Last month, CNN had a weekend special called 'TIS THE SEASON: THE HOLIDAYS ON SCREEN. Film critics and a few non-film critics discussed their favorite holiday movies -- like HOME ALONE, THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, ELF and THE PREACHER'S WIFE, to name a few. TCM host, Ben Mankiewicz appeared for the "Is DIE HARD a Christmas movie?" conversation.
Would I have liked to be in that mix to mention some holiday movies worth watching? You bet! But I wasn't. So, here, I'm recommending a few films that are rarely mentioned around this time of the year but they definitely have Christmas as a main season in the action.
WAKE IN FRIGHT: There's a kangaroo holocaust in this brutally memorable Australian film from 1971. This psychological thriller seems drenched in relentless sunshine and toxic masculinity. A well-dressed and well-educated schoolteacher dreams of getting out of the classroom duties for the Christmas holiday. He leaves for a holiday and encounters locals at a local pub. Male locals who draw him into boozing and aggressive male bonding. There's a clash of values worldviews. In this tale of "sweat, dust and beer," the most frightening character the schoolteacher seems to encounter is the bald rather barbarian man played terrifically by Donald Pleasence. What makes him so frightening is that he is not an ignorant oaf. He's smart, like the teacher. He's a barbarian with a brain in the outback. This film could make a man think twice about having a few beers with his buddies during the Christmas holiday season.
SUNDAYS AND CYBÉLE: This 1962 French gem won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Hardy Krüger, the handsome German actor who passed away early this year at age 93, plays a man suffering from PTSD after having served as a pilot in the Vietnam conflict. In this provocative tale, the war vet sees a neglected child, helps her and the two engage in an innocent friendship that begins to heal him. She is most grateful for his gentle attention but society feels there must be something dark in the relationship between the two troubled souls. There is not. He goes out of his way to make sure that the lonely girl has a lovely Christmas tree in this poignant film.
KISS KISS, BANG BANG: I thought this 2005 murder mystery/comedy was just too much fun. But I wondered why it was under-promoted. It was released by a top Hollywood studio, it had two popular male lead stars, lots of action and snappy dialogue and it was written by the guy who gave us LETHAL WEAPON which was a huge box office. Then it hit that this Christmastime L.A. murder mystery has an openly gay man as the tough, respected detective as the hero. He solves the crime with the help of an unlikely, bumbling hetero partner. Maybe moviegoers were more used to seeing the gay man as the oppressed victim instead of the out loud-and-proud tough hero that society needs in order to keep it safe. KISS KISS, BANG BANG stars Val Kilmer as the detective and Robert Downey Jr. as his unlikely partner. This was a fresh spin on the cop/buddy movie.
THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK: This brisk 1944 screwball comedy written and directed by Preston Sturges is flat-out brilliant. He lampoons America's holier-than-thou embrace of the Nativity Story at Christmas by basically seeing how small-town American responds to a similar one in modern times. Betty Hutton stars as the lively, slightly selfish girl who loves to have a good time. A dorky but sweet guy has been in love with her for years, She knows this. So does her sister and her widower dad. But Trudy (Hutton) wants to do her patriotic duty and dance with the GI's on leave at a dance. She manipulates Norval, the dorky guy declared physically unfit to serve in uniform, to drop her off at the dance and pick her up hours later. Norval is played by the wonderful Eddie Bracken. While jitterbugging with a soldier, Trudy hits her head on a rather phallic-shaped ceiling ornament and gets amnesia. Later, Trudy discovers that she's married pregnant by an unknown source of good -- one of the GI's now overseas and fighting for freedom. Because of the amnesia, she can't remember which soldier she married. Now she needs Norval's help because a pregnant young lady with no husband present at Christmastime will be the town's ultimate scandal. As usual, Eddie Bracken did his best film work under the direction of Preston Sturges at Paramount. He's excellent here as Trudy and Norval become like the Mary and Joseph of Morgan's Creek. The screenplay is witty and wise.
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