This post is part of the Comfy, Cozy Christmas feature hosted by me and Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. If you have a blog post that you would like to share as part of this annual link-up, please find out more here.
A couple years ago, I decided to look for Christmas movies to watch that are not as well known or popular or maybe not exactly “Christmas movies” but are considered Christmas movies by those who have viewed them.
Alas, Die Hard is not on this list. Die Hard 2 isn’t either.
These are older, more classic films — though some might say Die Hard is old now and a classic.
Still…no Die Hard here.
Beyond Tomorrow/Beyond Christmas
Beyond Tomorrow, also called Beyond Christmas in later years after it was colorized, was released in 1940. It is quirky, but also very sweet.
The movie starts with the story of three old men (Michael O’Brien, George Melton, and Allan Chadwick) who served together in the army and are living in the same house and looking back on their lives with some sadness and regret. They want to help others to make up for some of their regrets and we learn that they have tossed wallets with money in them out into the street for Christmas. They want to see if anyone will be honest and return the money. Two people do. Schoolteacher Jean Lawrence (Jean Parker) and cowboy James Houston (Richard Carlson).
The three men begin to conspire how to bring the young man and woman together as a couple but in the middle of their matchmaking, they tragically die in a plane crash.
Stay with me here — the men come back as ghosts and work from the afterworld to keep the couple together.
Read my review: https://lisahoweler.com/2023/11/30/comfy-cozy-christmas-movie-review-beyond-tomorrow/
Where you can find it: Tubi, Amazon Prime and Hoopla.
We’re No Angels
We’re No Angels is certainly an out-of-the-box Christmas movie and a lot of fun. The subject matter and some of the lines were actually jaw-dropping to me and weren’t something I would have expected in a movie made in 1955.
The movie stars Humphrey Bogart (Joseph), Peter Ustinov (Jules), and Alto Ray (Albert).
The men are escaped convicts on an island called Devil’s Island off the coast of France. There are other convicts on the island in prison uniforms but they are on probation or parole, working at local businesses. The fact there are so many convicts wearing the same uniforms makes it easy for the men to blend in.
They make a plan to find a business they can rob and get money from so they can leave the island on a boat. A chance meeting with a doctor on a ship who needs to deliver a message leads them to a clothing store where they meet Felix Ducotel and his family. Felix is managing a store and they offer to repair his roof as a way to get their foot in the door, so to speak, so they can rob him later that night. He accepts and from the roof the three men begin to learn about Felix’s family – including his wife, Amelie and daughter, Isabelle.
Soon they are wrapped up in the family’s drama. They learn the business, owned by Felix’s cousin, is failing. Isabelle is in love with a man named Paul. Her mother wants to know why she isn’t married and giving them grandchildren already (umm…because she’s only 18. Hello??!) and the couple is stressed because the business is failing.
I will not spoil the movie but I will say that the men end up deciding to cook Christmas dinner for the family and steal most of what they need to do so. They keep offering to help the family, partially because they would like some of that dinner too, and partially to build trust so they can . . . um…kill and rob them. Ahem.
My review: https://lisahoweler.com/2023/12/14/comfy-cozy-christmas-were-no-angels/
Where you can find it: YouTube, AppleTV, Amazon Prime Video, Fandango
Holiday Affair
This movie stars Janet Leigh, Robert Mitchum, and Wendell Corey.
Leigh plays Connie Ennis, a widower, whose husband died in World War II. She has a 6-year-old son, Timmy played by Gordon Gerbert , (ironically I worked with a man named Tim Ennis and my husband still works with him). She is dating a man named Carl (Wendell Corey) who is predictable and safe. You know, the ole’ boring boyfriend versus the dashing and bold potential boyfriend trope.
Mitchum plays Steve Mason, whom Connie meets at a department store when she’s there as a comparison shopper for another store. Steve pegs her in her role right away but doesn’t turn her in because she tells him she’s a single mom and her son’s only support.
That move gets him fired and one would think that means he is out of Connie’s life. On the contrary, they continue to have interactions when Connie goes to apologize to him and then he ends up helping her out on her next shopping trip.
That encounter leads to Steve meeting Timmy, who is enamored with Steve – much more so than Carl, who he knows wants to marry his mother.
Timmy acts out with Carl and is sent to his room and this leads to a heart-to-heart with Steve who learns Timmy wants a train for Christmas.
Steve makes this happen and yet another interaction occurs between him and Connie.
There is a lot of back and forth in this film and more than one interaction between Connie and Steve when she walks away from him angry and he just watches her walk away with a smug grin.
This is a movie with a definite love triangle, of course, and you’ll have to watch to see how all that works out. Some of the movie is predictable but some of it isn’t. There are plenty of surprises to make this movie a unique and non-traditional Christmas watch.
You can read my review here: https://lisahoweler.com/2023/12/07/comfy-cozy-christmas-movie-impressions-holiday-affair/
Where you can find it: Amazon, YouTube, Apple TV, Google Play, Fandango
Bells of St. Mary
I couldn’t believe it took me so long to watch this movie.
I ended up loving it when I did last year. The chemistry between the main stars, Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman, was outstanding. It was also nice to see Ingrid in a role with some humor because I’ve only ever seen her in more serious roles. And, of course, I love that Bing sang in this movie, even though it wasn’t a strict musical.
Bing Crosby arrives as the new priest at the St. Mary’s parish and is immediately told of how the former priest aged quickly because he had to help oversee a nun-run, school that is run-down and in the inner city.
The former priest also had to deal with Sister Superior Mary Benedict (Bergman), a woman with a strong personality who runs the school.
“I can see you don’t know what it means to be up to your neck in nuns,” the rectory housekeeper says.
Father O’Malley admits he doesn’t and the woman advises him to “sleep well tonight” as if implying it will be his last good night of sleep for a while.
Father O’Malley and Sister Benedict butt heads more than once but in passive-aggressive ways. One way they butt heads is in how to educate the children at the school. O’Malley is much softer in his approach while Sister Mary prefers levying harsher punishments.
There isn’t a ton of “Christmas” in this movie other than in the middle of the movie, there is an adorable rehearsal of the Christmas/nativity story with the cutest little kids – probably 5 to 7. Still, many consider this a Christmas movie.
“The Bells of St. Mary’s has come to be associated with the Christmas season,” a Wikipedia article states. “Probably because of the inclusion of a scene involving a Christmas pageant at the school, a major plot point involving an unlikely (yet prayed for) gift, and the film’s having been released in December 1945. In the 1946 film, It’s a Wonderful Life, in which Henry Travers, a co-star of The Bells of St. Mary’s, plays the guardian angel Clarence Odbody, the title of The Bells of St. Mary’s appears on the marquee of a movie theater in Bedford Falls, New York. In The Godfather (1972), Michael and Kay see The Bells of St. Mary’s at Radio City Music Hall.”
My review: https://lisahoweler.com/2023/12/12/comfy-cozy-christmas-the-bells-of-st-mary/
Where You Can Find It: Amazon Prime Video, Tubi, YouTube, Apple TV, Google Play, Roku Channel, etc.
A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong
Shortly after we moved to our current house, my son and I were looking for a show to watch late at night and found a show called The Goes Wrong Show on BritBox. We clicked on it and were, quite frankly, bewildered by it.
It was a group of about seven people acting out a play and completely messing up lines, tripping off props, and being all-out insanely weird.
We weren’t sure if these people were really messing up their plays or if they were pretending to mess up a play, or . . .what was going on.
We watched the first episode and laughed so hard that our sides hurt. Obviously, we eventually caught on that the whole show was meant to be a joke and that the actors were real actors playing fake actors on a show about actors.
Later we watched the episodes with The Husband and he laughed so hard I thought he was going to burst a blood vessel.
We watched the whole season and I have to say the Christmas episode was my favorite that first season. Flash forward to a few years ago and we discovered this group — which we had since found out was called Mischief Theatre — had been featured in a special called A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong on the BBC.
With A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong we are getting more than just funny but also pure ridiculousness.
For a little background on the actor troupe who takes part in this Christmas special, according to Wikipedia, “Mischief Theatre is a British theatre company founded in 2008 by a group of students from The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in West London, and directed by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields. The group originally began by doing improvised comedy shows, but by 2012 they expanded into comedic theatrical performances that include choreographed routines, jokes, and stunts.
The company is best known for its performances as the fictional theatre company, The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, who attempt several amateur performances that comedically go wrong.”
In this particular special, the comedy group has taken over the BBC’s production of A Christmas Carol by kidnapping and dragging out the main stars, including Derek Jacobi, a famous British actor. Actress Diana Rigg plays the narrator part of the time, but literally has to “phone it in” because she is stuck in traffic.
Things, of course, go completely haywire and become even crazier when one of the actors believes he should be the lead actor and tries to knock out the director (Chris) to take over the lead as Scrooge. While trying to take out Chris, though, he injures other cast members or ends up destroying various sets.
My review: https://lisahoweler.com/2022/11/17/tis-the-season-cinema-a-christmas-carol-goes-wrong/
Where you can find it: Amazon, Tubi, YouTube, The CW, Pluto, Plex
Have you seen any of these movies?
What movies will you be watching this holiday season?
If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.
