Holiday Classics: “Miracle on Main Street” (1939)

There’s something inherently comforting about returning to the same old favorites every holiday season. But it’s just as exciting to discover new films to add to your rotation. That’s how I felt last year, when Turner Classic Movies aired Miracle on Main Street in primetime— a film I had never even heard of before they […]

Holiday Classics: “And So They Were Married” (1936)

Children scheming to bring their divorced parents back together has become a familiar plot for family comedies, especially with the popularity of The Parent Trap and all its subsequent iterations, but 25 years before Hayley Mills played twins, Edith Fellows and Jackie Moran played rivals trying to keep their parents apart in the breezy 1936 […]

Holiday Classics: “Desk Set” (1957)

Desk Set, the 1957 office-set romantic comedy from director Walter Lang, received a middling critical response at the time of its initial release, and while it has become much more well-received decades later, a common criticism from viewers is that it seems “dated.” It’s easy to see why people would reach that conclusion: Desk Set’s […]

Holiday Classics: “Roadblock” (1951)

You’ll rarely see a man fall so hard so fast as the lead in a classic film noir, and insurance investigator Joe Peters (Charles McGraw) in Roadblock is no exception. A taut, 73-minute noir from RKO released in 1951, Roadblock may be helmed by a relatively unknown director (Harold Daniels), but it has a ton […]

Holiday Classics: “Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?” (1972)

When we first meet Rosie Forrest (Shelley Winters), she’s sitting by a child’s bed wearing a lavish burgundy gown and white gloves, rocking it softly as she sings. She appears sweet, maternal. But when she finishes her song, we discover that Rosie hasn’t been singing to a human child, but to the mummified remains of […]

Holiday Classics: “Hell’s Heroes” (1929)

If you like your holiday movies bleak and uncompromising, look no farther than 1929’s Hell’s Heroes. The early talking picture is a western based on the 1931 novel The Three Godfathers by Peter B. Kyne, but it’s actually one of several screen adaptations of the story, whose Christmas setting, religious imagery (look no further than […]

Holiday Classics: “Cash on Demand” (1961)

Hammer Film Productions is the British studio primarily known for breathing new life into classic movie monsters that were generally Universal’s forte over in the States with their gory color productions beginning in the late 1950s such as The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula, and many others. But while in the decades since Hammer horror has […]

Holiday Classics: “My Reputation” (1946)

Barbara Stanwyck’s roles in the romantic holiday comedies Christmas in Connecticut and Remember the Night are more than enough to cement her as Old Hollywood’s Christmas queen, but if you dig a little deeper, several of her other films boast seasonal settings that make them perfect annual watches. One of Stanwyck’s most underrated, in terms […]

Holiday Classics: “Larceny, Inc.” (1942)

If you were to hear the title Larceny, Inc., you likely wouldn’t immediately cop it as a Christmas movie. And yet, this crime comedy’s seasonal appropriateness is immediately evident from the name of its source material: The Night Before Christmas, a short-lived Broadway play penned by Laura and S.J. Perelman. Edward G. Robinson stars in […]

Holiday Classics: “Christmas Eve” (1947)

“Christmas Eve” isn’t actually as Christmas-y of a movie as its title suggests, the holiday setting more serving as a catalyst to pull a few seemingly disparate stories together and only really becoming apparent in the final scene. The 1947 film, which was also released under the title “Sinner’s Holiday,” from director Edwin L. Marin […]