5 Christmas Movies for the Holidays Review

BABES IN TOYLAND 1934 also called MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS

March of the Wooden Soldiers remains a very funny, charming, family film' featuring comedy team Laurel and Hardy at their peak of their comic timing and abilities. It is a very dated film, with old style special effects, musical numbers, corny dialogue and all the rest which is part of the reason it works so well when you watch it today.

The pace is fast, the comedy still very funny and it's a lot of fun to watch this story of the evil Silas Barnaby (played in the best over-acted melodramatic style by Henry Brandon ) who wants to throw the old woman who lives in the shoe out of her home so he can put up a shopping mall (okay not really a mall-but do hiss at this cruel bad character).

 Laurel and Hardy play Ollie Dee and Stanley Dum who are toy-makers who mean well but keep getting into trouble. They are the original Dumb and Dumber of course. They really mess up an order for Santa Claus and get into trouble-especially when they try to battle against the evil Barnaby!!! There are several fairy-tale and Mother Goose characters shown throughout and those horrible awful BOOGEY MEN !!!!. Costumed performers, puppets and stop motion work are well-used-and some of it looks inventively surreal. I try to watch this classic every year. Discover or re-discover it soon. There's a decent colorized version on DVD (if you really must watch a color version of the film).

THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. 1993

The concept was Tim Burton's, realized by Director/Animator Henry Sellig (James and the Giant Peach) who updated the George Pal and Ray Harryhausen Puppetoon style to create this highly stylized treat, featuring a couple of memorable songs and a great score by Danny Elfman. It's about Jack the Pumpkin King's desire to create a very special Christmas and be as beloved as Santa.... but the ghouls who help him create Halloween really mess up Christmas !!!  There's a DVD collects Burton's short films-FrankenWeenie and Vincent too !!!   And this Christmas Burton's got the musical Sweeney Todd with Johnny Depp on tap.   

CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT 1945

Accept no substitutes for the heart-warming schmaltzy original. Barbara Stanwyck is radiant playing the 1940s equivalent of a Martha Stewart named Elizabeth Lane. She writes a homespun column supposedly from a farm somewhere in Connecticut that also features a recipe. When her publisher Alexander Yardley (Sidney Greenstreet) decides it's time to visit the farm there's a complication. Lane actually writes from a New York City apartment and does not know how to cook!!! She needs a farm, and some cooking lessons.. quick. Oh there's a romance and plenty of gentle laughs and warmth of course. Perfect film for the holidays and not so over-played that you've seen it too many times to appreciate.

HOLIDAY INN 1942

Covers several holidays-not just Christmas, but was remade in color as the much inferior White Christmas. This one is a keeper when you are in the mood for the smooth crooning of Bing Crosby and the fancy smooth footwork of Fred Astaire. The plot has Crosby and Astaire as partners who open a resort hotel that puts on seasonally-related musical shows for their guests. There's romance problems but eventually the stars are paired with Marjorie Reynolds and Virginia Dale. Astaire has a great dance number for the 4th of July show (with firecrackers). There's a dated and racist blackface number meant to celebrate Abraham Lincoln (that some might take offense to). Crosby sings Easter Parade and White Christmas etc. The kind of overly pleasant romantic musical comedy they do not make any more.

BAD SANTA--2003  Badder Santa

The ultimate cure for all things sentimental and warm. This is a crass, vulgar dark comedy about conmen who play a Santa for rent and his delightful elf they get hired as department store Santa and his helpler and then rob the store blind. These are selfish, greedy criminal characters. Billy Bob Thornton is the unredeemed horny sloppy drunk Santa and Tony Cox plays the mean dwarf Marcus-fed up with his drunk disgusting partner. The film is never ever nice and if you are in the mood that is exactly why it is a delight. It is directed by Terry Zwigoff of CRUMB and GHOST WORLD fame. The ending is not his. Do get the slightly more profane BADDER SANTA DVD if you can to experience the full effect. It's the movie to put on after you have heard The Dead Kennedy's F... Christmas a few dozen times.  It will also delight if your full to the brim of stickly sweet overly sentimental Christmas cheer, holiday mall music and too many company Christmas parties.  CRANK IT UP.

I've got 5 more picks to share in the next article.  

Oh there's a lot more Christmas Movies out there-- some more traditional and I do enjoy a lot of them .

The best CHRISTMAS CAROL is the one with Alistair Sims made in 1951 sometimes called SCROOGE, sometimes called A Christmas Carol. The television version with George C. Scott is very good too!!! There's also the decent musical version with Albert Finney called SCROOGE which is good if your in the right mood.

The original Miracle on 34th Street, The Santa Clause, certainly the delightful A Christmas Story are all very worthy holiday films. Santa Clause is much better than I expected and works very well. Home Alone is much better than Home Alone 2 and the awful #3 and is set over the Christmas holidays--I've seen it a few times and that's good enough for me, but you might want to view it yet again.

Bill Murray and Carol Kane have made SCROOGED worth watching many times. I was let down by it the first time I saw it because it was such lazy easy obvious satire... but I've enjoyed it since.

Other decent but overly sweet Christmas movies include PRANCER and ONE MAGIC CHRISTMAS. If you're under the spell of Christmas -try them out. The original television cartoon specials of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas are wonderful treats. I like the Simpson's Christmas Special a lot too. Didn't South Park do a .... I sometimes get nostalgic for the cloying Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman -but after watching them I know I'll need a dose of Badder Santa.