{"id":354,"date":"2012-12-14T11:53:59","date_gmt":"2012-12-14T16:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/?p=354"},"modified":"2020-12-06T21:30:12","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T02:30:12","slug":"my-favorite-christmas-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/?p=354","title":{"rendered":"My Favorite Christmas Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

The most annoying question I ever get asked in interviews is this one:\u00a0 \u201cYou love movies!\u00a0 What\u2019s your favorite movie?\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t have a favorite movie.\u00a0 I really don\u2019t.\u00a0 There are lots of movies that I love and think are great films.<\/p>\n

But I think there\u2019s one category for which I can absolutely say, \u201cThis is my favorite.\u201d\u00a0 Christmas movies.\u00a0 There\u2019s a problem with these.\u00a0 They can be a little too syrupy, like The Bishop\u2019s Wife <\/i>(1947).\u00a0 They can completely miss the boat, like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians <\/i>(1964), or they can just not quite measure to what you feel about Christmas.<\/p>\n

This is why I think that the most personal kind of movie is a Christmas movie.\u00a0 Since a lot of the Christmas experience reflects the way people feel about themselves and the world, then their choice of a movie will differ greatly too.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s as it should be.<\/p>\n

I know a lot of people who love musicals love White Christmas <\/i>(1954).\u00a0 Well, I don\u2019t.\u00a0 I wish I\u2019d been the director so I could have told Danny Kaye to calm down a little.\u00a0 And the music in White Christmas <\/i>is annoying because it doesn\u2019t fit the story.\u00a0 It\u2019s more like, \u201cOh, hey, it\u2019s been five minutes since we have had a musical number.\u00a0 Open up the Irving Berlin Songbook and let\u2019s throw a dart!\u201d\u00a0 Hey, I love Irving Berlin as much as the next guy, but let\u2019s make a little <\/i>effort to make the songs fit, OK?<\/p>\n

Still others love It\u2019s a Wonderful Life <\/i>(1946).\u00a0 I\u2019ve got to say I have a soft spot for this movie.\u00a0 I really empathize with Jimmy Stewart\u2019s character, who works pretty hard to get what he wants, never gets it, and seems to get a bad break every time breaks are handed out.\u00a0 I\u2019ve often said my life is like this movie except it never gets to the last reel.\u00a0 It\u2019s a Wonderful Life<\/i> is still a great piece of filmmaking on every level.<\/p>\n

I know that there are others of late who champion Remember the Night<\/i> (1940).\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen it, enjoyed it, but there\u2019s something unsettling in it for me about Barbara Stanwyck\u2019s character.\u00a0 She just seems to me like she could beat me up at any point in the movie.\u00a0 I like Stanwyck perfectly well in other movies, but there\u2019s something about this one that sorta bothered me.\u00a0 Maybe I should give it another chance.<\/p>\n

OK, so I\u2019ve listed a bunch of Christmas movies that I didn\u2019t pick, so what will <\/i>I pick?\u00a0 Well, I\u2019m a sucker for an experimental film, always have been.\u00a0 Give me a film that does something different and braves a new path and I\u2019ll cut it a break like no one else.\u00a0 And the movie I\u2019ve picked is just that, a movie that I still think is unique in all cinema.<\/p>\n

Curse of the Cat People <\/i>(1944).<\/p>\n

I hear throngs (or a very small throng, in the case of this blog) of people saying, \u201cWHAT?\u00a0 That\u2019s not a Christmas movie!\u00a0 It\u2019s a horror film, and it\u2019s a sequel at that, and it\u2019s some ghost story.\u00a0 No fair!\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, if you think that, then you haven\u2019t seen the film.<\/p>\n

See, Curse of the Cat People <\/i>is maybe the least appropriately titled film ever made.\u00a0 Val Lewton had a deal with the studio, RKO.\u00a0 The deal was that he got fifty cents, a crew, some film, a title, and a few days of studio time.\u00a0 If he turned in a film on time, regardless of what it was, then he got to make another one on the same terms.<\/p>\n

Curse of the Cat People <\/i>really is the story of a lonely, socially awkward young girl who has trouble telling fantasy from reality.\u00a0 It just so happens that she\u2019s the daughter of the surviving couple from Cat People <\/i>(1942).\u00a0 Amy, the little girl, has a friend who comes to visit her, a ghost named Irena.\u00a0 Irena was the character killed in the first film, played by Simone Simon.\u00a0 The tie-ins to Cat People <\/i>end there.\u00a0 Gone is all mention of cats and people who turn into them.\u00a0 Lewton had moved on to something else.<\/p>\n

Is Irena really a ghost?\u00a0 Is she part of Amy\u2019s imagination?\u00a0 We don\u2019t know.\u00a0 Most of the film, as we see it, is from Amy\u2019s point-of-view, so the things that are real to Amy are real to us, too.\u00a0 I can\u2019t think of another film that does this so effectively.\u00a0 Fortunately, Lewton is not playing a trick on us by shoving a goofy plot twist down our throats.\u00a0 It is what it is, and we never know quite where Amy\u2019s reality ends and objective reality starts.\u00a0 It works perfectly.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also intrigued by the way this film handles the adult characters.\u00a0 Most of the time, the adults are the smart ones who carry the plot forward.\u00a0 In Curse of the Cat People<\/i>, Amy\u2019s father is a well-meaning boor, well played by Kent Smith. All of the other adults follow his lead.\u00a0 They utterly fail to understand Amy, just as she fails to understand them, and this conflict is what carries the plot along.\u00a0 As a kid, I remember feeling much the same way.\u00a0 Yes, I identify strongly with Amy\u2019s character, which is why this film is so special to me.<\/p>\n

The whole thing builds to mid-film segment that is one of my favorite scenes in any movie. Some Christmas carolers arrive at Amy\u2019s house.\u00a0 Like all the other adults in the movie, they are boorish and tacky, even more so because these people are pretending to be spreading Christmas cheer when in reality they\u2019re trying to one-up each other.<\/p>\n


\n<\/a>\"Screen<\/a>One of the older girls in the party snootily tells Amy that her Christmas traditions aren\u2019t proper.\u00a0 Another caroler bellows false good cheer and reminds the other singers to begin con vivace<\/i>… except she doesn\u2019t really seem to know what that means.\u00a0 Amy is clearly rather put off by the whole experience.\u00a0 They begin to sing a carol, and Amy\u2019s attention drifts (just as the image\u2019s focus masterfully drifts just a bit…)<\/p>\n

Outside, over the false carol taking place within, Irena is singing Il est n\u00e9 le divin enfant.<\/i><\/a>\u00a0 <\/i>It\u2019s a beautiful French carol, sung with equal beauty by Simon.\u00a0 Amy peeps through the window, with just the right amount of winter frost on it, and sees Irena outside, clad in a flowing white gown.\u00a0 The whole thing is lit so wonderfully that it deserves special mention, which I\u2019ll expound upon in a bit.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>This scene brings tears to my eyes every time I see it.\u00a0 I don\u2019t tear up at movies often, and this seems an odd scene, but this one is does it.\u00a0 Amy is so frustrated at the insensitive idiots who surround her that she turns to Irena, who perfectly understands, gives Amy a lovely Christmas present, and sends her back in the house.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s breathtakingly simple, but stunningly effective.\u00a0 It calls out the hypocrisy of the Christmas season while celebrating the simple joys we can still find in it.<\/p>\n

Amy also befriends an older woman, a former actress, named Mrs. Farren.\u00a0 This is another wonderful element in the film.\u00a0 Mrs. Farren may, or may not, be slightly doddered with old age.\u00a0 And it doesn\u2019t matter if she is, for Amy loves her regardless, unlike her daughter (Elizabeth Russell).\u00a0 Mrs. Farren says that this is not her daughter, but rather a caretaker.\u00a0 She is heartbroken but insists otherwise.\u00a0 Amy doesn\u2019t know.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t particularly care, either.<\/p>\n

The film builds to its plot climax in several ways: Amy\u2019s father insists that she get a little more grounded in the \u201creal world,\u201d whatever that is.\u00a0 He punishes her for insisting that Irena\u2019s ghost is real.\u00a0 Amy runs away to Mrs. Farren\u2019s house, but gets lost and mistakes the sound of a car for the sound of the headless horseman.\u00a0 In one of her theatrical moods, Farren had told Amy the story, and, of course, Amy takes it as literal truth.<\/p>\n

Will Amy\u2019s parents wake up to the fact that they have a unique, sensitive child?\u00a0 Will Amy have to give up believing in her only friend, Irena?\u00a0 Will Mrs. Farren or her slinky daughter be a help or an hindrance?\u00a0 It all comes to a climax I still love but others criticize as sloppy and unfinished.<\/p>\n

I prefer to see it as open-ended, because Amy will continue to be disheartened by people who don\u2019t understand her, and Amy\u2019s parents will have to do a much better job in trying to do just that.<\/p>\n

\"cotcp\"<\/a>I\u2019m sure RKO must have hated this film. It\u2019s a marketing nightmare.\u00a0 Despite the fact it shares several cast members from the first film, Curse<\/em>\u00a0has almost nothing to do with it.\u00a0 The posters from the original release are misleading at best and deceptive at worst.<\/p>\n

Curse of the Cat People <\/i>is director Robert Wise\u2019s first film.\u00a0 He replaced Gunther Von Fritsch, who was running behind schedule.\u00a0 Of course, the whole tone of the film was shaped by producer and uncredited co-writer Val Lewton, who was always the main creative force behind his films.\u00a0 Wise had been an editor at RKO, and a very good one.\u00a0 He cut Citizen Kane <\/i>and The Magnificent Ambersons<\/i>.\u00a0 He learned a great deal from Welles and a great deal from Lewton.<\/p>\n

There are a number of directors who have come to that job through being editors.\u00a0 These directors tend to be very technical people and often make sterile films with weak acting performances.\u00a0 This is because they\u2019ve not been trained to work with actors, but they know how to set up a scene and shoot it.\u00a0 One person that leaps to mind here is James Cameron, who needs to have a cast of ace actors in order to overcome his technical orientation.\u00a0 George Lucas started as an editor and claims it was his favorite job.\u00a0 We know how good he is with actors!\u00a0 Peter R. Hunt, director of On Her Majesty\u2019s Secret Service <\/i>(1969) was a top editor and cut all the early James Bond pictures.\u00a0 OHMSS <\/i>still strikes me as a well-crafted film with a set of bloodless performances, Diana Rigg excepted.<\/p>\n

Yet Wise does not fall into this trap.\u00a0 All of the performances in Curse of the Cat People <\/i>are spot-on.\u00a0 <\/i>One might argue that Kent Smith\u2019s delivery is a little wooden, but then he always came off a bit that way.\u00a0 Overall, his performance is great.\u00a0 Of particular note is Ann Carter as Amy, who delivers one of the best performances by a child actress I have ever seen.\u00a0 It would be a tough role even for an adult, but this kid handles it like a pro.\u00a0 I know that Wise had to work with her extensively, because it shows.<\/p>\n

And the most un-sung of all is Nicholas Musuraca, the director of photography.\u00a0 Why is it that we read reams of praise for photographers Gregg Toland, William Daniels, Joseph August and Joseph Valentine, but this guy is almost completely forgotten today?\u00a0 Musuraca was one of the top DPs for the film noir <\/i>movement: he shot The Hitch-Hiker <\/i>(1953), Clash by Night <\/i>(1952), Out of the Past <\/i>(1947), and The Spiral Staircase <\/i>(1946) among others.<\/p>\n

He also shot most of the Lewton pictures.\u00a0 I note that the lovely Simone Simon suddenly lost a lot of her beauty in Val Lewton\u2019s Mademoiselle Fifi <\/i>(1943), a beauty she regains in Curse of the Cat People<\/i>.\u00a0 I wondered why this was, since the difference is so stark.\u00a0 I came to realize that Fifi <\/i>is the only Lewton\/Simon film that Musuraca didn\u2019t shoot.\u00a0 It shows.\u00a0 Sadly, Musuraca ended up doing TV work, mostly because he needed the cash, not like Karl Freund, who had basically retired when he agreed to do I Love Lucy<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Every time I see Curse of the Cat People<\/i>, I\u2019m struck by just how right the lighting is.\u00a0 And it changes subtly when the mood changes.\u00a0 It\u2019s actually a little starker when Amy is with Irena than in the interior scenes in the house.\u00a0 It\u2019s as if Irena is more <\/i>real to Amy than the rest of her life.<\/p>\n

(A full disclosure side note: those who know me will say I\u2019m incredibly biased towards Curse of the Cat People <\/i>because of Simone Simon.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always considered her to be one of the hottest women in movies.\u00a0 Yeah, OK, maybe it\u2019s fair to point this out, but Simon isn\u2019t especially sexy in Curse of the Cat People<\/i>. She\u2019s ghostly and ethereal, admittedly beautiful.\u00a0 If you want to see her in a sexy part, I recommend The Devil and Daniel Webster <\/i>[1941].\u00a0 Ohhhhhhh.)<\/p>\n

I do have an ulterior motive here.\u00a0 Every year, someone asks me to do a Christmas movie, which is always a fun thing to schedule.\u00a0 But every year I suggest Curse of the Cat People <\/i>and people look at me like I\u2019ve just come from Mars.\u00a0 I tell them that, no, it isn\u2019t <\/i>what you think, <\/i>but they never give it a chance anyway.<\/p>\n

Now, at least, I can point them to this blog entry and give them my argument for why this is a great Christmas movie.\u00a0 Of course it is, but it\u2019s a great movie as well.\u00a0 All Hail Val Lewton, <\/i>a master indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The most annoying question I ever get asked in interviews is this one:\u00a0 \u201cYou love movies!\u00a0 What\u2019s your favorite movie?\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t have a favorite movie.\u00a0 I really don\u2019t.\u00a0 There are lots of movies that I love and think are great films. But I think there\u2019s one category for which I can absolutely say, \u201cThis … Continue reading “My Favorite Christmas Movie”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"powered_cache_disable_cache":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[207,4],"tags":[129,126,128,130,127],"class_list":["post-354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-views-and-reviews","tag-christmas-movie","tag-curse-of-the-cat-people","tag-robert-wise","tag-simone-simon","tag-val-lewton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=354"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1920,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354\/revisions\/1920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}