I know this is_____ a bit late. I really feel one ought to watch Christmas movies before Christmas, as watching them after the day seems to take some of the fun out of it. But perhaps not everyone feels that way, and anyway we’ve got a couple of days to go here, so here goes.

First of all, I have not seen all the”great Christmas movies” if there is such a category. I have seen quite a few including “White Christmas,” “Holiday Inn,” “The Apartment,” “Alias John Doe”, and “It’s a Wonderful Life.” I considered only films I have seen for obvious reasons in making my choices. Of these I just mentioned, I think it’s about a tie between “The Apartment” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” for the best choice. But I chose none of them, nor any usually listed with best Christmas movie opinion colums. My two choices for my favorite Christmas movie are “The Man Who Came to Dinner” and “The Holly and the Ivy.” OK, now wait a moment and let me explain myself.

“The Man Who Came to Dinner”(From now on “Man Who”) is in some ways not at all a Christmas movie. It is secular in its orientation and joyfully irreverent in its attitudes. The people in it seem not the slightest bit spiritual and/or religious and are driven mostly by ambition, love, sex, vanity and self-imagery. In other words they are human and without the saving grace of an understanding of spirituality. But whether we can write them off them as meaningless because of that is another matter, and so is the fact that this shrewdly hilarious film is one of the best cures for melancholoy I can think of.

“Man Who” is the product of the fairly long time(though not as long as often assumed)collaboration between George S Kauffman and Moss Hart, two of the great comedy writers of the early to middle Twentieth centiury American Theatre. Through the Depression they wrote of well to do sophisticated poeple and made them likeable and aceptable. Of course, most of the theatre going people who could afford tickets were not poor, but still, they manged to strike a pose that appealed to many others and I suspect gave them hope(“Hey, maybe someday we’ll be like that”)and amusement(“Look. they make asses of themselves sometimes, too”).

I do not know how many will agree with me, but I think it is almost a duty during hard times for your society to be happy and have a good time. This way some of the laugher and cheerfulness may rub off on someone else and relieve their depression,. And once this starts, how far may it go? Oh, well, it’s just an idea of mine, But I think it applies to why I like this play and film so much(at least I tell myself that)

I first became familiar with “Man Who” in high school. There was once(and for only one season, I believe) and TV show entitled “The Best of Broadway,” in which they took famous plays and boiled them down to one hour TV Dramas on CBS. “Man Who” was the second one, and it set me up for a slowly developing love affair with the American Theatre which has never ended.

I later bought a copy of the whole play through a book club at school and read it time after time. I was somewhat shocked by the cussing and irreverence of most of the characters, but I loved the laughs and the wit and the basically joyful and aggresive attitude to life that they took. I also learned from the play. It was the first time I had heard the titles of Thomas Hardy novels, the first time I had heard of “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” I was being introducecd to a level of culture my family and my formal school education had completely ignored and there was something exciting about the whole thing.

The original play opened on Broadway in October of 1939 when World War II had been on for about a month and a half. The movie version is descibed as a 1942 movie but I have read that it was ready for release the weekend of Pearl Harbor and was delayed in its release(but perhaps not quite everywhere)by the beginning of the US involvement in the war. So its history is one of trying, in tragic times, to bring some joy and maybe some self confidence to the audience which would be full of apprehensive people uncertain of the future. At the very least it could afford them a night out to forget their worries.

The story concerns Sheridan Whiteside who was copied off the authors’ friend Alexander Wolcott, a literary critic perhaps best know for his being the unofficial leader of the legendary Algonquin Round Table group who met Fridays at the Algonquin Hotel on W 45th about 1919-1929. He is brilliant, sarcastic, often short-tempered and irascibile. He is also witty and charming. People are drawn to him and often used by him. But many of them are strong enough that they seem to be chums rather than victims.

Whiteside(Monty Wolley)arrives in the fictional OH town of Mesalia, apparently more or less between Cleveland and Toledo, by train accompanied by his very efficient secretary, Maggie(Bette Davis). He is obligated to give a speech to a cultural group and to go to dinner at the home of Mr and Mrs Stanely. Mrs. Stanley is a big Whiteside fan. Mr Stanley is not.

As he climbs the steps to the front door Whiteside slips and injures his hip. The local doctor quickly determines that he will need a week or more of rest and must not leave the Stanley home. The troubles are imagnineable–up to a point But Whiteside, a more or less world wide celebrity, conducts business by phone and telegram and receieves messages and gifts from his friends and admirers who pretty much run the gamut from Ghandi to the very obscure.

Whiteside insists on taking over the lower floor of the house and since he is planning on suing the Stanleys for his injury there is little they can do about it except be obseqious(Mrs) or fume(Mr). There is a great deal of talk about the Christmas season and more about Whiteside and his activites. People and gifts come and go and Mr Stanley is irritated.,

Whiteside actually is not having a bad time, though he is anxious to get on with his activites, when he gets a shock. Maggie has fallen in love with Bert Jefferson, a young local newspaper owner and writer and she plans to quit her job and marry him. Whiteside is appalled by the idea of her leaving her very exciting job for such a mundane existence. He is even more appalled at losing her efficincy and having to train her succssor.

Aty this point the doctor informs Whiteside that he is actually OK–the doctor had been looking at the wrong X-rays and there is nothing wrong with Whiteside’s hip. Good news but bad timing. He can’t leave now without leaving Maggie behind him. He buys the doctor’s silence with a promise to consider the doctor’s memoirs for publication.

It is at this point that the parade of Whiteside friends, copied like Whiteside himself from real people, begins. There is Lorraine(Anne Sheridan), reportedly a take off on Gertrude Lawrence. Whiteside gets her there to seduce Bert away from Maggie. Since he’s written a play, Lorraine, an actress, is interested. She is also spectacular, both in her glamorous appearance and her abundant personalithy. There is also Beverly Carlton(Reginald Garner)a clear take off on Noel Coward. Beverly is a playwright of such wit and humor that he is almost a match for Whiteside. There there is Banjo, a spin on Harpo Marx, He’s played to manic perfection by Jimmy Durante, but of course the fact that it’s Durante is always in your face(maybe a good thing)

These two guys, though loyal friends of Whiteside are also friends with Maggie and sympathize with her dilemma. Each offers a contribution to the effort to pry Lorraine away and give Maggie her man. I doubt if I will be giving much away if I add that Lorraine is successfully pried. The way it happens is not too believeable, but it is a piece of comic genius. So all ends well except for the Man himself who for reasons I won’t take time to explain ends up looking at another stay with the Stanleys.

I guess what has always attracted me about this play/movie is the exhuberance of most of its characters. They live in a world unknown to most of us, but one that may exist(or did then)out there somewhere. They are exciting and suave, chic and attractive and fascinating And despite the occasional setback and perhaps even more occasional twinge of conscience, they are having a good time. They are enjoying their lives in a time when much of the world is in pain, but they are not doing it callously but something else, perhaps desperately. They seem to me(and I like to think)that somewhere deep inside they know two things–they are very lucky to live like this and, secondly, particularly in a world such as ours, it could end, perhaps without warning.

So for them Christmas is a time of good cheer and a little bit of icing on the cake. And while none of them takes a truly spiritual interest in it, it appears that a little bit of the spirit does seep through in the acts of friendship and indulgence which we occiasionally see. And besides that, their fun is our fun for awhile, so let them have it. So to all those denizens of the world of Kauffman and Hart, the world of Whitreside/Wolcott and the folks of the round table at the Algonquin, here’s best wishes. Enjoy your Christmas my friends. Perhaps sometime you will find a somewhat deeper meaning, perhaps not But in any event, thanks for the laughs and the glow it brought and the fun of your company along the way.

In many ways “The Holly and the Ivy” is about as different of a Christmas movie, compared to “Man Who,” as you could imagine. Based on a very old, perhaps medievel English carol, the title really has nothing to do with the plot, except to set in mind the fact that it is Christmas time. It is a very beautiful piece of music, however, and its stage-setting aspect should not be ignored. Nor will you forget it quickly.

The movie takes place at Christmas time, apparently 1948, in Norfolk. Norfolk is northeast of London and borders on the sea. An area of small towns and farms, at least then and maybe still, it is the perfect backfrop for this film. It is Christmas time and the Rev Martin Gregory(Ralph Richardson–later “Sir Ralph”)is expecting his family to join him. A widower, he lives with his daughter, Jenny(Celia Johnson), who serves both as loyal daughter and house keeper, and is approaching the age where she might slip into that categoary of women who never marry and spend their best years caring for aging parents or others. She is in love with David, an engineer whose work is about to take him to South America. She wants to get married and go with him, but knows her father depends upon her emotionally and otherwise, and is afraid of hurting him.

Then there is her sister, Margaret(Margaret Leighton)who forsook Norfolk and her family’s ways for the good life or at least the high life in London where she works in publishing and socializes or more with the rich and sophisticated. Their brother, Michael(Denholm Elliott–also Uncle Elliott in the remake of “The Razor’s Edge”)is in the army but is expected to be discharged soon, His father expects him to follow in his footsteps to Camridge. Michael has other hopes and ideas.

Somewhat in the background, but still a leading character is David. The quiet engineer wants Jenny as much as she wants him, but he can’t afford not to go ahead on his planned move to South Amerca, an opportunity not likely to be repeated. He is not a dominant character in the film, but he is to some degree the fulcrum of the plot for it is the fact of his reationship with Jenny that pulls things off their steady normal ways and introduces conflict.

There are two particuar things I like about this film. The first is that is avoids the cliches of the un-understanding parent or the un-understanding clergyman. It’s not as if there are not real life people of that kind, but we’ve seen them so often portrayed in strictly one-dimensional style on the screen that I have tired of it completely. This 1952 film did not indulge itself in anything of that sort.

Martin is clearly a kindly and understanding clergyman, loyally serving his parish and compassionately dealing with the issues and troubles of his flock. He is not the censorious seeker of sin to correct, but the kindly friend who has some idea of how to connect troubled people to God. It is in fact, in a way his effectiveness as a pastor that gets him into trouble with his family.

The kids all have troubles. As noted, Jenny wants to get married but fears hurting her father. Michael feels that he has been pressured on the Cambridge thing and that he has not been listened to in a meaningful way. And he believes that he is not going to be listened to and that there’s no point in trying. This leads to an inability of the two men to connect in any calm and reasonable way.

Perhaps the most difficult for the Pastor to deal with is daughter Margaret. Although frquently mentioned, she is not seen until about half way through the movie. She has worked for a magazine in London and lived the high life for awhile, to the extent of having an out of wedlock child of whom her family has never heard. But the child died of meningits and her relatioships went bad. Some of her wants to return to Norfolk but she’s sure her father would not understand

So the Pastor apparently has given his love and his caring to his parishioners but not to his children But while this may be his fault-that they feel this way–it is not the truth. He has always been kindly and understanding with his people. He is willing to be the same with his children. But the adult children don’t get it and it seems never did.

For all I know this is often an issue with clergy families, the family feeling shorted by the clergyman’s attention to his flock. But just how and why they feel this way is never devloped fully and this is the one other flaw I find in “Holly.” We never get much more than a hint as to how things have gone in the past. When it deals with the presernt however, it is extremely honest and moving. However much the kids don’t think he will understand, he does. This is a shock to them, a welcome one, but still demanding a turn around in their thinking.

And the turn around does come. One by one, he reveals to them his frustration that his being a pastor has led people, particularly his own children, to believe he won’t understand. And since understanding human failings and pain is his buesiness, the irony is bitter to him. But he persuades the children that he does understand and he does forgive whatever there may be to forgive. And finally, he finds, they are capable of doing the same. And I guess this does help it qualify as a “Christmas movie” since it seems to be partly the holiday, though mostly the human attitufes involved which make this possible.

This all takes shape against the back ground of a small Norfolk village at Christmas and therefore provides not only an emotional but a cultural/psychological background for the characters’ troubles and their resolution.

The only thing wrong here is that possibly it turns out a little too well. Life is seldom so neat as to allow an aging parent to patch things up with three adult children in one visit and this may seem a bit pat. But compared to the frequent terndency to make a “Christmas movie” something that is composed of pretty scenes of snow and jingling bells and people smiling, it is a blessing to see one that is at least based in something beyond that. It is also nice to see an understanding movie clergyman who is both understanding and wise without being too pious. It is good to see this combination of restraint, decency and sanity mixed together and easy to believe it.

So take your pick between these two movies according to–well, whatever mood you’re in at the moment, I guess. They are both worthy of your time and might each leave you feeling more Christmas-like, albeit, perhaps, in somewhat different ways. Or, here’s a thought-if you have the opportunity(your local library’s film collection?)watch both. In any event, Merry Christmas.