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