A Flintstone Family Christmas (1993)

The Flintstones is one of my favorite TV shows and Christmas is by far my favorite time of the year. Because of this it should be no surprise that have a fondness for Christmas specials starring my favorite stone age family. The Flintstones Family Christmas is no exception.

In this half hour made for TV short film, Fred and Wilma help take care of a caveless little boy named Stony. Because of his rough life Stony has started an early life of crime. Fred is at first apprehensive about taking care of a young criminal, but learns to care about the kid. The kid though learns the spirit of Christmas.

Ok this plot kind of sounds like a bad PSA. However it really isn't. There is plenty of classic Flintstones humor, and like the original show, much of that humor is more aimed at adults than kids (the all cave girl network, don't slow dance with someone named Bubba). Also this special has some real heart. As I stated before I think that sentiment after times is more effective in films when attached to Christmas and this is true here. Fred learning to like the kid never feels forced, and comes quite naturally. As does Stony's reformation. Fred's love of Christmas feels genuine as well. Of course the fact that we already love Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty helps make this work even better.

This short was directed by Ray Patterson. Ray had been working with William Hanna and Joseph Barbera since the 1943 Tom and Jerry short Baby Puss (he was an animator). Though his career started at Disney (he was an animator on Fantasia and Dumbo) he would spend most of his career with Bill and Joe, both as an animator and a director. Speaking of animation, the animators on this film included none of the classic Hanna-Barbera animators, as it was animated overseas by Fil Cartoons INC. (from the Philippines). Unfortunately because of this it is hard not only to find out who animated what, but even who all the animators were. However they did a pretty good job with this film.

Since Allan Reed, Mel Blanc and Gerry Johnson had passed by the time this film was made, Fred was voiced by Henry Cordon, Barney was voiced by Frank Welker (Hanna-Barbera fans probably know him best for voicing Fred in Scooby Doo, Where Are You?.) and Betty was voiced by B.J. Ward. Wilma was still voiced by her original voice Jean Vander Ply.

Overall a delightful little film.

So this is my last Michael's Christmas Movie Guide post for this year, but I will be back next year to write about more great Christmas films. I even saved some masterpieces of Christmas film history to talk about next year. So stick around. Christmas has always meant a lot to me and been very kind to me. Here's hoping it is just as kind to you. So spend time with those you love and make more great Christmas memories (I know I will). This is the best time of the year so god bless you all and have a very merry Christmas.

Love,
Michael J. Ruhland

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)

Christmas Vacation is a winner on every level. It is not only a very funny movie, but it is also surprisingly heartwarming and full of Christmas spirit.

The story centers around Clark Griswold (played by Chevy Chase), his wife (played Beverly D'Angelo), son (played by Johnny Galecki), and daughter (played by Juliette Lewis). Clark tries everything to make this the best Christmas ever for all of them. However as more family visits and everything that can go wrong goes wrong, this makes it a much harder task than he thought.

John Hughes had written a Christmas story for the magazine National Lampoon. Executive producer Matty Simmons, loved this story and wanted to make a movie based off it. After the success of National Lampoon's Vacation, he wanted this to be the next vacation movie. It took several years of pitching to get Warner Brothers sold on the idea and European Vacation  was made before this. When it was final sold, John Hughes (who also produced this movie) was working on Uncle Buck. Because understandably Warner Brothers wanted the film released by Christmas time, shooting began three days after Uncle Buck was completed.

Christmas Vacation was the first feature film directed by Jeremiah Chechik, who had worked on TV commercials before. He would later direct Benny and Joon. This was definitely a fantastic debut.

For the scene with the squirrel in the tree, a animal trainer and a trained squirrel were brought in. However the squirrel died before the shoot (Animal Trainer: Ya know, they don't live that long). Because of this an untrained squirrel was used. The director for some reason recalled this being a chaotic day of shooting. Diane Ladd, who played Clark's mother remembered the director telling her to get closer to the squirrel, and the animal trainer telling her to stay as far away from it as she could.

This film is fantastic. It is very funny. The humor is timed perfectly and will never date. What makes the comedy work is that it comes from simple understandable situations. It may go over the top, but it always has a foundation in our own Christmas memories. Because of this the film is pure Christmas. It is impossible for me to watching this film without remembering my own Christmas memories.

By the way for my fellow cartoon fans, Aunt Betheny is played by Mae Questel, who was the voice of Betty Boop and Olive Oyl for many years.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/untold-story-of-national-lampoons-christmas-vacation-20141222

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

Okay, okay, this is not exactly a Christmas movie, but it is a Christmas tradition for me. Besides it brought us the amazing song Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, which has deservedly become a Christmas standard.

The story of the film is extremely simple. The Smith family lives in St. Louis and loves it there. Esther (played by Judy Garland) is in love with John Truett, the boy next door (played by Tom Drake). Rose (played by Lucille Bremer) is in love with Warren Sheffield (played by Robert Sully), but he has trouble proposing to her. Meanwhile Tootie (played by Margret O'Brien) gets in as much trouble as humanly possible. The father (played by Leon Ames) gets a chance to be promoted, but he must move to New York. The whole family is naturally very upset about this.

This film was directed by one of MGM's best directors of musical films, Vincente Minnelli, who also directed such classics as Cabin in the Sky, The Pirate and An American in Paris. He would also direct such great non-musical movies as The Long Long Trailer, Lust For Life and I Dood It. This film began his romance with the film's star Judy Garland. It was the first film they worked on together and they fell deeply in love. They married the next year and the year after that they gave birth to a daughter Liza Minnelli. Intrestingly Judy Garland almost didn't do the movie because, she didn't want to be typecast.

Despite how tight and simple this movie feels, things had to be cut out. In an early draft a subplot about Esther getting blackmailed existed. There was also a song called Boys and Girls Like You and Me that was actually shot for the film but later cut. This song came directly after The Trolley Song.

The songs for this movie were written by Ralph Blaine and Hugh Martin. The song Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas originally had darker lyrics. These included "Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last". Judy Garland felt it was horribly to sing this to such a small child as Tootie and that Esther should try to cheer her up with this song. The song writers listened and came up with the lyrics that remain in the film (and all the subsequent recordings). Speaking of the songs my fellow Tom and Jerry fans will recognize The Trolley Song, even if they had never seen this movie and that is because Scott Bradley, who did the scores for Tom and Jerry films, used the song as background music in those cartoons often (since they were also made for MGM).

This film is incredible good. The songs are fantastic, the performances are great, the story is very good and just everything works about this film. Along with the great music and romance, this film also stands up so well because of the characters and humor. The scenes with Tootie talking about her dead dolls, never fail to make me laugh. The characters here feel real and far from the movie stereotypes they could have easily been. When the films over I almost feel sad to leave these characters. Overall this film just has an amazing charm that to me is irresistible.

Meet Me in St. Louis became a huge hit both critically and at the box office. It remains as much of a classic today as it did in 1944.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/310/Meet-Me-in-St-Louis/articles.html

Toy Tinkers (1949)

Most Disney histories while having a very detailed history of the short cartoons made before the Disney features, skip over many of the animated short films made after the studio's first feature, and this is unfortunate because so many of these cartoons are great films in their own right. One of my favorite of these cartoons is the Donald Duck film Toy Tinkers.

This cartoon was directed by Jack Hannah. At this time there were three main directors for Disney short cartoons. These directors were Jack Kinney, Charles Nicholas, and Jack Hannah. While they directed for other characters as well, each had a character they can be more associated with then others. Jack Kinney worked heavily with Goofy, Charles Nicholas worked most with Pluto and Jack Hannah was associated with Donald Duck. Jack Kinney and Jack Hannah were very important directors who signaled a huge change in the style of Disney shorts. As Warner Brothers and MGM were now making the most popular cartoon shorts (just as Disney made the most popular of the 1930's) Kinney and Hannah were able to add this new fast paced chaotic cartoon style of humor, while still having the cartoons remain pure Disney, something very evident in this film.

Two more characters Jack Hannah grew to be associated with are Chip and Dale. Though these two had first appeared in a 1943 Clyde Geronimi directed cartoon called Private Pluto, most of their films were directed by Hannah. This began with the duo's second cartoon short released 3 years later called Squatter's Rights. Though this cartoon paired the two with Mickey and Pluto, the next year Hannah would team them with Donald in Chip an' Dale. The three characters worked perfectly together, and Hannah would make more films where he pit Donald against Chip and Dale, Toy Tinkers being one of them.

The cartoon begins as Donald unknowingly chops down Chip and Dale's home for his Christmas tree. As they follow Donald in they see Donald enjoying some nuts. Chip and Dale sneak into Donald's house to get some nuts for themselves. This leads to a slapstick battle between the three using toys under the Christmas tree.

This cartoon is laugh out loud funny. The slapstick is spot on and timed perfectly. Every joke works and they are all very funny. The humor is also displayed perfectly through the great character animation one should expect form a Disney cartoon. While Disney cartoons are often called sweet and cute in contrast to the hilarious antics at studios like Warner Brothers and MGM, the Disney studio could make slapstick cartoons as great as the rest of them (this is not an insult to Warner Brothers and MGM as I love there cartoons a lot as well). This stands as one of Disney's funniest shorts (a joke involving a telephone never fails to make me laugh out loud).

The animators on this film were Bob Carlson, Volus Jones and Bill Justice. All three of them worked on many Jack Hannah shorts. Bill Justice and Bob Carson also animated on various Disney animated features as well, such as Peter Pan, Bambi, Alice in Wonderland, Lady and the Tramp, Fantasia and Pinocchio. However Volus Jones only worked on shorts.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used 
Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041978/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt


  

A Christmas Tale (2008)

We all have a preconceptions of what a Christmas movie is. We usually think of it as something optimistic, simple and heartwarming. Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale is none of those things. The characters are not always likable, many points of the film are pretty pessimistic, and the story is not told in a traditional manner. Heck this movie even contains quotes from Neizche's On the Geneaology of Morality. This film is purely a French art film, and far from a Hollywood Christmas movie. However this film has a unique beauty all it's own.

The story involves the Vuillard family. After Junon (played by Catherine Deneuve) the grandmother of the family needs a bone marrow transplant. This happens just in time for the family to get together for Christmas. Two members of the family have the same blood type as Junon. These are the mental ill teenager Paul (played by Emile Berling) and Henri (played by Mathieu Amalric), her son. Paul is afraid that a blood transfer might reveal weather or not Claude (played by Hippolyte Girardot) is his real father. Meanwhile Slyvia (played by Chiara Mastroianna) finds out that along with her husband Ivan (played by Melvil Populaud), Henri and Simon (played by Laurent Capelluto) liked her as well and they decided Ivan should be the one to have her, this leads to an affair between Slyvia and Simon.

This story doesn't sound like your typical Christmas movie and it isn't. However what it is is a beautiful and thought provoking portirit of the type of family you don't see often in movies center around thid time of year. It is also a study of life and death. Well this may sound like  movie that has a lot of art but little entertainment that is not completely true. Moments such as the kids' play and a very akward giving of grace are actaully quite funny and add a nice contrast with the more serious and philosphical scenes. However this does not make the philosphical scenes any less profound or moving. It is clear that screenwriters Arnaud Desplechin (also the film's director) and Emmanuel Bourdieu (who also cowrote My Sex Life...or How I Got Into an Argument with Desplechin (Desplechian also directed that film) really were passionate about what they were writing. Add to this a great score by Mike Kourtzer, outstanding cinematography by Eric Gautier and great performances by the whole cast and you have got an amazing film.

This film is an incredible experince and one of the best Christmas movies and recent years.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Yogi's All Star Comedy Christmas Caper (1982)

I have stated before how much I love Hanna-Barbera cartoons and because of this just seeing all the characters together just gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. This is completely true of Yogi's All Star Comedy Christmas Caper (long title isn't it). This made for TV short film includes more characters in it that most of the Hanna-Barbera feature films that combined characters, and it does it in a charming way. Of course this film revolving around my favorite time of year doesn't hurt at all.

The story of this film begins when Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, Snagglepuss, Hokey Wolf, Snooper, Blabber, Augie Doggie and Augie Daddy decide to visit Jellystone to spend Christmas with their good friends Yogi Bear and Boo Boo. However once they arrive they discover Yogi and Boo Boo have gone to the big city to see them. While in the big city Yogi and Boo Boo meet a little girl who is running away from home. Her rich father loves her but has always been to busy to spend time with her. Yogi and Boo Boo befriend the little girl, but also want to bring her back home. After finding out her name is Judy Jones, they think they simply have to find where the Joneses live in town. They happen to quickly find out that there are many many Joneses in town. Their friends find the trio and help Yogi and Boo Boo find out which Joneses she belongs to.

The story may sound cliché and it is. However this cartoon works very well because the characters are so likable they make it work. Also the humor is often quite good and there aren't any jokes that fall flat (a laugh out loud moment involving a cameo by Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble that is fantastic). The sentiment is never too sugary as it easy could be, and this is again because the characters and the humor are so good. 

This film was directed by Steve Lumley, who also directed two other Hanna-Barbera made for TV films (both features), The Secret World of Og and The Bunjee Venture. He had been working at Hanna-Barbera as a layout supervisor since 1972. The writer was Mark Evanier, who may be better known for being one of the main writers for Garfield and Friends. The animators on this film were Sue Beak, Chris Dawson, Chris Codington, Dick Dunn, Peter Gardiner, Greg Ingram, John Martin, Henry Nevilleand Mike Stapleton. These were mostly a new wave of animators for the studio, none of them had worked with the studio since the beginning. The furthest back any of them worked for Hanna-Barbera was 1970 (Chris Cuddinton and Peter Gardiner (both started on the made for TV movie A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court).

-Michael J. Ruhland        

Santa's Workshop (1932)

Anyone who reads my blogs, probably knows how much I love Disney features. After all I write a blog called The Feature Films of Walt Disney. However my passion for Disney is by no means just for the features. I love the short films just as much. This is especially true of the short cartoons from the 1930's. And since this is Walt's 115th birthday what better time to write about one of these great shorts. Since it is also the Christmas season, why not write about a Santa's Workshop, one of my favorite Silly Symphonies.

This film was the fourth color Silly Symphony. The first was Flowers and Trees released earlier the same year. That cartoon became such a huge hit that afterwards all Silly Symphonies would be in color.

This film was directed by Wilfred Jackson one of the best Disney directors at this time. He had directed such previous Disney shorts as The Fox Hunt, The Ugly Duckling, The Whoopee Party, The Spider and the Fly and Mickey's Follies.

This cartoon went through the assembly line very quickly. The story was completed in September 1932, and by October animation had already begun. The film was released on December 10th of the same year. Despite this the cartoon maintained a high quality. The animation was fantastic, the story was sweet and simple, and the humor was really good. On top of this the film just has a great sense of energy that is a joy to watch.

The story is very simple. Here Santa and his elves get ready for the Christmas Eve flight.

The animators on this cartoon include Les Clark, Art Babbitt, Norm Ferguson, Tom Palmer, Ben Sharpsteen, Jack King, Fred Moore, Eddie Donnelly, Jack Kinney, Ed Love, Clyde Germoni, Nick George, Jack Cutting, Joe D'Igalo, Marvin Woodward, Dick Williams, Harry Reeves, Louie Schmidt, Paul Fennel, George Drake, and Chuck Couch. The animators were not yet assigned specifically to characters as would be common in later Disney animation. For instance Santa is animated by Norm Ferguson when he is reading his list, by Jack King when checking the dolls, by Clyde Germoni when marching out the door, by Eddie Donnell when saying goodbye and by Louie Schmidt when flying off into the night. The only character to be handled by one animator was the bookkeeping elf, who was animated by Tom Palmer. Art Babbitt's scenes of the elves taking care of the reindeer are great examples of the animator at his best. In fact Art Babbitt and Norm Ferguson are probably the two animators whose work in this film would be most recognizable to Disney buffs familiar with their animators as both are completely in their element here and their work looks like them. Despite this every animator does a fantastic job in this cartoon and the whole film is lovely to look at.

Overall this is a fantastic cartoon, showing the Disney studio was at the top of their game before they ever made a feature. By the way listen to hear an elf voiced by Walt himself.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin
http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/disneys-santa-workshop-1932/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023422/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
    

The Shop Around The Corner (1940)

Enrst Lubitsch, is a name that will probably be recognized by any classic movie fans reading this. Lubitsch is best known as the master of sophisticated comedy, and is considered by many to be one of the greatest comedy directors of all time. However he was just as great at sentiment as he was at comedy. One of the best examples of this is The Shop Around the Corner, which is a extremely lovely movie. In fact Jimmy Stewart remembered it as one his favorite movies he ever worked on (which considering his filmography was saying a lot).

In 1939 Lubitsch had singed with MGM to make Ninotchkia and one more film. That one more film turned out to be The Shop Around the Corner. Lubitsch had owned the rights to a play called Parfumerie. He would sell the rights of this play to MGM for $62,500 and then began work with writer Samson Raphaelson to make this into a movie. Lubitsch based much of the film off of his years as a child in his father's tailor shop in Berlin. Lubitsch wanted to be sure this film was not like the movies he was known for. The way this film would be different would be by being much less glamorous than those movies. He went to such great lengths to achieve this that he left a dress that Margret Sullivan (the film's leading lady) would wear in the movie out in the sun, and later even had it altered to make it fit her worse. Margret Sullivan had in fact before this bought a dress she thought worked perfectly for her part, but Lubitsch said it looked too good.

The film centers around a man named Alfred (played by Jimmy Stewart) and a woman named Klara (played by Margret Sullivan) who have been writing each other anonymous love letters (ahem... cultural discussions through the mail). They both end up working at a little shop owned by a man named Hugo Matuschek (played by Frank Morgan). They meet and grow hate each other, while still unaware that they have been writing each other. To make matters worse Mr. Matuschek seems to be growing colder towards Alfred, leading Alfred to get fired and Klara to blame this on herself. This all leads to a Christmas Eve that will change everything for both of them.

The film rightfully became a huge hit when it was released, which surpised the whole MGM studio, who felt that this was just an assuming little film. Luckily for us, this film is just as charming today as it was when it was originally released in 1940. This beautiful little film remains one of Lubitsch's best films.

This film is so charming in fact it was later remade as a movie musical in 1949, another great film (and big hit) called In the Good Old Summertime. Charles Smith who played Rudi in The Shop on the Corner would also appear in In the Good Old Summertime in a small uncredited role. It was later remade again as You Got Mail in 1998.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/413/The-Shop-Around-the-Corner/articles.html 
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033045/?ref_=rvi_tt

Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer (1964)

It's almost hard to explain why this movie has become such a classic. Yet I would be the first to agree that this film is a classic. The more I think about it the more I think the beauty comes from the simplicity. The story is very simple and non-cynical. This type of feeling works perfectly for Christmas time. It brings us back to the Christmas of our childhoods where we thrived on such simple and non-cynical tales. And at Christmas time naturally we are more open to these child-like feelings which this film captures perfectly. This 52 year old special stands as the longest running Christmas TV special.

However this is not saying there is nothing truly outstanding about this movie, as the soundtrack is truly fantastic. All the songs were written by Johnny Marks, who had written the original song Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer in 1949 (based on a 1939 book called Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer). There were 8 songs in this film and they are all beyond excellent and very catchy. In this about an hour long film, 16 minutes are spent with singing songs. For the soundtrack album, 21 minutes of instrumental versions of the song were added to make the album 37 minutes.

The story centers around a Reindeer with a red nose named Rudolph. Rudolph is made fun of for his red nose by the other Reindeer, and even Santa doesn't think he can use the poor young deer. Rudolph runs away with another misfit Herbie an elf that wants to be a dentist. They soon met another friend a miner named Yukon Cornelius. However Rudolph's red nose attracts a fearsome monster, and Rudolph runs away from them to spare his friends. Upon returning home he discovers his family got in trouble as they went out to find him. He goes out to save them, where he meets his friends Herbie and Yukon again. After his family is safe Santa finds that he can't do Christmas this year because he can't see though a storm. He then sees Rudolph's nose and knows that that bright nose can help him see, and Rudolph becomes the leader of the sleigh.

The scene at the end of the film involving Santa delivering the misfit toys to children's homes was not originally in the movie. However Rakin/Bass studios got letters asking what happened to the misfit toys. Because of this the studio animated a new sequence for future airings and that sequence sit airs today.

This is one of the only three films to be directed by Larry Roemer. The others were Return to Oz (1964) and The Ballad of Smokey the Bear. This two films were also done for the Rakin/Bass studio.

This movie is a must for all cartoon lovers and Christmas lovers. It is really charming.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/rankinbass-rudolph-on-records/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0736392/?ref_=tt_ov_dr

A Pink Christmas (1978)

While it is easy to say that the DePatie-Freling cartoons of the mid and late 1970's were not on par with the studio's cartoons of the 1960's and early 70's without any sense of doubt, A Pink Christmas is a huge exception. This made for TV short film is about as good a cartoon as the studio ever made.

This dialog-less story somewhat based on O. Henry's The Cop and the Anthem begins with the Pink Panther, poor and hungry, simply looking for some food at Christmas time. His attempts to find food lead him on one humorous adventure after another. (Spoilers ahead, scroll down to the next paragraph now if you don't want to read them) When our old Pink buddy finally gets a hold of a doughnut, after pursuing food rather selfishly for the entire film so far, he finds a poor hungry dog. The Panther shares this doughnut with the dog and the two become close friends. When the Pink Panther rest on a park bench for the night, he finds himself surrounded by food. Looking up he sees Santa's sled passing by.

The Pink Panther has often been compared to Charlie Chaplin, mostly because he is a pantomime character. This though is probably the most Chaplin-esque film the cartoon cat ever stared in. It beautifully combines comedy and pathos, and the idea of a poor tramp like character looking for food of course has roots in Chaplin as well. In fact this film borrows a gag from Chaplin's The Gold Rush (involving shoveling snow). It successeds very well. It is both very funny and very moving.

This is one of the only two films directed by Bill Perez (the other was another TV short called The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat). My fellow Hanna-Barbera buffs might like to know that Bill Perez also worked as a layout artist and a storyboard artist on various Hanna-Barbera projects including TV shows like The Jetsons, The Secret Squirrel Show, Johnny Quest, The Hurculoids, and The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan and feature films like Charlotte's Web, A Flintstones Christmas, Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose, The Good, the Bad and the Huckleberry Hound and Rockin' With Judy Jetson. The writing was written by animation legend (and studio co-founder) Friz Freling and John Dunn (one of the studio's main writers and a writer who had worked with Friz dating back to his days with Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies).

-Michael J. Ruhland

The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives (1933)

The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives is one of the most perfect examples of a Rudolph Ising era Merrie Melodie. During this era (1931-1933) Hugh Harmon was directing all the Looney Tunes cartoons and Rudolph Ising was directing all the Merrie Melodies. Also at this time there was a distinct difference between the two series (though later they would essentially be the same with different names). The Looney Tunes featured the staring character of Bosko and did not have to revolve around a song number. The Merrie Melodies did not feature Bosko, but instead mostly focused on one shot characters (despite a few attempts to give the Merrie Melodies main characters (Foxy, Piggy, Goopy Geer)). They also always revolved around a song number. These songs were owned by Warner Brothers and often served as advertisements for that music.

The film begins with a little orphan boy is sad and alone on Christmas Eve. He hears an operatic voice (the last voice you would except to hear from Santa (Sadly I don't know who provided this voice)) outside his lonely shack. The door opens and there is Santa Claus. Santa takes the boy to the shanty where he lives. The toys perform the title song (written by Harry Woods). Unfortunately during this song number the Christmas tree catches on fire. The little Orphan boy puts it out and saves Christmas.

This film is everything that is great about Merrie Melodies from this era. It is full of a great sense of energy, the story is sweet and simple, it has good animation and it centers around a very catchy song. The fact that it centers around my favorite time of year doesn't hurt it at all either. This is a cartoon full of real, warmth charm and of course energy. This is one of my favorite Merrie Melodies from this era.

The animators on this cartoon were Rollin Hamilton and Norm Blackburn. Both had gotten there start working for Walt Disney on the Alice Comedies and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons, as did Hugh Harmon and Rudolph Ising. 1933, the year of this cartoon was the last year Norm Blackburn would animate for Warner Brothers (he started for Warner Bothers in 1930). Rollin Hamilton (who also started for the studio in 1930) would continue animating for Warner Brothers until 1940.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin
https://www.bcdb.com/cartoon-characters/87-Shanty-Where-Santy-Claus-Lives
imdb.com

Mistletoe Promise (2016)

An enjoyable, but very formulaic romantic comedy, exactly what you expect from a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie.

This film has things going for it. The characters are really likable, and the actors portray them well. The romance is quite believable. Also the film has a great look of Christmas ( something you should expect from these movies. All this is quite good and very enjoyable. However on the downside, the movie is as formulaic as it can be. There is no way someone who has seen similar movies before, can't tell you everything that is going to happen. This movie just simply has the feeling that you have seen it before.

The story involves two people who hate Christmas (played by Jaime King and Luke MacFarland), who both hate Christmas. They make a pact to help themselves get though the Christmas season. They end up falling in love, and find themselves enjoying Christmas for once.

The film was directed by David Winning. This is not the first made for TV Christmas movie he has directed. He has also directed The Magic Stocking, The Tree That Saved Christmas and Paper Angles.   

Overall this is a fun movie, even if it as formulaic as possible.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Mickey's Good Deed (1932)

It is Mickey Mouse's 88th birthday today and as a tribute, we are going to look at one of my all time favorite Mickey cartoons, Mickey's Good Deed.

This film was from 1932, at this time, Mickey was at the absolute height of his popularity. He was famous in a way that no cartoon character before had ever been. Critics often compared his popularity to that of Charlie Chaplin's little tramp, and like that character Mickey had fans of all types. He was equally popular with intellectuals and small children. In fact this same year Walt Disney would receive a special Academy Award for creating Mickey. Renowned director Sergei Eisenstein (best known for his silent film The Battleship Potemkin) was a huge fan and even wrote essays on Walt Disney, that discussed the brilliance of Mickey Mouse cartoons (He would remain a huge Disney fan and even later call Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs the single greatest film ever made). Almost every other American cartoon studio was copying what Disney had done with Mickey Mouse. Characters like Foxy (at Warner Brothers) and Cubby Bear (at Van Beuren) were extremely thinly disguised copies of Mickey himself. In fact in 1931, the Van Beuren studio was sued by Walt for using two mice characters that looked exactly like Mickey and Minnie. There was no doubt, Mickey was movie royalty.

Mickey did for animated comedies, exactly what Charlie Chaplin's little tramp had done for live action comedies. Like the comedy films made before Chaplin, the animated comedies before Mickey were often very funny, but you very rarely felt any other emotional response to what was happening on screen. Mickey changed all that and nowhere was it clearer than in Mickey's Good Deed. In this film Mickey and Pluto are poor but happy as they perform Christmas carols on the street. A young rich boy in a mansion nearby is not satisfied with any of the many toys his father gives him. The boy sees Pluto outside his window and decides he wants that dog. The butler offers Mickey a lot of money for Pluto, but the mouse refuses to sell. Later Mickey comes across a poor family. The father is in jail and the mother can't afford any Christmas presents for her children. Mickey feeling sorry for the kids sells Pluto to the rich kid in order to buy presents for the kids. You may notice that this doesn't sound like your typical cartoon short of the era, and my point is it isn't. This film while not sacrificing the slapstick comedy, also adds a lot of drama to the story itself. However the Disney studio understood exactly what Chaplin had found out earlier. If the comedy and the drama are both driven by the story and characters, they can both easily co-exist. This idea is done to absolute perfection in this cartoon. This is a beautiful and moving film, while it never forsakes the comedy.

On top of that the film is also helped by a great look.  The visuals are as beautiful as you would expect from 1930's Disney animation. The backgrounds are gorgeous, and the character animation is fantastic. It is sad that there are so many colorized copies around because, the black and white lighting is very beautiful as well.

This cartoon was directed by Burt Gillett, who Disney fans probably know best for directing the classic Silly Symphonies cartoon The Three Little Pigs (released the very next year). The animators on this film included many Disney legends. The animators were Les Clark, Clyde Geronimi, Dick Lundy, Ben Sharpsteen, Norm Ferguson, Johnny Cannon, Hardie Gramatky, and Frenchy DeTremaudan. Les Clark would later become one of Walt's nine old men. Norm Ferguson was the animator who really defined the character of Pluto (most notably in 1934's Playful Pluto) and would also be the supervising animator for the evil queen (in hag form) in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Ben Sharpsteen would later direct Pinocchio and Dumbo, as well as produce most of the studio's live action nature documentaries of the 1950's. Clyde Geronimi would later be one of the co-directors for such feature films as Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty and 101 Dalmatians. And as many of you may know Walt himself voiced Mickey here. All in all a great crew to work on a great cartoon.

Happy birthday Mickey.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin
The Disney Villain by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson
Disney by Sergei Eisenstein   
http://www.jbkaufman.com/movie-of-the-month/opening-night-1932
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023215/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

Bedtime For Sniffles (1940)

Quite charming Christmas cartoon, one of Sniffles' best.

Despite the fact that Chuck Jones is best known now for fast paced slapstick comedy (such as his coyote and roadrunner cartoons), he started his directorial career out doing some of the cutest and slow paced Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodie cartoons. He started directing in 1938 with a film called The Night Watchman (earlier he had worked as an animator for both Tex Avery's and Bob Clampett's units). At this time the Warner Brothers cartoon studio was fully know for fast paced crazy comedy. Because of this Chuck's films really didn't quite fit what the rest studio was doing.

The most pure examples of the early Jones style were his Sniffles cartoons. These were extremely cute and also much slower than what Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, and Frank Tashlin were doing at the time. Sniffles cartoons were rarely the best films coming out of the studio (or even the best Chuck was making in this early period), but they had their charms. One of there greatest charms was Robert McKimson's (he was an expert at more realistic and precise animation, and his was also one of the studios' best animators or animators at any studio) animation, which fit perfectly into this type of cartoon.

The story of this film is very simple. Sniffles tries hard to stay up to see Santa Claus on Christmas Eve night, and doesn't find the task very easy. This story is what makes this one of the best Sniffles cartoons. It is simple, but very relatable and speaks to the child in each of us. This simple story gets rid of one of the series major faults, the story amounting to almost nothing. Here even though it has the same slow pace, and minor story, the film offers a slice of life type of storytelling that could have made the rest of these cartoons much more charming.

The animators on this film include Robert McKimson, Ken Harris, Rudy Larriva, Robert Cannon, and Phil Monroe. The story was written by Rich Hogan and Tedd Peirce. They were the two most common writers for Chuck in this early period. The voice of Sniffles was provided by Marget Hill-Talbot, who Walter Lantz fans may recognize as one of the voices of Andy Panda.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resourses Used
Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032244/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt

Love Affair (1939)

It is great to be back writing about movies involving my favorite time of the year, Christmas time and what is a better way to start than one of the all time great romantic comedies of all time. By the way I am not the only one who holds this film in such a high regard. The film's stars Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne called this their personal favorite film they worked on.

Leo McCarey was one of the all time great American filmmakers. He is often given credit for coming up with the idea to team Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. He directed the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup, and Harold Lloyd in The Milky Way. He also directed such classics as The Awful Truth, Going My Way, Make Way For Tomorrow, and The Bells of Saint Mary. I personally amazed Leo's name is rarely mentioned among such other greats of comedy direction during the 1930's and 40's such as Frank Capra and Preston Sturges. Leo is definitely one of the greats of screwball comedy.  With a director this good it is no wonder this film is so great.

Almost unbelievable for a film this great there was never a complete script. Pages of the script were changed almost daily. The actors never memorized the lines, because they felt they could easily be changed the next day. The rewrites were done for a reason. The first part of this film was more light-hearted and the second half was more dramatic. One suggestion was by Charles Boyer himself. He suggested a scene involving his character's grandmother (played by Maria Ouspenskaya) would play a bigger role in the story.

The story involves a man named Michel (played by Charles Boyer) and a woman named Terry (played by Irene Dunne). They meet on a boat and fall deeply in love with each other, despite the fact that both are engaged. They arrange to meet on the Empire State building. Unfortunately on her way there, Terry is hit by a car and becomes temporarily paralyzed. Terry doesn't want Michel to know she is paralyzed, so she can run to him when she is better. Michel is hurt by this as he doesn't know what happened. They meet again on Christmas, before Terry becomes better and she is afraid to admit it to him. However this meeting will change both their lives.

This movie is incredible. Everything in it is as good as it can be. The acting is great, the writing is fantastic, and the direction is as good as can be. The characters are more than just romantic comedy stereotypes and are very well thought out characters. On top of the comedy and romance, this movie features some fairly profound moments as well like those involving the grandmother. I couldn't recommend this movie more.

Leo McCarey himself remade the film in 1957 as An Affair to Remember.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/3938/Love-Affair/articles.html

The Unholy Three (1925)

Note: Okay this may not really be a Christmas movie, but some very important story points take place during the Christmas season,  particularly Christmas Eve.


Fantastic silent film.

Though this was far from director Tod Browning's first film, it was the one that truly defined who he was a director. Though his early films had some strange stuff, this film was very weird as you would expect from this director. Browning would go on to direct such films as Freaks, The Unknown and Dracula (1931). All of these films reveled in the bizarre and strange. In this film Browning also worked with actor Lon Chaney, who he had great collaborations with such as The Unknown, London After Midnight, Where East is East and West of Zanzibar.

The story involves three former sideshow performers a ventriloquist named Echo (played by Lon Chaney), a midget (played by Harry Earles), and a strongman (played by Victor McLaglen), who work with a pickpocket named  Rosie O'Grady (played by Mae Busch (who my fellow Laurel and Hardy lovers should recognize)), whom Echo is in love with. The work at a pet shop as a cover for a man named Hector (played by Matt Moore), who loves Rosie. After a robbery on Christmas Eve  ends with murder, the whole gang turns against each other and Hector is blamed for the robbery.

This is a great film. The weirdness works perfectly and just adds a great atmosphere (especially a very strange scene involving an ape). The actors are perfectly cast. The story is quite a good one as well.

This film would be remade in 1930 as a talkie. Though that film would also star Lon Chaney, it would be directed by Jack Conway, instead of Tod Browning. The remake would be Lon Chaney's only appearance in a talkie (and his last film) as he would die shortly after.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/14037/The-Unholy-Three/articles.html
imdb.com