Merry Christmas Eve!

My schedule for the day:
THE BISHOP'S WIFE and A CHRISTMAS CAROL!
Fun, fun, fun!
Merry Christmas everyone!

Five cans of paint!!

This is one movie I can feel pretty confident that most people have seen (Home Alone). 


What is your favorite part?

Do your vines have tender grapes?

Image via Wikipedia

We are celebrating the fourth day of Christmas films here at ReelRevival with Our Vines Have Tender Grapes. 


It is one of the greatest films ever made, and also has one of the best Christmas moments on film. It's a total win-win situation.


Read my original review here.

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

Image via Wikipedia

Three Monty Woolleys? Oh dear. That's a lot of... cantankerousness, and energy, and... beard. If those are things you are even remotely interested in, The Man Who Came to Dinner should be satisfactory to you. In this, shall we say, adventure, a star-studded cast takes on a Broadway play that tops the charts in energy and action. Never a dull moment here - but please be assured, you might need to be feeling energetic yourself in order to keep up. 


Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Jimmy Durante, Billie Burke, Reginald Gardiner, Richard Travis, and Mary Wickes, all colliding with each other and Monty Woolley for 112 minutes. The Great Woolley is a famous lecturer and critic who feels nothing but disdain for almost every person in the world, except his assistant, Bette Davis. He is the man who unwillingly came for dinner at the Stanley residence and never left. 


Having broken his hip on the slippery stairs outside the home, the critic is at first forced to remain in the home to heal; he finds himself so enjoying meddling in (and wrecking) the lives of the family that he decides not to leave. And all of this as he prepares for a Christmas Eve radio broadcast live from the home. 


Will he learn any Christmas lessons?

It's a Holiday Affair

Cover of Holiday Affair

What do Robert Mitchum, Janet Leigh, and Wendall Corey have in common? A Holiday Affair that changed each of their three lives. Janet Leigh, as Connie Ennis, is in a long-term but uncommitted relationship with Carl Davis (Wendall Corey). 


This isn't because Carl hasn't asked her to marry him, but because she can't let go of the memory of her husband, who was killed in the war. The situation is further complicated by her son, Timmy, who isn't crazy about the idea of his mother remarrying - at least marrying Carl.


Everything changes when Connie, who is a comparison shopper, gets Steve Mason (Mitchum) fired from his job in the toy department at a large department store. From that point on they walk in and out of each other's lives more consistently than Esther Williams goes swimming.


The story is sweetened by little Timmy, adorably portrayed by Gordon Gebert. Timmy learns a few important Christmas lessons, including the value of friendship and loving-kindness over material things.

The time has come for Moonlight Bay!

Image via Wikipedia

Well folks, tonight we officially kick off the first of twelve days of Christmas films with On Moonlight Bay, starring Doris Day and Gordon MacRae. The rhymes in that sentence are irresistible. 


Four words. I love this movie. This is a good movie. It is fun, it is clean (thank goodness for old films), and it is spectacularly cute. And I'll tell you why.


First, Doris Day's chemistry with the leading man is memorable. This was the third film Doris made with Gordon Macrae, and it was such a hit that Warner Bros. immediately started the wheels turning on its sequel, By the Light of the Silvery Moon. Day and MacRae made a great couple, not only for their stunning good looks, but also by the amazing quality of their voices. As we know, Doris Day was one of the greatest actresses to ever open her mouth on film; mixed with MacRae's majestic baritone, the sound is nearly too good to tolerate. 


Second, the cast is an all-around A Team effort. Leon Ames (we'll see him again next week in Meet Me in St. Louis), Rosemary DeCamp, Billy Gray, Ellen Corboy, and the unforgettable Mary Wickes round out the cast of characters like a match made in heaven. Few child actors were as capable as Billy Gray, and the calibre of Ames, DeCamp, and Corboy was matched by few projects. Actually, given the build-up to production, it is a surprise to me that Warner Bros. would make such a cast investment in Moonlight Bay. I suspect that with gaining the rights to make these films out of the Penrod stories, the studio was interested in trying to replicate a little of the success Meet Me in St. Louis had enjoyed. If you are familiar with both movies, you will see the similarities between them. 


Third, the story itself is sugary and frivolous, but it manages to work in sincere moments of joy, heartache, lesson-making, and sentiment. We see summer, fall, winter, and spring in a home where a girl grows from a tomboy to a feminine woman, while her family takes on changes of small and great significance (a new home, new neighbors, a world war) and remains remarkably the same. 


Fourthly, this movie is not about Christmas, but it features some lovely Christmas moments. We get to hear two lovely Christmas songs: "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," and "Merry Christmas All." There are lights, and snow, and angel's wings, and all of the jolly things we associate with Christmas. And Doris Day is there throughout. 


What more could you need?