A Seasonal Tour de Force: Discovering Overlooked Holiday Pictures
A factor that annoys concerning a lot of modern holiday features is their overly self-awareness – the ostentatious ornaments, the checklist score selections, and the clichéd conversations about the real spirit of the season. It could be because the genre was not yet ossified into tradition, pictures from the 1940s often tackle Yuletide from far more imaginative and far less obsessive angles.
The Fifth Avenue Happening
One delightful gem from sifting through 1940s Christmas films is It Happened on Fifth Avenue, a 1947 semi-romantic tale with a brilliant hook: a jovial drifter takes up residence in a unoccupied luxurious estate each year. One winter, he brings in fellow down-on-their-luck individuals to stay with him, among them a ex-soldier and a runaway who turns out to be the offspring of the home's rich owner. Director Roy Del Ruth imbues the movie with a surrogate family heart that many modern Christmas films struggle to attain. It perfectly walks the line between a class-conscious narrative on housing and a whimsical metropolitan romance.
The Tokyo Godfathers
The late filmmaker's 2003 tragicomedy Tokyo Godfathers is a entertaining, sad, and thoughtful take on the holiday tale. Drawing from a western film, it tells the story of a trio of displaced people – an alcoholic, a trans character, and a teenage runaway – who come across an discarded infant on a snowy December night. Their journey to reunite the baby's family unleashes a series of misadventures involving yakuza, newcomers, and apparently fateful encounters. The animation embraces the magic of coincidence frequently found in Christmas tales, offering it with a cool-toned visual style that steers clear of overly sweet sentiment.
The John Doe Story
Although Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life justifiably gets a lot of praise, his lesser-known work Meet John Doe is a powerful holiday story in its own right. Starring Gary Cooper as a down-on-his-luck "forgotten man" and Barbara Stanwyck as a plucky journalist, the movie starts with a fictional missive from a man vowing to fall from a building on Christmas Eve in frustration. The people's embrace leads the journalist to recruit a man to impersonate the invented "John Doe," who later becomes a popular icon for kindness. The film acts as both an heartwarming story and a brutal indictment of ultra-rich publishers seeking to manipulate popular feeling for personal ends.
The Silent Partner
While holiday horror movies are now a dime a dozen, the Christmas thriller remains a somewhat rare style. This makes the 1978 gem The Silent Partner a unique surprise. Featuring a wonderfully menacing Christopher Plummer as a thieving Santa Claus and Elliott Gould as a mild-mannered bank employee, the story pits two types of amoral individuals against each other in a well-crafted and unpredictable narrative. Mainly ignored upon its initial debut, it is worthy of a fresh look for those who enjoy their festive films with a cold tone.
Almost Christmas
For those who enjoy their Christmas gatherings dysfunctional, Almost Christmas is a riot. Featuring a impressive ensemble that has Danny Glover, Mo'Nique, and JB Smoove, the movie examines the strain of a clan gathered to endure five days under one house during the Christmas season. Secret dramas rise to the forefront, leading to situations of high farce, such as a showdown where a shotgun is pulled out. Naturally, the film arrives at a heartwarming resolution, offering all the enjoyment of a seasonal disaster without any of the personal cleanup.
The Film Go
The director's 1999 feature Go is a Christmas-set tale that serves as a young-adult riff on interconnected plots. Although some of its comedy may feel product of the 90s upon rewatch, the movie nevertheless contains several things to savor. These are a engaging performance from Sarah Polley to a memorable scene by Timothy Olyphant as a laid-back pusher who amusingly sports a Santa hat. It embodies a specific kind of 1990s cinematic attitude set against a Christmas backdrop.
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
The satirist's wartime film The Miracle of Morgan's Creek rejects conventional Christmas cheer in exchange for irreverent humor. The film is about Betty Hutton's Trudy Kockenlocker, who ends up pregnant after a drunken night but cannot identify the soldier involved. A lot of the fun arises from her predicament and the efforts of Eddie Bracken's simping Norval Jones to help her. While not immediately a Christmas film at the outset, the plot culminates on the holiday, showing that Sturges has refashioned a clever version of the birth narrative, filled with his characteristic witty edge.
Better Off Dead Movie
This 1985 youth comedy with John Cusack, Better Off Dead, is a quintessential example of its time. Cusack's