good points, I'm sure. I just can't think of any at the moment." There's also a great running gag with Jules opening locks by simply feeling the locked object and tapping it just right. And so it goes for the entire 108 minute runtime. So if you're looking for a fun, lighthearted, feel-good movie for the holiday, then I strongly suggest you check out We're No Angels. But be careful. You too might fall in love with these three hardened criminals.

We're No Angels is rated G and is filmed in Technicolor.

Mildred Pierce (1945)

Nighttime. The California coast. A classy, Deco-style beach house. A man in a tuxedo Stands in front of a mirror, holding a cigarette. Shots ring out. He drops dead. A gun is thrown down beside him. A car speeds away into the fog. So begins Michael Curtiz's classic film Mildred Pierce. Based on the novel by James M. Caine, the film tells the story of a divorced woman who is willing to do just about anything to provide her worthless daughter with a comfortable lifestyle. Mildred (Joan Crawford) is a divorced mother of two daughters - sweet tomboy Kay (Jo Ann Marlowe) and her twisted older sister Veda (Ann Blythe). Veda wants every good thing that money can buy, without actually having to work for it herself of course. Veda is shocked when Mildred takes a job as a waitress and bakes pies and cakes at home for extra income, but not too shocked to spend the money. With the help of an old friend and realtor, Wally Fay (Jack Carson), Mildred opens her own chain of restaurants, which makes her quite wealthy. When she gets romantically involved with Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott), a down-at-the-heels socialite, Veda is thrilled. Monte will give her access to the upper crust of society. You can probably see where all of this is heading. Veda tries it on with Monte, and Mildred catches them in flagrante dilecto. Mildred has a gun and the gun goes off, as guns do, and Monte falls down dead. Seems he's allergic to lead. Ah, but who made the gun go bang? That's the question. The police want to know. You probably do too, but I'm not telling.

Mildred Pierce is a wonderfully crafted piece of film noir, full of deep shadows and rainy streets. Numerous times the actors are completely blacked out, appearing as nothing more than silhouettes against a slightly lighter backdrop. Even the daytime scenes seem dense with shadows. The darkness limits our field of vision, forming the boundaries of the possible world, blocking off potential escape routes, and creating claustrophobic mood that heightens the tension and the desperation of the characters. Notice how the light and airy beach house becomes a labyrinth of shadows when the night rolls in. See how Curtiz barely lights the office of Inspector Peterson (Moroni Olsen). The scene where Mildred is waiting to be interviewed by the Inspector is one of my favorites. She sits in the echoing room in the middle of the night, the only sounds the ticking of the clock, the tapping of a typewriter, and the occasional rustle of a newspaper. Mildred's tension builds. So does ours. The buzzing of the intercom causes her to jump. I nearly jumped with it. I see now that HBO has done a remake of Mildred Piecrce starring Kate Winslett. I'm sure Winslett will be good, but she'll never be Crawford. And while the color ciematography is appropriately dark and moody, it cannot match the original with its velvety blacks and its all too numerous shades of gray.

Mildred Pierce is one of my all time favorite movies. It ranks right up there with Casablanca (also directed by Curtiz) and Citizen Kane. It's a early moral tale about how much overcompensating by parents who feel guilty about a broken home can damage children for life. At one point in the film Veda tells Mildred, "You made me what I am." She's right - partly. Mildred's obsession with having her daughters succeed didn't turn Veda into a heartless, social-climbing, money-grubbing monster. Kay, had she lived, wouldn't have turned out that way. Mildred only opened the door to that world. Veda ran through it with her eyes wide open.

Mildred Pierce is rated G and is available in moody black and white.