Holiday Movie Cheer

This is the time of year when lots of folks (ourselves included) binge on holiday films.

There's no shortage of holiday films here thanks to our DVD Christmas film collection and Netflix as well. We start our seasonal viewing on Thanksgiving Day with The Grinch That Stole Christmas and continue almost nightly through the end of the year. We take turns selecting the evening's entertainment. 

There's some lesser known holiday films in our collection: Beyond Tomorrow, It Happened on 5th Avenue, Mixed Nuts, Rupert the Great, and Shop Around the Corner. 

We have multiple versions of A Christmas Carol in 1938, 1984, 1992, and 2009 excluding the classic 1951 Alastair Sim version which we may include one day. The Sim version is regarded as the best of the genre with a tour-de-force performance and the standard by which all other Scrooges are measured. 

Similarly, we don't have the 1970 film Scrooge with Albert Finney, but do have the 1988 Scrooged with Bill Murray. Two more variations on the same Christmas Carol theme, the first one is a musical, the second (what else) is a comedy with Murray.

The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017) is a biographical drama which recreates author Charles Dickens struggle to write A Christmas Carol. Set in the 1840s London, it stars Dan Stevens, Christopher Plummer, and Jonathan Pryce and focuses on Dickens' obsession with writing and completing the story during the holiday season.

The Man Who Saved Christmas (2002) is based on the story of toy inventor Alfred Carlton (AC) Gilbert who was forced by the U.S. Government to turn his factory into a munitions plant during the WWI. (AC Gilbert trained to be a physician but created the Erector set and founded one of the largest U.S. toy manufacturers.)

The 1947 film, The Bishop's Wife with Cary Grant, David Niven, Loretta Young was redone and retitled as The Preacher's Wife in 1996 and starred Whitney Houston and Denzel Washington. (I like this one; Grenville tolerates it because of Grant and Niven.)

Miracle on 34th Street was popular in 1947 with Edmund Gwenn, John Payne and Maureen O'Hara. The same title was used in the 1994 version by writer/producer John Hughes and starred Richard Attenborough, Elizabeth Perkins, Dylan McDermott. (The movie was adapted from a story by Valentine Davies, American film and television writer, producer, and director. Both versions were released by 20th Century Fox.)

Another 1947 film, It Happened on 5th Avenue, lost the Academy Award for Best Story to Valentine Davies. This comedy set in New York City during the Christmas season starred Victor Moore, Don DeFore, Charles Ruggles and Gale Storm. Coincidentally, the story was originally optioned by Liberty Films in 1945 for director Frank Capra who opted to direct It's a Wonderful Life instead.

The 1940 film, The Shop Around the Corner with James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan had a holiday theme which was lost when it became the basis of the 1994 film, You've Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. (The setting for the original film is Budapest.)

The 2004 film, Christmas with the Kranks starring Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis is based on the 2001 novel, Skipping Christmas by John Grisham. (Personally, I think they should have used the same title as the book.)

Our favorite holiday trilogy is the Santa Clause series with Tim Allen in the title role. The first film was released in 1994, followed up by sequels in 2002 and 2006. (We always watch them in sequence on a weekend.) 

An animated squirrel is the headliner in the 1950 film, The Great Rupert which starred Jimmy Durante who sings in this film, which also includes a romance.

The 1940 fantasy film, Beyond Tomorrow (also known as Beyond Christmas) is a contemporary, but often, forgotten Christmas film. It did not include stars who would receive billing above the title and instead relied on a veteran character actors: Richard Carlson, Maria Ouspenskaya, C. Aubrey Smith, Charles Winninger, and Harry Carey.

In the 2001 film, Serendipity, a man and woman surreptitiously meet in 1991 on Christmas Eve and reunite a decade later on the same day and there is a happy ending.

Many classic films feature have some Christmas in them, including Love Finds Andy Hardy, Meet John Doe, Meet Me in St Louis, Remember the Night, The Lemon Drop Kid, The Man Who Came to Dinner.

Here's what's currently in our collection. We've seen all of these films including others not in our collection.(The Die Hard movies were added this year; both place on Christmas Eve in NYC and Washington, DC.) 

• Beyond Tomorrow
• The Bishop’s Wife
• A Charlie Brown Christmas
• A Christmas Carol (1938, Reginald Owen)
• A Christmas Carol (1984, George C. Scott)
• A Christmas Carol (1992, The Muppets)
• A Christmas Carol (2009, Jim Carrey)
• Christmas in Connecticut 
• A Christmas Story
• Christmas Vacation
• Christmas with the Kranks
• Deck the Halls
• Die Hard
• Die Hard 2
• The Family Man
• The Family Stone
• The Great Rupert
• A Holiday Affair
• The Holiday
• Holiday Inn
• Home Alone
• Home Alone 2 (Lost in New York)
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas (cartoon version)
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Jim Carrey)
• It Happened on 5th Ave 
• It’s A Wonderful Life
• Love Actually
• Love the Coopers
• The Man Who Invented Christmas
• The Man Who Saved Christmas
• March of the Wooden Soldiers
• Miracle on 34th Street
• Mixed Nuts
• Muppets Christmas Carol
• One Magic Christmas
• The Nutcracker
• One Special Night
• The Polar Express
• The Preacher’s Wife
• Santa Clause
• Santa Clause 2 (The Mrs. Claus)
• Santa Clause 3 (The Escape Clause)
• Scrooged
• Serendipity
• The Shop Around the Corner
• White Christmas 

I haven't neglected the seasonally popular Hallmark holiday movies, but we don't subscribe to any premium TV services. Any of these we've watched has been through YouTube which are (usually) commercial-free.

Last week, fellow blogger Emma Springfield posted a "must not miss" list of her favorite Christmas movies in this post. You might also enjoy reading that one.

How about you — Have you seen any of these films; do you have some 🎄 favorites? 
We're always looking for ones we haven't seen and would appreciate your input 🎅