Spencer Tracy & Katharine Hepburn in DESK SET

I don’t know about you but in my family there were certain rituals practiced every year during the Christmas holiday that included a traditional meal on Christmas eve (roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, green beans with tiny onion rings, fruit salad and sweet potato casserole with baked marshmellow topping – who came up with this?) and the inevitable Christmas film viewing. It was usually either MIRACLE ON 34^TH STREET or the 1938 Reginald Owen version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL. During my pre-teen years, I usually looked forward to this ritual and as the years passed some new films would occasionally usurp the old such as Capra’s IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE or Laurel and Hardy’s MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS (1934) aka BABES IN TOYLAND. Sooner or later, though, the annual Yuletide film viewing can get stale so in later years I started screening movies that venture beyond the holiday focus with an occasional return to the tried and true. Below are a few of my favorites that still have a bit of holiday cheer or gloom (depending on your mood preference) and just might help you liven up a ritual that has become a boring habit.      

DESK SET (1957)

It’s certainly not the best Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy teaming but it’s charming, fun, and as the years pass its curiosity value increases when you consider the plot – a television network’s all-female research staff, most of whom are walking encyclopedias of facts and trivia (like the literary refugees at the end of Truffaut’s FAHRENHEIT 451), are threatened with replacement by a massive electronic brain which is being touted by Richard Sumner (Tracy), the new company efficiency expert. Bunny (Hepburn), the head researcher, and her staff, naturally clash with Summer in an amusing man vs. machine debate which also crosses over into battle-of-the-sexes territory. It’s also a romantic comedy with both Hepburn and Tracy in a much more laid back, genial mood compared to their courtroom sparring in ADAM’S RIB. And the Christmas season setting makes it an ideal holiday film. One of the things I still remember about it is that dessert – floating islands – that Hepburn makes for Tracy and that I long to try but what is it? Boiled custard with meringue?     

Joan Blondell (left), Katharine Hepburn & Spencer Tracy

Diner

DINER (1982)

Definitely a guy’s movie though women should find it fascinating if they have any interest in sociology or any of the cast members, all up-and-coming young actors and actresses at the time. From the later perspective, it is fascinating to see the young Mickey Rourke and to know what became of his career after this on up to his new comeback feature, THE WRESTLER. Ditto the other performers. Steve Guttenberg is hilarious as Eddie, the soon-to-be-married guy in the pack who is making his future wife pass a football trivia test before he’ll marry her (in one of the movie’s clever conceits, we never actually see her, only hear her as she’s being coached by the pro).  Daniel Stern is perfect as the unhappily married Shrevie whose meticulous cataloguing of his music library seems more important than his wife (Ellen Barkin, in a pre-sexpot role) and Kevin Bacon as Timothy Fenwick Jr. is the wild card. His big scene where his buddies discover him drunk and half naked, lying in the manger in someone’s outdoor nativity scene is one of many unforgettable moments. Director Barry Levinson generously allows everyone to have their big moment and shine, even Tim Daly, who is stuck with the most colorless character, gets to go wild in a strip bar.   

Kevin Bacon in Diner

DEEP RED (1975) aka Profundo Rosso

What’s this? A Dario Argento film for Christmas? Absolutely. This is still probably my favorite Argento. I love its visual stylishness, even when the plot goes occasionally off the rails, and it’s got a very picturesque murder in front of a Christmas tree. In fact, you get to revisit this flashback crime scene throughout the movie as part of unraveling the identity of the psycho killer and look for clues each time – the music playing in the background, the bloody knife, the floor level point of view shots. It’s also a good movie to exorcise your stress at having to be around your family for an unnaturally extended period of time.       

Deep Red aka Profundo Rosso

PANDORA’S BOX (1929)

Louise Brooks is mesmerizing in this 1929 masterpiece from German director G.W. Pabst. As a beautiful and amoral object of desire, she drifts from man to man in an erotic Pilgrim’s Progress-like fable that begins on a high note – her life as a cabaret star and mistress of the wealthy Dr. Peter Schon (Fritz Kortner) – and then heads toward the lower depths, eventually ending up with Jack the Ripper (Gustav Diessl) on Christmas Eve – her dream date. The Criterion Collection DVD is the way to go if you’re up for an art film happening this Yuletide.   

Pandora's Box (1929)

LARCENY, INC. (1942)

Woody Allen stole a great deal from this caper comedy when he made SMALL TIME CROOKS (2000) but the original is highly recommended if you want to see Edward G. Robinson in a delightful parody of his gangster image, this time playing an unusually enterprising ex-con who has a plan for the perfect heist. His cohorts are the none-too-bright Jug (Broderick Crawford has rarely been funnier) and Weepy (Edward Brophy). The film, which was recently released on DVD by Warner Video, has numerous high points and relies more on snappy wisecracks and sight gags than broad slapstick for its humor. My favorite scene involves Broderick Crawford dressing up as Santa Claus and going out into the street to create a distraction while Robinson tries to drill through a wall in his luggage store into the neighboring bank’s vault. The sight of an angry, belligerent Santa Claus always makes me laugh and Crawford plays his part to perfection…until he’s knocked unconscious by an irate Christmas shopper and then Robinson has to don the costume with even funnier results.    

Edward G. Robinson in Larceny, Inc.

FEMALE TROUBLE (1974)

Yes, it’s crude, tasteless, obnoxious and can really fray the nerves if you’re not in the mood. But if you have reached the point of total saturation with your immediate family and/or in-laws and need a little time alone, this is the perfect room clearer, courtesy of John Waters. It gets off to a roaring start with Dawn Daverport (Divine) having a tantrum on Christmas day because she doesn’t get the cha-cha heels she asks for – “I hate you and I hate Christmas!” – and after knocking the tree over, flees home, becomes a delinquent runaway and enters a life of crime, eventually ending up in the electric chair. It isn’t pretty but you’ll laugh a lot if it happens to hit you the right way. And it’s the perfect antidote to all those sentimental Yuletide movies everyone else is watching.    

LADY IN THE LAKE (1947)

One of the more unusual big budget studio film experiments, this Raymond Chandler mystery presents the entire story through the subjective viewpoint of detective Philip Marlowe (Robert Montgomery, who also directed). You can imagine the inherent problems in such a straitjacketed visual approach but it’s an amusing novelty nonetheless with Paul C. Vogel’s cinematography constantly providing numerous opportunities for the audience to view the protagonist via mirrors, glass and reflective surfaces…not to mention the oddness of suspects directly addressing the camera or in the case of Audrey Totter, caressing the camera lens with her lips. The Christmas background is incidental and peculiar because the setting is Los Angeles, not the sort of place where you expect to see Santa Claus, holiday decorations or snow.     

Audrey Totter & Robert Montgomery in Lady in the Lake

1941 (1979)

It might be Steven Spielberg’s most critically savaged film but it doesn’t deserve its terrible reputation and is much more entertaining than the same director’s HOOK or ALWAYS or any of his worthy, heavy-handed human rights dramas such as AMISTAD. The intriguing premise, based on a real incident involving a Japanese submarine firing on a Richfield, California oil refinery during WWII, is used as the springboard to launch a full-scale anarchic comedy in the style of HELLZAPOPPIN (1941), a movie that Spielberg claimed to have seen about 100 times as a kid. Set on December 13, 1941, the movie follows a diverse collection of characters as fear of an actual Japanese invasion of Los Angeles takes hold and builds to a massive riot on Hollywood Blvd. There are plenty of amusing blackout sketches and beautifully choreographed stunts and action sequences buried inside this behemoth such as Robert Stack crying as he watches “Dumbo” or the runaway ferris wheel sequence featuring Eddie Denzen (either you think this guy is funny or you want to kill him – there’s no middle ground here) or the amazing canteen dance number with a gravity-defying Bobby Di Cicco (What happened to this promising and talented young actor? If 1941 had been a hit, he might have become a star). Part of the fun here is picking out famous faces in cameo roles such as Toshire Mifune, Christopher Lee (as a Nazi officer), Slim Pickens, Lionel Stander, Elisha Cook, Jr., Dub Taylor, Roger Corman regular Dick Miller and directors John Landis, Penny Marshall, and Sam Fuller. Best of all, it’s the sort of movie you can watch while opening presents or being distracted by countless other things and still not miss much. It’s the perfect video wallpaper movie with something to appeal to everyone.  

Eddie Deezen (left) in 1941