Christmas movies

Classic Movie Impression: It Happened On Fifth Avenue

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

I’ve been watching less popular Christmas-themed movies around Christmas for the last couple of years. One of those movies was It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947).

I truly thought I’d written about this movie in previous years, but I can’t find it when I search so I am writing about it now.

The movie is about a group of people who are sort of thrown together but it starts with a man named Alyosius T. McKeever (Victor Moore) who sneaks in the mansion of businessman Michael O’Connor (Charlie Ruggles) in New York City early in November when O’Connor goes to his home in Virginia for the winter.

McKeever is a “vagabond” or homeless man.

He lives in the home, wearing O’Connor’s clothes, and eating any food left at the house in the pantry.

The movie opens with him sneaking inside through the back fence and will later learn that he’s been doing this for some twenty years.

I, of course, am surprised that no one has ever seen him or seen the lights on in the house but, it’s a movie. Let’s suspend belief.

There are police who patrol the grounds, but McKeever has a system where he hides in the icebox (or a room they call the icebox) until the police have passed by. He also has the lights hooked up so they will shut off as soon as someone opens the front door.

One day McKeever meets Jim Bullock played by Don DeFore, sleeping on a park bench. Jim, a veteran, has been evicted from his apartment building because it is being torn down. Michael O’Connor is putting up an 80-story building in its place.

When Jim gets to the mansion and is settling in, he sees an award shaped like a boat with the name Michael O’Connor on it and accuses McKeever of taking over homes of people who can’t afford to live in family homes like his.

McKeever tells Jim he’s not really O’Connor, but a friend of his. Jim accepts this explanation easily

Jim isn’t sure what to think of this arrangement, but he needs a place to stay so he accepts it.

Soon we see Michael O’Connor, who is in Virgina having a board meeting. During the board meeting he gets a call from his daughter Trudy’s school and been told that it’s possible she’s run away.

Michael looks at a photo of two women and asks his assistant if he thinks that she has run off to her mother in Florida.

The man doesn’t know so Michael orders him to hire a private investigator and find his daughter (played by … get this name…Gale Storm).

His daughter, though, is already found for us viewers. She is at her father’s mansion looking for her clothes when Jim finds her. He demands to know what she’s doing there and suggests she is stealing from the mansion. He threatens to call the police.

Trudy, apparently smitten with Jim merely based on his appearance, decides not to tell him who she really is and tells him to go ahead and call the police.

McKeever pulls Jim aside and confesses all. He is not a friend of O’Connor, but is, instead, simply someone who takes advantage of the home being empty for a few months out of the year. When O’Connor leaves, he moves in and when O’Connor leaves Virginia, McKeever hitches his way to Virginia and moves in that house until it’s time to come back to New York.

(Again…suspend belief).

Jim isn’t sure what to make of the arrangement, but is amused and impressed that McKeever hasn’t been caught yet.

Trudy listens in and overhears what McKeever has been doing and smiles in an amused way. She decides she will find a way to stay on with the men since it will be a way to hide from her father for a while. She tells the men the truth, which is that she’s going to get a job at a music store so she can get back on her feet again. She then says she only broke into the house because she was hungry and desperate and then does a lovely fake faint to add to her story.

The men agree that she can stay. From here the movie will start to get a bit more complicated as more people are invited to stay at the mansion, including a family with small children. What could make all of this even more chaotic? Add in Michael O’Connor returning to New York to try to find his daughter and planning to return to the mansion.

One little thing that bothered me about this movie was how young Gale Storm looked and was supposed to be. She was supposed to be 18 but a romance develops between her and Jim and he seems considerably older than her. That was…awkward at times. However, I’m not sure how old Jim is actually supposed to be so maybe it isn’t so awkward. Gale was 22 at the time the film was made.

The screenplay for this movie was written by Everett Freeman. The original story was created by Herbert Clyde Lewis and Frederick Stephani.

Harry Revel wrote the songs “It’s A Wonderful, Wonderful Feeling.” “That’s What Christmas Means to Me” and “Speak My Heart” for the movie, according to the opening credits, but I wouldn’t call this movie a musical. One of the main characters simply sings a bit.

Gale Storm thought she’d be singing the parts in the film, but, unfortunately, she was told her voice would be dubbed over.

She later wrote in her memoir: “I couldn’t believe it. I thought that maybe the director didn’t know I’d been singing and dancing in films, and that if I spoke to him he’d let me do my own numbers. Well, I asked him, and he said no. I asked him to look at some of my musicals, and he said no. I asked him if I could sing for him, and he said no. His theory was that if you were a dancer, you didn’t sing; if you were a singer, you didn’t dance; and if you were an actor, you didn’t sing or dance. It was humiliating.”

Another song in the movie is “You’re Everywhere” sung by The King’s Men at 1930s/1940s barbershop quartet.

According to TCM.com, Frank Capra originally acquired the rights to the movie but passed it on to Allied Artists, a new subsidiary of Monogram Pictures, which used to develop B movies. It Happened on Fifth Avenue was the companies first major motion picture and was developed by Roy Del Ruth.

Not only was Gale upset about not being able to sing in the film, but she also was disappointed Capra didn’t direct it, according to the TCM.com article. She felt the movie was decidedly “Capra-esque” — “a warmhearted human story about the little guy with underlying social and political commetary. She said that she felt Del Ruth didn’t make the most of the story’s potential, but she may have been holding a grudge since he didn’t let her do her own singing.

Gale said Del Ruth wasn’t easy on anyone.

“I wasn’t the only one Del Ruth humiliated,” continued Storm in her biography. “Victor Moore was a dear, sweet old man who was kind to everyone; we all loved him. Except Del Ruth. Whatever Victor did, the director made him redo it — again and again. And Del Ruth never told the old man what he might have been doing wrong.”

Despite these complaints from Gale, the movie did well when it was released, with the actors receiving praise by reviewers and critics. It has now become a beloved classic as well.

Is this one you’ve ever seen? What did you think about it?

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.

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.

Five Quirky Christmas Movies You Should Watch This Year

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 16 Comments

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.

Classic Movie Impression: The Bishop’s Wife

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

This weekend I watched The Bishop’s Wife (1947), which I have watched before but couldn’t remember the end of, so I watched it again.

The movie stars Cary Grant as an angel named Dudley who comes to earth to help Bishop Henry Brougham, (David Niven). Henry is so wrapped up in securing funding for a cathedral he begins to neglect his wife and daughter.

Dudley arrives at the Bishop’s house after the Bishop prays for God to help him with funding for the cathedral. Dudley tells him right up front that he’s an angel and he’s there to help him but introduces himself to others as Henry’s new assistant. He pretty much forces himself into Henry’s life and ends up charming the pants off all the women he meets and creating miracles for men, women, and children alike. At least one man, Henry’s retired professor friend (Monty Woolley), is very suspicious of him.

Henry isn’t really sure if he believes that Dudley is an angel, especially when the guy starts taking Henry’s wife, Julia, (Loretta Young) out on the town, having dinner with her, taking her skating, and buying her hats.

Still, Henry isn’t about to get distracted from his goal of building the cathedral and he ignores Dudley’s efforts to open his eyes to how much Julia needs him, plowing forward with fundraising instead.

L-R: Actors Cary Grant, David Niven and Loretta Young sit in the back of a car in a still from the film, ‘The Bishop’s Wife,’ directed by Henry Koster, 1947. (Photo by RKO Pictures/Courtesy of Getty Images)

I think Cary is supposed to be charming in this movie but instead I find him a bit devious. Maybe the goal of the movie is to leave the viewer trying to figure out if he is sweet or evil.

The site, The Viewer’s Commentary, had a similar feeling about Cary’s role and explains it better than I can.

“But, while I’m not certain “perfect” is necessarily the right word for Dudley as a character, I’m still not entirely convinced that the movie wasn’t actually trying to play him up as being in his right to step in on Henry’s marriage, either. This is based on the film’s affectionate depiction of his chemistry with Julia, the amount of sympathy the film has for her, and the apparent distaste it has for the stiff Henry beyond his admirable loyalty and good intentions.”

“That ice skating thing I mentioned before wasn’t some kind of non sequitur,” the post continues. “There’s a painfully long scene in which Dudley and Julia and their cab driver have a whimsical impromptu ice skating session where he romances her in front of everyone by secretly granting her expert skill while Henry toils away elsewhere, callously inattentive to Julia’s wifely needs. It would be one thing if it was intended to teach Henry a lesson about what could potentially happen, but it actually kinda left me with a gross feeling, given how wonderful it’s all supposed to be while knowing about Dudley’s infatuation – not to mention his manipulation of the situation and nonchalant demeanor when confronted about it.”

This is the scene in question:

At one point even Henry begins to wonder if Dudley is from heaven or hell and if he truly is trying to steal his wife from him.

It’s what I was wondering too and by the end of the movie  . . . well if you’ve never seen it you will have to watch it and let me know what you think.

The movie is based on a book by Robert Nathan whose other fantasy romance, Portrait of Jennie, would later overtake The Bishop’s Wife on a literary level and later became a 1948 David Selznick movie.

According to an article on TCM.com, producer Samuel Goldwyn decided to take on this movie right after winning an Oscar for The Best Year of Our Lives in 1946.

Cary was originally set to play the Bishop, but as he read the script he began to suggest edits and finally decided he didn’t have the right part. He should be playing Dudley.

Later on, though, after the final casting decisions were made, Grant wanted to switch back.

Then there was the fact that Goldwyn didn’t like the set.

Niven wrote in his future autobiography, “The day before shooting was to start, Goldwyn decided that the interiors of the Bishop’s house were not ecclesiastical enough and ordered several sets to be torn down, redesigned and rebuilt. For three weeks, while this was going on, production was halted, then, two days after the cameras finally had a chance to turn, Goldwyn decided that Seiter’s hand was a little too heavy on the tiller: he was removed, paid his full salary and after a week, Goldwyn hired Henry Koster to start again from scratch – with another two weeks of rehearsal. All this must have cost Goldwyn several hundred thousand dollars….”

Niven was already struggling through the production because his wife tragically died during filming.  Her fatal head injury occurred during a party game of “sardines” at Tyrone Power’s house. Her name was Primmie and she fell down a flight of cellar stairs after thinking she was running into a closet.

Problems further continued to plague the film when Cary and Loretta Young couldn’t get along part of the time.

Despite all of the hardships, the movie was well-received and remains a favorite Christmas film of many classic movie buffs today.

It was nominated for five Oscars but did not win any.

I’m not sure I found this movie as heartwarming as some of the Christmas movies I’ve watched, probably because I found it so difficult to read Cary in this one and was quite suspicious of him. I did, however, still enjoy the movie overall.

A few pieces of trivia about the movie for you:

I recognized the young actor who played the young George Bailey from It’s A Wonderful Life — Bobby Anderson —— in a snowball throwing scene in this film. I looked up his name and found out that Karolyn Grimes, who played Zuzu in It’s a Wonderful Life also played The Bishop and his wife’s daughter, Debby.

According to IMBd (I did not double check these to clarify they are true):

“At about 1:20, Henry and Julia are ready to make some Parish calls. Henry says to Julia, “We go first to the Trubshawes.” This is an example of David Niven’s attempt to mention the name of his friend (Michael Trubshawe) in every movie he made.”

“Over Cary Grant’s protests, a skating double wearing a mask with Grant’s features was used in the long shots of the complex skating routine. A skating double was also used for Loretta Young on all long shots.”

Market research showed that moviegoers avoided the film because they thought it was religious. So, Samuel Goldwyn decided to re-title it Cary and the Bishop’s Wife for some US markets, while adding a black text box with the question “Have you heard about CARY AND THE BISHOP’S WIFE?” on posters in markets where the film kept the original title. By adding Cary Grant’s first name to the title the film’s business increased by as much as 25 per cent.

“In Britain the film was selected for that year’s Royal Command Film Performance screening. Princess Margaret and her sister, the future Queen Elizabeth, both attended the screening of “The Bishop’s Wife” on November 25, 1947, at the Odeon Theatre in Leicester Square. According to David Niven, “The audience loved every second of it, and the Queen and Princess Margaret told me afterwards and at great length how much they had enjoyed it.”

Have you ever seen The Bishop’s Wife? What did you think of it?

*This post is part of the Comfy, Cozy Christmas Link Up for 2024. If you have a Christmas/holiday post you would like to share you can find the link HERE or at the top of the page here on my blog.

Christmas Movie Impression: Trading Christmas

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 9 Comments

It’s fun to recommend Christmas movies I have watched, and I have recommended this one — Trading Christmas — in compilation posts other years but thought I’d break it out for a separate post this year.

Trading Christmas is an older Hallmark movie (2011) and I know I might be scolded for this but I find the older Hallmark movies so much better than the more modern ones.

The movie is based on the book of the same title by Debbie Macomber.

I stumbled onto this one by accident about four years ago and have watched it every Christmas season since then.

It stars Tom Cavanaugh and Faith Ford and it has humor, sweet moments, romance, and it’s about a writer so you know it interested me.

Like I said, it is a Hallmark movie and (again) I know that they have a reputation for being poorly written and cheesy but this, like Signed, Sealed, Delivered holds up pretty well and is worth the watch. Will there be a trope or two you roll your eyes at? Yeah, probably, but I think Tom Cavanaugh’s sarcasm and snarkyness (a new word?) will help heal those wounds.

The premise behind the movie is that Emily (Faith Ford) was expecting her daughter Heather (Emma Lahana) to come home from college for Christmas, but Heather wants to go somewhere else with her boyfriend this year. She doesn’t tell Emily she’s going to be traveling with her boyfriend, though, just that she’s staying in Boston, where she attends college. With that news, Emily must decide what to do with herself.

She doesn’t want to stay in her small town and Christmas-centric house alone. After all, her husband passed away six years ago, and she’s always had her daughter home with her. Her friend Faith (Gabriella Miller) calls to talk and when Emily talks about how sad she is that Heather isn’t coming home, Faith tells her she should do something bold this year for Christmas and let her daughter grow up on her own.

Faith takes this advice to heart but still wants to see her daughter, so she signs up for a house trade with a man named Charles (Tom Cavanaugh) who lives in Boston. Emily lives in a beautiful house in a tiny town and Charles lives in a studio apartment in Boston. A small town away from everything is exactly where Charles wants to be because he’s trying to rewrite his latest novel.

Emily and Charles both run into their own snags once they arrive at their swaps. First, Emily’s daughter isn’t in Boston when she arrives, but instead has gone to Arizona with her boyfriend.  Second, Tom’s brother Ray (Gil Bellows) calls the police on Emily because he thinks she has broken into his brother’s apartment. He’s the one that suggested Charles swap houses with someone, but suggested Charles not tell anyone where he was going. He didn’t know Charles wouldn’t tell him either.

Ray, by the way, is a perfect gentleman after he accidentally almost has Emily arrested.

Charles, however, is not a perfect gentleman when Faith shows up at Emily’s house thinking she will surprise Emily for Christmas (because Faith didn’t tell her about the trading houses thing either). This creates some hilarious interactions and arguments during which Charles tries to send Faith home but can’t because there are no buses leaving the little town until Christmas Day.

As I mentioned above, this is one I really enjoy watching each year.

I own this one, but I just found out yesterday that it is currently free on YouTube (that’s as I am writing this in December 2024). You can also watch it on Amazon with a premium subscription, Apple TV for purchase, The Roku Channel, Vudu, and YouTube Premium.

*This post is part of the Comfy, Cozy Christmas Link Up for 2024. If you have a Christmas/holiday post you would like to share you can find the link HERE or at the top of the page here on my blog.

10 Christmas/Holiday Movie Suggestions

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 13 Comments

Last year Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I watched several Christmas movies and wrote about them. We had a two-month-long Christmas-themed celebration and it was lovely.

Today I thought I’d share with you a list of those posts so you can find some old favorites you haven’t seen in a while or maybe some new Christmas watches.

You can click on whichever title catches your attention and see what I said about them.

I don’t remember if I shared where you can find the movies in these posts, but I can tell you that I watch most of my movies on either Amazon Video, Paramount, or Max, but sometimes I can also find them for free on Tubi or YouTube.

|| Holiday Inn ||

|| The Muppets Christmas Carol ||

|| White Christmas ||

|| A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong ||

|| The Man Who Invented Christmas ||

|| It’s A Wonderful Life ||

|| Beyond Tomorrow ||

|| We’re No Angels ||

|| The Bells of St. Mary’s ||

|| Holiday Affair ||

Are any on this list that you have enjoyed or plan to watch? What others would you add?

*This post is also part of the Comfy, Cozy Christmas Link Up for 2024. If you have a Christmas/holiday post you would like to share you can find the link HERE or at the top of the page here on my blog.

Reflecting on the connection of the Christmas classic ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ to the town I went to high school in

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 16 Comments

For my husband, part of October and much of November were filled with rehearsals for a radio play version of It’s A Wonderful Life with the local community theater group.

The play is like a play within a play. The characters are all supposed to be radio stars from the days when radio was big who are performing a play for their listeners. This helps the local actors because they can read from the script instead of memorizing lines (which is more time consuming for people who are also working full time) and it also is fun because the viewer gets to imagine what it was like to record radio specials back in the day.

Last summer The Husband (my blog nickname for my husband, who has a real name that most people in my area know since he is the editor of the local newspaper), performed in The War of the Worlds, another radio play, and had a lot of fun.

That play was his first time really acting and he had a smaller part. This time around he had to do voices for 13 different characters with the main ones being – the angel Joseph, Uncle Billy, and Mr. Potter. At one point he even had to talk to himself, changing voices back and forth.

 He knocked every character he played out of the park, and I am not just saying that because I am his wife. He really did an amazing job and I’m so happy because I know how hard he worked trying to figure out how he would perform each voice. I’m also proud of him because he isn’t someone who usually puts himself out there in a creative way. For the most part he is like me – an introvert except when working for the paper when it is like we are playing the part of an extrovert.

The play had a cast of eight people all doing a few characters each, except for the woman who was performing the sound effects.

My parents, the kids and I went to the Sunday afternoon showing, and really enjoyed it.

I got teary-eyed more than once. The young man playing George Bailey’s character was fantastic and even sounded like Jimmy Stewart.

I’m sure almost everyone reading this post is familiar with the story of It’s A Wonderful Life. A quick summary: George Bailey always does everything right and for everyone else but every time he thinks he’s going to be able to pursue his own goals in life, something knocks him back – whether it be the sudden death of his father or a run on the building and loan company he ends up running after his father dies.

Before long all the hard luck really beats him down and he contemplates suicide. That plan is stopped by an angel named Clarence who then leads George down a path of seeing what the lives of everyone around him would be like if he wasn’t there anymore.

The movie is based on a short story written in 1939 by Philip Van Doren Stern, a well-respected author from the 1930s, 40s and 50s who was best known for books he wrote about The Civil War. According to the site Unremembered History, Stern tried to sell the short story but no one would pick it up so he printed up 200 Christmas card books and mailed them to friends and family.

“The card book and story somehow caught the attention of RKO Pictures producer David Hempstead who showed it to actor Cary Grant’s agent,” the site states. “In April 1944, RKO bought the rights but failed to create a satisfactory script. Grant went on to make another Christmas movie “The Bishop’s Wife.’ However, another acclaimed Hollywood heavyweight, Frank Capra, who already had three Best Directing Oscars to his name, liked the idea.  RKO was happy to unload the rights.

“The story itself is slight, in the sense, it’s short,” Capri said referring to Stern’s book. “But not slight in content.”

A lot was added to the movie to flesh it out, of course, but the basis for it all was the story.

It turns out that Stern was born in Wyalusing, Pa., which is the town I went to high school in and where my husband works at the paper.

Philip Van Doren Stern

The Husband’s boss, the publisher of the newspaper, published a column this past week about that connection.

According to him, it isn’t clear when Stern’s family moved from Wyalusing but it was confirmed through his daughter a few years ago when the paper contacted her, that he was born in the tiny town along the banks of the Susquehanna. So, it’s possible his connection to the small town may have given him some inspiration for the short story, which was called The Greatest Gift.

Stern’s father was a traveling salesman who came from Virgina to Wyalusing with his family. How he ended up in Wyalusing, since his wife was from New Jersey and there was no known connection to any other families in the town, is unknown.

According to local writer and actor Wes Skillings, Stern was born in Wyalusing because his family was renting a house there after his mother worked as a nurse for many years in Philadelphia. Skillings suggests in the information that was printed in the play program that Stern’s mother may have cared for patients who were originally from Wyalusing and formed a bond with the area. Wanting her son to be born somewhere safe and among people she knew, they moved to Wyalusing while she was pregnant.

Sometime after Stern was born, though, the family moved to New Jersey.

Wyalusing is a very small town with a population of 610 people.

If you blink driving through town, you will completely miss the business district. The town’s main attraction is an overlook just outside its border, which provides an amazing view of the Susquehanna River and a place known locally as French Azilum.

The site was meant to be the new home for French Queen Marie Antoinette. She was killed before she could arrive there, but her servants and other noblemen fleeing the guillotine helped settle the area by founding a village of about 250 people. Many returned to France 10 years later after Napoleon Bonaparte granted repatriation rights to those who had fled to escape persecution. Some stayed and settled the area.

There is no evidence that Bedford Falls, the name of the town in The Greatest Gift and It’s A Wonderful Life is based on Wyalusing. The movie version of Bedford Falls is actually modeled after Seneca Falls, N.Y. which is in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York. Director Frank Capra drove through Seneca Falls on his way back from New York City while coping out shooting locations for the movie.

But, as Skillings wrote, “Bedford Falls may not be Wyalusing, but without Wyalusing there would be no Bedford Falls.”

I wasn’t a fan of It’s A Wonderful Life when I was younger. I had seen several parodies of the movie and figured it was cliché, sappy, and silly. Several years ago, I watched it all the way through and realized it was much more than a simple Christmas movie. There are so many brilliant, emotional, profound scenes in it.

There are the fun scenes – George and Mary so involved in dancing that they don’t notice the gym floor has opened and they are about to fall into the swimming pool. The scene where Mary tries to run away from George, who is about to kiss her, and finds out he’s standing on her robe and now she has to hide in a prickly rose bush with no clothes on.

Then there is the scene where George tells Mary he doesn’t want to stay in Bedford Falls. He’s going to leave and there is nothing she can do about it. In the next few seconds, though, he’s kissing her and they are crying and we all know George isn’t going anywhere.

That scene was made even more emotional by the fact this was Jimmy Stewart’s first movie since returning from World War II and his emotions were raw, right at the surface. His emotional state is on display again when he’s sitting in the bar late in the move after a number of setbacks and he breaks down, asking God for help.

Jimmy wasn’t supposed to break down that way, but he did so organically – still shattered by all he’d seen during the war.

There are many messages in this story written so long ago. First there is a message about facing life’s disappointments with a healthy dose of gratitude mixed in. Life won’t always go the way we want it to. We need to be grateful for what is right in our life.

Another lesson is that tragedy and heartache will strike but what ultimately matters is the people we surround ourselves with. We may not have all the material items, wealth, or prestige we want, but what we do have — the love of our family and friends — is much more important.

At its core, though, is another, poignant message in the movie about our worth, value, and importance to the people around us.

We may feel small and insignificant, like a failure, or invisible, but the lack of our presence can create a monumental, life-changing ripple effect for those we love, beyond what we can imagine.

There are circumstances beyond our control that could remove us from the lives of our loved ones, but if the situation is in our control the best thing we can do is recognize that our worth is not dependent on our success or the opinion of others but on the love others have for us.  The love that God has for us.

No matter what circumstance or location inspired The Greatest Gift, Stern’s message lives on through our choice to embrace the belief that he had – that each life is worthy, that serving others is what makes life rich, and that how much love we have will always mean more than how much money we have.

*This post is also part of the Comfy, Cozy Christmas Link Up for 2024. If you have a Christmas/holiday post you would like to share you can find the link HERE or at the top of the page here on my blog.

Three light-hearted or sweet Christmas movie suggestions for you to watch this weekend

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

Here are three movies I am recommending you watch to keep yourself in the Christmas spirit this weekend.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered For Christmas

I watched this one a week before last and I enjoyed it as much as I did the first time I watched it two years ago. Now, is this movie a bit cheesy like most Hallmark movies? Yes, but it also has some of the most poignant, beautiful, and touching moments I’ve seen in a movie not produced by a Christian company. There are messages in this movie that so clearly point to Christ and redemption it is mind-blowing.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered was a show for a brief time on the Hallmark Channel and follows the lives of four people who work for the old letter office in the United States Postal Service. The characters in the show take a letter or package and try to reunite it with its owner, no matter how many years have passed since it was lost.

Sometimes the show is unbelievable and maybe a little silly but I fell in love with the characters so I continued to watch it when they made the show into TV movies instead. There are several (sorry, I didn’t stop to count before I wrote this) 90-minute movies featuring the characters and I believe I’ve watched all of them now.

I watched this on Peacock this year but you can also watch it through the Hallmark Channel on Amazon or the Hallmark Channel app, I believe, but don’t quote me on that.

Trading Christmas

I have watched this movie at least once every Christmas since finding it four years ago. It stars Tom Cavanaugh and Faith Ford and it has humor, sweet moments, romance, and it’s about a writer so you know it interested me.

It is a Hallmark movie (again) and (again) I know they have a reputation for being poorly written and cheesy but this, like Signed, Sealed, Delivered holds up pretty well and is worth the watch. Will there be a trope or two you roll your eyes at? Yeah, probably, but I think Tom Cavanaugh’s sarcasm and snarkiness will help heal those wounds.

The premise behind the movie is that Faith Ford was expecting her daughter to come home from college for Christmas but the daughter wants to go somewhere else with her boyfriend so Faith’s character has to decide what to do with herself. Her husband passed away six years ago but she’s always had her daughter home with her. Her friend (Gabriella Miller) tells her on the phone she should do something bold this year for Christmas and let her daughter grow up on her own. Faith takes this advice to heart and signs up for a Christmas trade with Tom Cavanaugh’s character. Faith lives in a little tiny and Tom lives in New York City so he comes to the tiny town to finish his novel and Faith goes to NYC to have a new experience. While there she meets Tom’s brother played by Gil Bellows and – well, no spoilers here but he is a perfect gentleman.

Tom on the other hand is not a perfect gentleman when Faith’s friend shows up at her house, thinking she will surprise Faith for Christmas (because Faith didn’t tell her about the trading houses thing).

I own this one but you can watch it on Amazon with a premium subscription, Apple TV for purchase, The Roku Channel, Vudu, and YouTube Premium. I also found it free on YouTube with captions in another language but I can’t vouch for it being the full movie.

One Special Night

This movie is for us oldies – it features two well-known actors – James Gardner and Julie Andrews – who are stranded together in a cabin in the woods. Yes, it is that old trope but it is a very subtle and sweet use of it and not a raunchy one. Julie’s character lost her husband a year earlier but is visiting the staff at the nursing home and James’ character is visiting his ill wife.

A storm is coming and Julie offers James a ride home. Her car crashes in the snow and they start walking and find an old cabin. They spend the night there and end up getting to know each other. There are a series of miscommunications and misunderstandings after that, including the complication of James’ wife still being alive. Lest you think this is a movie about cheating, it is not. It is all very tastefully addressed and the relationship between James and Julie remains a friendship throughout most of the movie.

I found this one a bit predictable but still sweet especially because the main actors were such legendary ones.

I watched this one on Amazon but I see it is now streaming for free on several streaming services including Peacock, The Roku Channel, Tubi, Pluto, Plex, Vudu, and Amazon with an Amazon Prime Video subscription.

Have you seen any of these movies? What did you think of them?

11 Christmas Movie Suggestions and Reviews For You

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 20 Comments

Last year Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I watched several Christmas movies and wrote about them. We had a two-month-long Christmas-themed celebration and it was lovely.

Today I thought I’d share with you a list of those posts so you can find some old favorites you haven’t seen in a while or maybe some new Christmas watches. I’m also going to add any Christmas movies I’ve written about in the last couple of weeks.

You can click on whichever title catches your attention and see what I said about them.

I don’t remember if I shared where you can find the movies in these posts but I can tell you that I watch most of my movies on either Amazon Video, Paramount, or Max, but sometimes I can also find them for free on Tubi or YouTube.

Holiday Inn

The Muppets Christmas Carol

White Christmas

A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong

The Man Who Invented Christmas

It’s A Wonderful Life

Emett Otter’s Jug Band Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas

Beyond Tomorrow

We’re No Angels

The Bells of St. Mary’s

Holiday Affair

Are any on this list that you have enjoyed or plan to watch? What others would you add?

This post is part of the Comfy, Cozy Christmas feature. If you would like to link up a blog post to our linky you can find out more about the feature HERE.

Comfy, Cozy Christmas: We’re No Angels

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 9 Comments

Erin from Still LIfe, With Cracker Crumbs and I have been posting about Christmas movies, books, and all things Christmas for the month of December. We’ve been sort of doing our own thing – such as watching whatever movies we wanted to watch on our own — but this week we both watched We’re No Angels (1955) so we would blog about it together. (This post is part of our Comfy, Cozy Christmas. Don’t forget to share your Christmas memory posts or any posts related to Christmas on our link up HERE, or at the top of my page.)

Erin suggested this movie and I’m glad she did because I had never heard of it before. It was 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 to they can kill and rob them.

Things are crazy enough with their plan but get even crazier when Felix’s cousin (portrayed by Basil Rathbone, who was in the Sherlock Holmes movies of the 40s) arrives with Paul. Yes, that Paul. The Paul that Isabelle is in love with.

Absolute chaos ensues for the rest of the movie. So much of it was so funny but at times I felt bad for laughing at either how suggestive some of the jokes were or how they made light of horrible crimes. I would definitely say this movie featured a lot of dark humor.

Some particularly memorable quotes from this movie for me:

Isabelle: “I’ve never been attractive to men.”

Albert: “I’m a man.”

Isabelle: “And you find me attractive.”

Albert: “I could go to jail for the way I feel if I wasn’t there already. Now put a pretty smile on your face and don’t hurt your family.”

Isabella expresses surprise that Albert is a convict with the way he talks.

“I wasn’t born in a cell you know,” he tells her.

Isabella says, “You don’t look like a criminal to me.”

He responds. “If crime showed on a man’s face, there wouldn’t be any mirrors.

***

We came here to rob them and that’s what we’re gonna do — beat their heads in, gouge their eyes out, slash their throats. Soon as we wash the dishes.

– Joseph

***

  • Albert : I read someplace that when a lady faints, you should loosen her clothing.

Joseph : [Sarcastically]  It’s that kind of reading that got you into trouble.

****

  • Joseph : I’m going to buy them their Christmas turkey.

Albert : “Buy”? Do you really mean “buy”?

Joseph : Yes, buy! In the Spirit of Christmas. The hard part’s going to be stealing the money to pay for it.

This movie was based on a play called We Three Angels. When it released as a movie some critics said it wasn’t as good at the Broadway play and that it was a “misguided” film.

The movie grossed only $3 million and was the 34th highest grossing film.

There was a remake of this movie in 1989 starring Robert DeNiro, Sean Penn, and Demi Moore.

The film was directed by Michael Curtiz whom Bogart had worked with three times before in the movies Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Casablanca (1942) (Curtiz won a best director Oscar for this), and Marseille (1944).

This film was definitely a departure from their previous films.

To see what Erin thought of the film, hop on over to her blog:https://crackercrumblife.com/

Have you seen the film? What did you think of it?

I hope you will join Erin and me in January when we will be watching movies based on Jane Austen’s books. We’ll be sharing more about that toward the end of this month.