More deep cut Christmas movies . . .
Forgotten Christmas Movie #5: We're No Angels (1955) starring Humphrey Bogart, Peter Ustinov and Aldo Ray. Three convicts (and their pet venomous snake Adolphe) escape Devil's Island prison in the French colony of Guyana. As they prepare to rob a store of clothes and food and flee the country by ship, the three discover that the store is beset by financial problems among other issues while posing as workmen trying to fix the roof. As the three cons spend Christmas with the store-keeper's family and start to develop some sympathy for their intended marks, they decide to help them out in their own less-than-scrupulous way.
This is certainly an off-center Christmas movie. Not only does it star three criminals, it also takes place in the tropics far from the usual Christmas imagery. Still, there's something there. There's a certain charm and cathartic quality in seeing a few rogues do good deeds in a bad way. I mean, this is a Christmas movie where problems are solved because other less likable (but not criminal) characters die from venomous snake bites. But it works. I'd suggest this one to folks who like more off-beat, less traditional Christmas movies.
Forgotten Christmas Movie #5: All Mine to Give (1957). This one was actually not on the list. I got it from the library by accident due to the 4 Film Favorites : Classic Holiday Collection Vol. 2 being cataloged strangely. I was aiming for Holiday Affair but they sent this. But why look a gift horse in the mouth? Because after some screwball comedies and a big splashy musical, this gives me another one of the big genres of Golden Age Hollywood. That's right, folks. This one is a Western. Though, not a tall-in-the-saddle, Texas shoot-em-up type Western. More of a bittersweet coming-of-age in the Wisconsin forests kind of Western. For the most part the story is of the lives and later deaths of a pair of Scottish immigrants who move to the wilds of frontier-era Wisconsin and carve out a life for themselves. Then it's about what happens to their six children after their untimely demises. As for how it's a Christmas movie, for large chunks of its runtime it isn't. But Christmas is intergral to the movie's climax. I won't give away how, because it seems like kind of a jerk move to do so. It's apparently based on the book The Day They Gave Babies Away by Dale Eunson, which in turn was based on events from Eunson's life. If so, I feel bad for Eunson. Because the whole movie is a rather downbeat affair encompassing things like poverty, prejudice, illness, separation, loss of loved ones and a 12-year-old boy having to take the weight of his whole family on his shoulders. If you're going to watch this one make sure you've got the grit for it.
Forgotten Christmas Movie #6: Holiday Affair. A widowed mother played by Janet Leigh finds herself caught between two men (Robert Mitchum and Wendell Corey) and is challenged to move on from the past and not be afraid of the future. And a surprising amount of the movie hinges on a toy train that Leigh's son receives for Christmas.
It's actually just a nice, tight little character drama. I will let you know ahead of time that not once in the movie does Leigh appear how she does on this poster, posed like a pin-up girl. But boy is that an eye-catching image.
Forgotten Christmas Movie #7: The Man Who Came to Dinner. Famous author, radio presenter and bon vivant Sheridan Whiteside (Monty Woolley) comes to a small town in Ohio on a lecture tour in the weeks leading up to Christmas and proceeds to slip on the ice outside the home of a local factory owner. Now confined while he convaleseces, the imperious, bombastic, venom-tongued Whiteside proceeds to sow chaos in his new environs as he receives both movie stars and paroled murderers as guests and is delivered live animals like an octopus and a quartet of penguins. However, he encounters trouble of a more personal nature when his long-suffering secretary (Bette Davis) falls in love with a local newspaperman.
As Christmas movies go, this one is also a bit on the offbeat side. Based on a play that was in turn based on the real person of theater critic Alexander Woollcott. Whiteside is a blast to watch and listen to but ultimately a rather petty, selfish person for much of the film. However, the owner of the house he's invaded is likewise not very likable (A decidedly anti-labor factory owner). In this case, the most sympathetic characters are Whiteside's secretary Maggie (played by Bette Davis), her new beau, as well as the factory owner's two children who Whiteside gives some good though somewhat self-serving advice to. The Christmas setting is more set dressing and is used more as a way of showing off what famous friends Whitside has. Jot this one down as another unconventional choice. Not very Christmassy but fun as hell.
Forgotten Christmas Movie #8: Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella (1973), aka Three Wishes for Cinderella aka Three Gifts for Cinderella aka Three Nuts for Cinderella (that's the name on Amazon Prime Video). Okay, all cards on the table: this one isn't forgotten, it's just foreign. Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella is a Czech film chronicling what I'm assuming is a popular Czech version on the "Cinderella" story (A quick check says it's a Bohemian version, which doesn't clear things up as my European geography is rusty. Anyway, I should buy a book of Czech folk tales). It chronicles young Cinderella's attempts to avoid her stepmother's mistreatment and woo a prince using three magical hazelnuts that either crack open to reveal or simply transform into full costumes for our unusually spunky Cinderella. It's fairly well done though a bit slowly paced. I imagine many people would see this as a very new, original take on the Cinderella story. Personally, as someone who's read way more fairy tales than a lot of other people, I recognized all the fairy tale motifs but thought the arrangement of them was interesting.
Anyway, though not specifically about Christmas, this movie is a Christmas tradition in many European countries where it airs on TV every year. Those countries include: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Norway and it's sometimes aired in Sweden, Ukraine and Russia. Norway even made a remake of it which, if I recall correctly, made it to Wal-Mart shelves in the US. It kind of reminds me of how It's a Wonderful Life would air every year on Christmas Eve or how The Wizard of Oz aired every year for a long stretch of time on Thanksgiving. Would I recommend it? Depends, what's your tolerance for slower paced movies and subtitles.
Forgotten Christmas Movie #9: It Happened on 5th Avenue. Another one not on the initial list, but it popped up enough on compilations that I wanted to give it a look. This one concerns a transient named Aloysius T. McKeever who spends his winters in the boarded up mansion of the second richest man in the world, Michael J. O'Connor, while O'Connor winters in Virginia. McKeever also ends up taking in an ex-GI, Jim Bullock, who was evicted from his apartment so O'Connor could build a skyscraper and O'Connor's own daughter Trudy who ran away from finishing school (and concealed her own identity from the others). Pretty soon, the mansion is filled up with Mike's old army buddies and their families who are effected by a housing crisis. But things really start to happen when, at Trudy's request, O'Connor himself and his estranged wife join the group under false identities.
I like this one a fair bit. It's got a nice Christmas-y message about the limits of wealth and caring for others like A Christmas Carol does. Don DeFore and Gale Storm as romantic leads Jim and Trudy are perfectly enjoyable. Charlie Ruggles as O'Connor works well with what he's given and is perfectly frustrating as he fusses and fumes and eventually s-l-o-w-l-y changes his ways (You didn't think it would be easy for him, did you?). But the whole thing is anchored by Victor Moore as McKeever, a character who may technically be a criminal who trespasses but is redeemed by being a kind soul who values people far more than wealth.
Give this one a shot.
And I think that's all I've got. At least until next Christmas.
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