“The Ref” (1994)
For the most part, Christmas movies are heartwarming affairs, but occasionally, the season can be used for more subversive purposes, and aside from “Bad Santa,” one of the finest examples is Ted Demme’s “The Ref.” The second feature from the late director (who died in 2002, aged just 38) stars Denis Leary as a burglar on the run who takes a married couple (Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis) hostage on Christmas Eve. Unbeknown to him, however, they were on their way home from marriage counselling, and are among the more toxic marriages seen on screen. Written by Richard LaGravenese with his sister-in-law Marie Weiss, it’s the antithesis to those “Family Stone”-style reunion movies, using the contained set-up to really let Spacey and Davis let their scabrously dark humor off the chain, with Leary perfectly placed as the increasingly irritated man stuck in the middle. And the script smartly uses Christmas to up the stakes, with extended family (plus J.K. Simmons as a military school commander being blackmailed by the couple’s son) turning up too. It’s smart and funny stuff, and even if attempts to redeem the characters late in the game mostly come to naught, it’s a welcome attempt to depict Christmas with your family as it actually is, not as the cozy ideal.
“Scrooged” (1988)
You must imagine that “Scrooged” was greenlit on one of the shortest pitches in history: “Bill Murray does ‘A Christmas Carol.’” Sold! Charles Dickens’ classic and its grouchy lead were seemingly made for the comedy legend, and a big-budget, effects-packed take in the manner of his biggest hit “Ghostbusters” seemed to be a license to print money. The film was poorly received, though fairly successful, and that seems to be a fair response to a film that’s wildly uneven, containing fits of inspiration and the occasionally embarrassing moment. Updating the original story to present-day New York, with Murray’s Scrooge-surrogate TV producer being escorted through past, present and future by a trio of ghosts, you feel the tension between Murray’s anarchic persona and the idea of a big-budget Christmas heartwarmer throughout, and the former is usually more successful — the unconventional casting of New York Dolls’ David Johansen as the cab-driver-ish Ghost Of Christmas Past works like gangbusters, for instance. But for every roll of the dice that pays off, there’s another that doesn’t, like the idea of turning Bob Cratchit (Bobcat Goldthwait) into a potential mass shooter. And at this point, filmmakers hadn’t yet worked out how to use Murray for heart as well as laughs – unlike in “Groundhog Day” a few years later, his redemption doesn’t convince. But the actor holds things together so well that, despite the flaws, you have a very good time anyway.
“Scrooge” (1951)
Every generation gets their own take on Charles Dickens’ tale of Scrooge and the ghosts, whether it’s Michael Caine and Bill Murray, Reginald Owen, Albert Finney, the voice of Nicolas Cage, or a CGI monstrosity vaguely resembling Jim Carrey. But perhaps the best loved is “Scrooge,” a British-made take toplining character actor Alistair Sim (perhaps best remembered, besides this, for the “St. Trinian’s” films), with a near-definitive central performance and a winning darkness. Shot in almost noirish black and white tones, it looks closer to something like Ealing classic “Dead Of Night” than to anything you could put a muppet in. The adaptation, by “Wizard Of Oz” screenwriter Noel Langley, is whip-smart, with a far greater psychological realism, and a little more detail in the central figure’s backstory that helps, not ruins, the story. The ghosts are, unusually, legitimately scary, and the book’s themes of inequality and poverty are given an emphasis that’s usually driven over by sentiment, giving it a rare grit and substance. And among a very fine cast (Michael Hordern uses all his Shakespearean skills for Jacob Marley’s appearances), Sim is transcendentally good, touching on, but never fully unleashing, his comic skills, while building Scrooge into a real person. More than any other, you sense that this is the version that Dickens would endorse.
“The Shop Around The Corner” (1940)
The cinematic equivalent of a stroll around a European Christmas market with mulled wine in your hand and the person you love next to you, Ernst Lubitsch’s “”The Shop Around The Corner” is a near-perfect Christmastime romantic comedy. Based on Miklos Laszlo’s play “Parfumerie” (and famously plundered by Nora Ephron for “You’ve Got Mail”), the film revolves around a leather-goods store in Budapest, where two employees, veteran Alfred (James Stewart) and newcomer Klara (Margaret Sullavan) take an instant dislike to each other, without knowing that they’ve fallen in love after corresponding anonymously through a newspaper ad. The banter between Stewart and Sullavan (who manage to bury oodles of chemistry beneath the quarreling) is snappy and, in true Lubitsch fashion (the director actually considered it his favorite of his own works), unafraid to be sour in places, so their eventual delayed meet-cute feels sweet and entirely earned — even if it can feel frustrating that Stewart finds out earlier, but plays along. But Lubitsch’s eye wanders away from the duo, with a genuinely wrenching subplot about the pair’s boss being driven to the brink of suicide by his wife’s affair with an employee (the dapper Joseph Schildkraut), a welcome dose of reality that feels like a direct tonal inspiration for “The Apartment.” The film’s a pleasure to watch at any time of year — not least to the performances from Stewart, Sullavan, and William Tracy, as delivery boy Pepi — but as one of the great Christmas movies, feels particularly appropriate at this time of year.
“White Christmas” (1954)
Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” is one of the absolute best-known holiday songs, but as any good trivia quiz will tell you, the song didn’t premiere in the movie that it gave its name to, but in “Holiday Inn” a decade earlier. Nevertheless, the latter barely qualifies as a Christmas movie, revolving around all kinds of different holidays, so its later successor makes the list in its place. Michael Curtiz’s film is thinly plotted even by the standards of the genre, as Broadway producers Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye (who took the role after Fred Astaire and Donald O’Connor passed) try and help their old army commanding officer to save his Vermont inn, threatened with closure due to lack of snow, while falling for a pair of singers (Vera-Ellen and Rosemary Clooney). But while it does feel disposable, it’s also very charming, with not just the big title number, but also songs like “Sisters,” “Count Your Blessings (Instead Of Sheep)” and “The Best Things Happen When YOu’re Dancing” working delightfully, and an exuberantly good-spirited nature to the whole thing. While the central pairings don’t have the star power of, say, “High Society,” everyone’s in fine fettle, and the film looks utterly gorgeous too: it was the first movie released in VistaVision, Paramount’s answer to CinemaScope, and an early predecessor to IMAX in using large film formats to boost cinema attendance thanks to the threat of television. Everything old is new again…
Beyond the ones above, there are some other Christmas movies that, while were either not Christmas-y enough, weren’t good enough, or we simply couldn’t make room for. Among them were the classic animated Xmas movie, “The Year Without a Santa Claus,” “Love Actually,” “The Holiday,” “The Santa Clause,” “Christmas Vacation,” “Meet Me In St. Louis,” “Remember The Night,” “Joyeux Noel,” “Meet John Doe” and “The Holly And The Ivy.”
Let’s also not forget “Christmas In Connecticut,” “Eyes Wide Shut,” “Arthur Christmas,” “Trading Places,” “Bell Book & Candle,” “Get Santa,” “Black Christmas,” “The Dead,” “Metropolitan,” “Rare Exports,” “Batman Returns,” “C.R.A.Z.Y,” “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence,” “Prancer,” “About A Boy,” “Christmas Evil” and “Edward Scissorhands.” Any festive favorites we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments.
– Oliver Lyttelton, Nicholas Laskin
