Mark's Yuletide Movie Vault

They say every writer has one good Christmas column in him, and I did mine in 1954. And now each year it gets a little harder to find Yuletide movies I haven't recommended before. I've done not just Holiday Inn and It's A Wonderful Life, but also Silent Night, Bloody Night ('The mansion. The madness. The maniac. No escape') and Santa Claus Conquers The Martians (because kids on Mars are jealous of kids on Earth). So, while pining for the good old days when I could slough off an unresearched column about the Christmas office-party scene in The Apartment, I began to wonder about some of the more unspoilt Yuletide offerings, all the way back to. . .

THE FIRST 'CHRISTMAS MOVIE' MOVIE
You can find film pioneers doing cinematic Christmas cards from the earliest days - like Thomas Edison's A Winter Straw Ride (1907), in which a bevy of well-bundled-up young ladies take a sleigh ride into a fusillade of snowballs from frisky young men. There's no story; it's just a staged documentary vignette. You can also turn up early screen versions of the life of Christ, like From The Manger To The Cross (1912). But I'd say the first Christmas movie proper is D.W. Griffith's A Trap For Santa (1909), which in just 16 minutes establishes so many of the conventions of the genre: An unemployed man finds himself unable to support his wife and children. 'Crushed in spirit, the man seeks solace in drink, ' we're told. Not a good idea. The missus and kids bail out and, as luck would have it, Mother subsequently inherits a fortune from her aunt and moves the kids into a swank mansion. On Christmas Eve, the wee ones decide to spring a surprise and catch Santa. But who should walk into their trap? Why, none other than dear old dad, whom 'grim misfortune' has led on to 'desperate deeds' - i. e. , he's come round to burgle the joint, unaware it's his family's new home. Fate thus having taught him the error of his ways, he and his wealthy former dependents enjoy a happy reunion. It's better than Santa Clause 2 or Jingle All The Way and it's an eighth of the length. You'll find it on a wonderful DVD set called A Christmas Past: Vintage Holiday Films 1901-1925.

BEST COOKING IN A FRENCH CHRISTMAS MOVIE
'It's not Christmas without truffles, ' sighs Emmanuelle Beart in La Buche (2000), fretting over a perfect buche de Noel. Around her, all is gloom: infidelity, an unwanted pregnancy, death, disease, despair. But, through the wreckage, Mlle Beart gamely keeps up the Christmas baking and decorating. It's the closest you'll get to seeing Martha Stewart in a French movie. And, for any Gallic ladies at odds with French foreign policy for most of this century, why not follow Mlle Beart's example and make your family a lovely seasonal treat of a George W. Buche de Noel?

THE FIRST SANTA STORY SHOT ON LOCATION
Mr and Mrs F.E. Kleinschmidt's Santa Claus (1925) was billed as 'A Fantasy Actually Filmed In Northern Alaska'. Mr Kleinschmidt was an Arctic explorer and what the film lacks in narrative tension it makes up for in wildlife footage. For example, when Santa is shown chilling with his pals, the Easter Bunny is played by a real white rabbit.

THE BEST SNOW GLOBE
Shirley Temple, as a homesick Heidi, introduced the snow globe to the movies in 1937, pining wistfully as she stares into her snow-flecked knick-knack. This scene is probably anachronistic, as snow globes only went on sale to the public in France in 1889 and Heidi was published in 1880. Be that as it may, the most famous snow globe in the movies is the one that contains a model of 'Rosebud' and falls from the hand of a dying Orson Welles in Citizen Kane.

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS SONG
Speaking of Shirley Temple, though 'Santa Claus Is Coming To Town' and 'Winter Wonderland' predate it by two years, the first seasonal song written for the movies is 'That's What I Want For Christmas', sung by Shirley in the 1936 Stowaway and written by my late friend Irving Caesar ('Tea For Two'). Shirley is not thinking of herself:

I like pretty shoes to wear
But if I could give a pair
To poor little children everywhere
That's What I Want For Christmas.

Let my dolls be made of rags
Fireman hats of paper bags
Just write love on the greeting tags
That's What I Want For Christmas.

Animals that never bite
Never giving any fright
Soldier boys who never fight
That's What I Want For Christmas.

I can take it from Shirley Temple more easily than from John Lennon.

In fact, she's going to extraordinary lengths not to think of herself: Caesar told me he'd been a pacifist all his life - he was on Henry Ford's 'Peace Ship' in the first world war - and he slyly slipped a bit of that into the final stanza:

THE ROSIEST CHRISTMAS
Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and Vera-Ellen died long ago now, but Rosemary Clooney hung in there till a couple of years back, the sole survivor of the four principals of White Christmas (1954). Among the many irritating generalizations in Jody Rosen's book on White Christmas is his claim that the new songs in the film are 'forgettable'. I think not. 'Snow', sung by all four in the club car of the night train to Vermont, is charming, and Bing and Rosie are very real in the lead-in dialogue. And Rosie's solo, 'Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me', remains the torchiest number in any Christmas movie.

THE SHORTEST CHRISTMAS CAROL
Sick of Alistair Sim? Thomas Edison's Christmas Carol (1910) is ten minutes long and manages to cram in pretty much everything you need. Past, present and future get condensed into one all-purpose Spirit of Christmas, but by the end of the ten minutes it's hard to argue anything vital's been left out.

THE BEST NATIVITY SCENE
Renoir's Grand Illusion (1937) is difficult to beat. Two French PoWs have escaped from their camp and found sanctuary on the farm of a German widow. On Christmas Eve they surprise her by building a manger from wood and cardboard and sculpting Jesus, Mary and Joseph from potatoes. One of the escapees is a gruff Jew. 'Baby Jesus, my blood brother, ' he observes.

And finally, on a topical note, as al-Qaeda contemplates its first Christmas without Osama . . .

THE FIRST TERRORIST CHRISTMAS MOVIE
A barefoot Bruce Willis swings into action when a gang of evildoers hijack a Christmas Eve office party in Die Hard (1988). Thank you, Hollywood: If you want to see terrorists getting whumped by Americans at holiday time, you have to make do with Alan Rickman.