Holiday Movie, Anyone?

Everyone has some favorite holiday movies, so why shouldn’t I trot out my Top Five list? The season is made for nostalgia—for good or ill—and so I find that most of my favorites are, as they say, vintage. Here goes:

1. Miracle on 34th Street may be my all-time favorite. I’m talking about the 1947 black-and-white film that stars Edmund Gwen (as Kris Kringle, shown), Maureen O’Hara, John Payne, and a very young Natalie Wood. The remake pales by comparison. The original was one of the first films to be “colorized”—a crime against art if there ever was one.

2. The Lemon Drop Kid, 1951, gets a vote because Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell introduced my favorite Christmas carol, “Silver Bells,” in it. Holiday Inn, the 1942 Bing Crosby-Fred Astaire vehicle that introduced “White Christmas,” is a runner-up and better, in my view, than the movie with which it’s often confused, White Christmas, a 1954 film that starred Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera Ellen.

3. Charles Dickens’ novella, A Christmas Carol, has been translated to film repeatedly, apparently so that every generation can have its own. Well, for me, it’s the 1951 version, starring Alistair Sim. Another black-and-white classic.

4. The 1944 Judy Garland film, Meet Me in St. Louis, isn’t a holiday movie per se, but Garland did introduce “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which has become a holiday standard. Another non-holiday film with a favorite Christmas song is Mame, in which Lucille Ball sang “We Need a Little Christmas,” though the film was a less successful vehicle than the original stage musical, which starred Angela Lansbury.

5. Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, 1993, features such haunting music paired with innovative animation that I cannot help but enjoy it time and again. If it were a feature film, I’d also throw in the television favorite, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! This Dr. Seuss book was made into an animated film for TV in 1966, starring Boris Karloff as the narrator and the voice of the Grinch. I watch it every year and it’s always magical.

Granted, I fudged the list to mention more than five films. There are many others that make popular lists that I haven’t included. They simply don’t resonate with me; they may with you. Winter weather makes this time of year perfect to cuddle up with someone you love, share a hot chocolate, and watch a holiday favorite. That’s what I plan to do.