Top 10 Christmas Season Movies - #2-1!

This week, in anticipation of the Christmas season, we at The Cinema King would like to bring you more than just your usual share of recommendations.  So we present to you:  this week’s Top 10 list.  More specifically “The Top 10 Christmas Season Movies.”  Rather than fill the list with “obvious” choices of Christmas-y movies, there are a few “alternative” choices on the list – the overarching determining criterion is whether or not this is a movie that I will watch beginning to end, especially during (but not limited to) the Christmas season.

#2 – It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
I can’t be faulted for including at least one “traditional” Christmas movie on the list, can I?  Any Frank Capra movie is worth watching any day of the week, and It’s a Wonderful Life has become such a Christmas staple that it’s part of all our traditions.  True, its status as a mainstay on network television was due initially to a lapsed copyright, but after that copyright was reinstated the film remained part of our holiday tradition.  There’s no substitute for Jimmy Stewart’s earnestly heartfelt sincerity and the nostalgic simplicity of Capra’s world, and the truest testament to this film’s lasting success is its cultural ubiquity.  Everyone from Batman to J. R. Ewing has wondered if life would be better without them, and there’s always been a Clarence-esque figure to show them just what an awful hole is left when someone isn’t around.  Though the film may be naïve, it’s difficult to say that it isn’t compelling.

#1 – Stalag 17 (1953)
Anyone who knows me has heard me say these words:  “Stalag 17 is a perfect movie.”  And it is!  William Holden stars as Sefton in Billy Wilder’s adaptation of the stage play about a German POW camp where one of the Americans is a stoolie – and it’s up to Sefton to find out who it is, since the other prisoners have him pegged as the guilty party.  Best of all, it’s a holiday treat since the film takes place right around Christmastime 1944; the Americans throw themselves a Christmas party replete with musical accompaniment and Betty Grable by way of a straw wig.  And when Sefton finds out who the rat is, he does so as his compatriots sing “O Come All Ye Faithful” in a perfect use of visual language (which we know is my favorite facet of filmmaking).  It’s an underappreciated gem, but Stalag 17 has everything a great film needs – it’s intense, it’s mysterious, it’s funny, and it’s touching without being saccharine – and it qualifies for this list, to boot!

After the Thin Man (1936)

I can only think of a few sequels that were better than the original - The Empire Strikes Back, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Goldfinger, High School Musical 2 (joking, of course - the first was better). Now we ought to add W.S. Van Dyke's sequel to The Thin Man - the appropriately titled After the Thin Man - to that list.

Is this the first sequel in film history? Mmm, probably not - Bride of Frankenstein predates this one by a year. But the degree to which this movie improves on the original is something for which modern-day sequels could learn a thing or two; pay attention, Joel Schumacher, because your Batman movies were the lousiest sequels this side of Caddyshack II.

Capitalizing on the popularity of Nick & Nora Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy), After the Thin Man takes the focus off the mystery and shines a spotlight squarely on the never-inebriated Charles detectives. Upon being invited to a dinner party, the Charleses learn that Nora's cousin's husband has gone missing. Though he's found easily enough, a murder mystery quickly develops with a shady cast of suspects through which Nick has to wade at his wife's insistence - despite their promise to leave sleuthing behind.

While I said I laughed the whole way through Planet Terror, it's a different kind of laughter that permeated my experience with this movie. The dialogue is smart and witty, effortlessly funny, and fueled by engrossing performances. Based on a story by Dashiell Hammett, After the Thin Man realizes that the magic of the first movie wasn't in the nail-biting mystery surrounding Clyde Wynant, but it was the interplay between Powell and Loy, which is successfully amped up here. This is a formula that Blake Edwards would repeat with A Shot in the Dark, realizing that the key to The Pink Panther's success rested not with David Niven's suave jewel thief but with Peter Sellers's hysterically bumbling turn as Jacques Clouseau.

The supporting cast is great, too. James Stewart is the stand-out name of the back-up cast, since he went on to a much larger career than most anyone in the movie, but the movie is populated with character actors and incredibly slippery suspects. Asta the terrier gets a pretty solid role, too; I don't want to spoil his subplot, but let's just say I'm surprised the filmmakers got away with this joke in 1936. *wink wink*

But the stars are unquestionably Powell and Loy, whose chemistry is something that today's supercouples can only envy - sorry, Brangelina. You can tell these two really love each other - even though Nick has Nora put into lock-up after he doesn't acknowledge her as his wife. The banter between the two of these is delightful, snappier than most of the dialogue in Juno, and the film's last line - "And you call yourself a detective!" - is the cleverest set-up for a sequel since "Luke, I am your father!"