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A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1938) Reginald Owen portrays Charles Dickens’ holiday humbug Ebenezer Scrooge, the miser’s miser who has a huge change of heart after spirits whisk him into the past, present and future. From sets to stars to story, this triumphant adaptation adds a glow to the season. Like Tiny Tim’s benediction, it blesses us – every one. CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT (1945) A magazine columnist totally devoid of the homemaking skills espoused in her column had better get some fast: her boss has invited himself and a recently returned war hero to her home for Christmas. Laughs, romance, holiday cheer: that’s the recipe Barbara Stanwyck and a stellar company follow in this perennial favorite. IT HAPPENED ON 5TH AVENUE Home for the holidays! GI families hit by the post-World War II housing crunch take over an abandoned New York City mansion. THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER In the third of their four screen pairings, Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart engage in retail romance wrapped in the ribbon of director Ernst Lubitsch’s trademark touch of wit and charm. They play bickering store clerks who are unknowingly secret pen pals. Your patronage will be cheerfully rewarded when you watch this enchanting tale.
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Christmas in Connecticut
Christmas in Connecticut is a holiday film that plays 365 days of the year. Barbara Stanwyck gives a brilliant, sardonic performance as Elizabeth Lane, a columnist for Smart Housekeeping magazine, whose enticing descriptions of the exquisite meals she prepares for her husband and baby on their bucolic Connecticut farm earns her fame as "America's Best Cook." A writer, she is; a cook, she is not. As she types the words, "From my living room window, as I write, the good cedar logs cracking on the fire..." the view is of clothes flapping on the line outside her bachelorette Manhattan apartment. An able supporting cast keeps her lie on life support: her editor, her stuffy and detestable architect suitor, and the wonderful "Uncle" Felix (S.Z. Sakall), an English-garbling Hungarian chef who provides the recipes that fill her column.
Cut to Jefferson Jones, a sailor adrift at sea for weeks after his destroyer is torpedoed. Memories of the food described in Lane's columns are central to his survival. After his rescue, as he's recuperating in a naval hospital, a marriage-minded nurse thinks she might nudge Jones to the altar if he could only experience a real domestic Christmas. And it just so happens that she was nurse to the grandchild of Alexander Yardley, the wealthy and powerful publisher of --you guessed it--Smart Housekeeping magazine. And so, she pens the letter that could unravel Lane's carefully constructed fraud. She writes to Yardley asking that Jones be included in America's ultimate Christmas--the one to be held at the Lane family farm in Connecticut. The pompous Yardley (ably portrayed by Sidney Greenstreet) believes the Lane myth and instantly sniffs a story that will send his magazine's circulation skyrocketing. And staring down a lonely holiday, he decides to join the Lanes for Christmas on the farm, too. Now, all Lane has to do is come up with a farm. And a husband. And let's not forget the baby. Christmas in Connecticut is classic screwball entertainment of the best kind, with its on-target skewering of social convention and house-of- cards-about-to-tumble tension: a perfect farcical vision of domestic blitz. --Susan Benson
A Christmas Carol 1938
This is the desert-island choice of the many versions of A Christmas Carol, with a magnificent, full-bodied portrayal of Ebenezer Scrooge by Alastair Sim that leaves everyone else in the dust. Lean and direct, this film's version of the story wastes no time trying to impress viewers with the magical nature of the spirits' visitations. Director Brian Desmond Hurst keeps the focus on Scrooge's life story, beautifully simplifying and underscoring the theme of lost women with a haunting musical refrain from the folk song "Barbara Allen." Sim's commitment to the role is at times astonishing; his Scrooge's Christmas-morning ecstasy is a marvel of giddy technique. Watch for Patrick Macnee (Steed in The Avengers) as the young Jacob Marley--the actor made his screen debut in this 1951 production. --Tom Keogh
The Shop Around the Corner
One of the most charming and romantic films around, this 1940 comic romance finds James Stewart (Vertigo, It's A Wonderful Life) working in a small shop in Budapest and longing for a girl to call his own. His coworker, Margaret Sullavan, feels the same, and soon they are both corresponding and falling in love with their respective pen pals. What they don't realize is that they are writing to and falling in love with each other, but the problem is that they can't stand each other in person. The beguiling nature of the mistaken identity formula that influenced countless films is done to perfection here, and the wry combativeness and delightful banter between the two leads makes this a very special film. --Robert Lane
It Happened on 5th Avenue
Making his winter home in a vacant New York City mansion,owned by vacationing industrialist Michael O'Connor (Charlie Ruggles), a philosophizing hobo decides to take in a homeless ex-G.I. O'Connor's unhappy daughter, Trudy (Gale Storm), running away from finishing school, returns home unexpectedly but doesn't tell anyone who she is or who her dad is when he comes looking for her disguised as a butler. Meanwhile, O'Connor unwittingly competes with the ex-G.I. in a land deal. The film, nominated best original story, contains a worthwhile message of self worth.
- A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1938) Reginald Owen portrays Charles Dickens holiday humbug Ebenezer Scrooge, the miser s miser who has a huge change of heart after spirits whisk him into the past, present and future. From sets to stars to story, this triumphant adaptation adds a glow to the season. Like Tiny Tim s benediction, it blesses us every one.CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT (1945) A magazine columnist totall
TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Holiday (Christmas in Connecticut / A Christmas Carol 1938 / The Shop Around the Corner / It Happened on 5th Avenue) Reviews
TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Holiday (Christmas in Connecticut / A Christmas Carol 1938 / The Shop Around the Corner / It Happened on 5th Avenue) Reviews
| 101 of 103 people found the following review helpful:  Yuletime quadruple feature from TCM, By This review is from: TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Holiday (Christmas in Connecticut / A Christmas Carol 1938 / The Shop Around the Corner / It Happened on 5th Avenue) (DVD) Warner's TCM GREATEST CLASSIC FILMS COLLECTION is a series of over two dozen twin packs. The four titles in each set are dubbed one per side on two flip discs. Only some movies include bonus features. Transfer quality of these well-preserved ever-popular films is top-notch. All titles in TCM's "Holiday" set are rated in the 7s and 8s at imdb.Trivia on movies--- Each version of Dickens' famous yule story has its fans, and the '38 A CHRISTMAS CAROL is no exception. This 69 minute Loew's release features an interesting company behind Reginald Owen as Ebenezer Scrooge. Gene and Kathleen Lockhart are Bob and Mrs. Cratchit and their daughter June plays a Cratchit child. Leo G. Carroll is Marley's ghost and Ann Rutherford portrays "Christmas Past." Silent-era clown Billy Bevan, who also lent his raspy basso voice to early Looney Tunes shorts, appears as "Leader of Street Watch." In the romantic comedy CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT (1945), Sydney Greenstreet is... Read more 45 of 46 people found the following review helpful: Great holiday favorites!, By This review is from: TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Holiday (Christmas in Connecticut / A Christmas Carol 1938 / The Shop Around the Corner / It Happened on 5th Avenue) (DVD) Christmas in Connecticut is a great holiday romantic comedy about a young woman who writes for a magazine geared to homemakers. She claims to be married, have a child and live on a farm in Connecticut, but is actually a single, childless, apartment dweller. The problems start when her publisher wants her to give a recent war hero a home for the holidays on her Connecticut farm. She consents to marry a long-time boyfriend who actually has a farm in Connecticut to save her editor from losing his job. They arrange to be married on the farm, but the judge doesn't get the job done before the war hero arrives. That creates some awkward moments. The housekeeper tends babies for women who are working during the war, and they are supposed to be "the child" but with a different baby showing up each day confusion ensues. Stanwyck's character, of course, begins to fall for the hero, who is also falling for her but thinks she is a married woman and is trying to respect that. It is all good, clean... Read more 55 of 62 people found the following review helpful:  3 1/2 stars-Pleasant holiday diversions for a great price, By This review is from: TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Holiday (Christmas in Connecticut / A Christmas Carol 1938 / The Shop Around the Corner / It Happened on 5th Avenue) (DVD) These four films would cost you you about 4 times the price if you were to hunt for them individually.The only fly in the ointment is that the movies are on two double sided discs.This can send some screaming into the night,but if it doesn't bother you then you're laughing.A Christmas Carol(1938)is a Christmas Carol light;for those who want their taste but not all the "calories"!.Clicking in at a speedy 69 min.it is no wonder this film was a TV staple for years until they began pushing the Alistair Sims version back in the 70s.The film is non stop and is over far too soon.By now we all know the plot of a miserly businessman who abhores Christmas and who gets his wake up call courtesy of three spirits;becoming a new man.The film doesn't linger on little plot nuances(that would have improved it immensely)like the door knob coming to life,or his old love,or his reunion with his nephew,etc.When Owen(Scrooge)argues with Fred watch the spittle literally coming out of his mouth... Read more |
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