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.

The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)

Okay, so maybe William Keighley's The Man Who Came to Dinner isn't exactly a "Christmas movie' per se, but it does take place at Christmas time, and it is a movie, so it fits in my book. Besides, it is also one of the most deliciously, wickedly funny movies ever made. Sheridan Whiteside (Monty Woolley) and his personal secretary, Maggie Cutler (Bette Davis) travel from New York City to Ohio for a dinner at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley (Grant Mitchell and Billie Burke). As he is walking up the front steps, "Sherry" falls and injures his back. Much to Sherry's dismay, the doctor says that he must rest until he heals completely. In short order Sherry takes over the Stanley's home, ordering them about as if they were servants and generally wreaking havoc upon everyone who comes within his sights. When Maggie falls in love with Brett Jefferson (Richard Travis), the editor of the local paper, Sherry calls in his friend, the gorgeous actress Lorraine Sheldon ( Ann Sheridan), to lure Jefferson away from Maggie. When she discovers the plot, Maggie quits, leaving Sherry high and dry.

In a panic, Sherry calls on another actor, Beverly Carlton (Reginald Gardner), to drag Lorraine away from Jefferson. That plot fails, an infuriated Lorraine becomes more determined than ever to take Jefferson away from Maggie, and Maggie is more determined than ever to quit Sherry's employ. What's more, Mr. Stanley gets a court order evicting Sherry and his entire entourage in one hour. At the last moment, Sherry's old friend Banjo (Jimmy Durante) shows up and removes Lorraine from the picture in a fashion that I won't divulge. Sherry then turns the tables on the Stanleys when he discovers that Mr. Stanley's sister, Harriet (Ruth Vivian) is a notorious ax-murderer, a bit of knowledge the Stanley's are eager to suppress. Sherry blackmails the Stanleys into letting him stay a while longer. He also forces them to loosen their grip on their two children, who want to follow their own paths in life, not their parents'. When Sherry finally leaves, he takes with him the Stanleys' servants, who are more than eager to go with him. As he waves goodbye, Sherry slips on the ice yet again. You can guess the rest.

So what does any of this have to do with Christmas? Nothing whatsoever. Isn't that great? All of the madness simply takes place at Christmas time. In fact Sherry is forced to deliver his annual Christmas broadcast from the Stanleys' living room as his nurse and doctor attempt to herd a flock of penguins and a boys choir sings in the background. It's all madness and fun, and it's all Monty Woolley. Yes, Bette Davis may have gotten top billing, but this is Woolley's movie from start to finish. Davis plays second fiddle to him all the way through. And how could she not? I don't think anyone in movie history has gotten such great dialogue, with the possible exception of Groucho Marx. Referring to Harriet Stanley, Sherry declares, "She's right out of The Hound of the Baskervilles." When he hires the Stanley's servants from them, the Stanley's protest that they've been with them for year, to which Sherry retorts, "I'm commuting their sentence." And he refers to Maggie as "this aging debutante...[whom] I retain in my employ only because she is the sole support of her two-headed brother." But most of his acerbic wit is reserved for his nurse, poor Miss Preen (Mary Wickes in her first screen role). He tells her at one point, "Go in an read the life of Florence Nightingale and learn how unfitted you are to your chosen profession," and at another time he tells her, "My great aunt Jennifer ate a whole box of candy everyday of her life. She lived to be 102, and when she had been dead three days, she looked better than you do now." Face it, you just can't compete with lines like those, especially when you're playing a love-struck secretary.

Then only other character that even begins to compete with Sherry, is that of Banjo, who was based on Harpo Marx. Jimmy Durante has great fun with him. In fact, most of the characters in the movie were based on famous people. Sheridan Whiteside's character was based on noted film critic Alexander Woollcott, who was a good friend of the authors of the stage play, Moss Hart and George S. Kauffman. The character of Maggie Cutler was based on Algonquin Round Table member Dorothy Parker, Lorraine Sheldon was based on Gertrude Lawrence, and Beverly Carlton was based on Noel Coward. Even Harriet, Mr. Stanley's the ax-murdering sister, was based on a famous person - Lizzie Borden.

So, no, there's not a lot in this movie about Christmas. It's just a whole lot of fun, and it's a nice break during the chaos that occurs around Christmas. The Man Who Came to Dinner is rated G and has a runtime of 112 minutes. It is filmed in glorious black-and-white, of course.