Tradition! Five Quirky Christmas Movies if You're in the Mood for Quirk - Again

Babes in Toyland aka March of the Wooden Soldiers 

Try to find the black and white version if you can. The later colorization is blech!

This is an updated version of last year's post simply because these are the quirky films I never get tired of watching at this time of year and of course if I didn't do it every year it wouldn't be a tradition. 

1) MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS (1934) is watched religiously by me every year either at Thanksgiving or Christmas. It is ritual. I know the songs by heart and can often be heard tunelessly humming along with the music and if I'm really in the mood, I'll sing the words too. When it comes to this movie I am incorrigible. Laurel and Hardy, Santa Claus, Little Bo-Peep and Boogeymen - what more could you want?

Okay, you talked me into it. Here's my thought: If you don't like this movie then, I mean, we simply cannot be friends. Well, at any rate, not really, really good friends. Ha!

Check out fellow movie maven, Caftan Woman's take on this very same film - what a coincidence!

2) THE THIN MAN (1934) Obviously '34 was a good year for Christmas movies. The very suave and sophisticated Nick and Nora Charles solve a murder or two, drink endless martinis, kibbitz in local Manhattan eateries and dives, and celebrate Christmas with a hotel room full of wise-cracking NY riff-raff. Again I ask, what more could you want? And when was the last time you saw a movie featuring someone named Minna Gombell? I ask you.

I know I asked this rhetorical question last year, but I think it's worth asking again. Poor hapless Minna looks perpetually shell-shocked in this one. I think it's the eye-makeup. Elizabeth Arden it ain't.

3) AMAHL AND THE NIGHT VISITORS (1951) If you can find this early black and white television version, then this is the one to watch. A short opera written for television by Gian Carlo Menotti (who was one of the directors), it remains fixed in my mind and heart as sheer Christmas perfection. The Three Wise Men, following their star, must stop and rest for the night and choose the very humble abode of a desperately poor widow and her young, mischievous, handicapped son who hops about on a crutch and can't help getting into trouble. He's very inquisitive, you see.

There's no cuteness though, it's all just glorious singing to unexpectedly glorious music as well as some dancing villagers and, near the end, a miracle. If you've never seen this, you're in for a wonderful treat. This unique production is one of the reasons I am a life-long opera fan.

4) LADY ON A TRAIN (1945) starring Deanna Durbin as a ditzy society babe, out from under the watchful eye of her indulgent dad, just in from the coast to spend Christmas in NY with her aunt. But as the train pulls into Grand Central the deb spots a murder from the window of her compartment and the hunt is on for a killer. (What else is a nice young lady to do in NYC on Christmas eve?) 

There is a cast full of character stalwarts from the forties, including Edward Everett Horton, David Bruce, Ralph Bellamy (at his ultra creepy best), Dan Duryea (equally creepy, he just can't help himself), Elizabeth Patterson, Allen Jenkins and George Coulouris, there to prop up Miss Durbin who does a creditable job playing the ditz who drives everyone crazy. I watched this again the other night and enjoyed it even more than the first two or three times.  

I'll bet you will too.

5) THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER (1942) starring Bette Davis, Monty Woolly and Ann Sheridan in a loony-toony tale of a famous New York radio personality/curmudgeon who is forced by circumstance - a slip and fall incident - to spend the holidays in the home of a 'normal-seeming' small town midwestern family (with money) whose lives he upsets in a hilarious variety of ways. This is SO much fun and as the quips and insults fly by quickly - you gotta' pay attention. Bette Davis plays quietly sweet (if gently acerbic) very well as the curmudgeon's secretary and general factotum.

Some of the more entertaining aspects of this very funny movie: penguins, an octopus, a batty aunt, a hotsy-totsy movie queen, an Egyptian sarcophagus and an adorably engaging impersonation of Noel Coward by Reginald Gardiner. (His short scene almost steals the movie away from the ferocious Monty Woolley whom I adore.)

Read fellow movie maven Dorian's take on THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER. Hint: She loves it as much as I do.

P.S.

Three Christmas cartoons (I've tried to find the ones with the best resolution) from the past when cartoons were really cartoons, drawn by hand and photographed cell by cell and all had a certain jaunty 'je ne sais quois' and one very sweet stop action animated television delight from those days once upon a time when we used to sit eagerly around the set and watch the yearly Christmas 'Specials'.

Silly Symphony's Santa's Workshop 1936

Silly Symphony's Night Before Christmas 1933

Fleischer Brothers 'Christmas Comes But Once A Year' 1936

Rankin and Bass - Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer 1964

This is my entry in Tuesday's Overlooked (or Forgotten) Movies, the weekly meme hosted by Todd Mason at his blog, Sweet Freedom. So don't forget to check in and catch up on what other overlooked or forgotten films (or other A/V) other bloggers are talking about today.