The Festive Films that thrill us every year
It’s A Wonderful Life has again been named the nation’s favourite film at Christmas. But which others do we like to watch?
aPOLL conducted by Radio Times reveals that our favourite Christmas film is It’s A Wonderful Life. I say “reveals” but it’s about as much of a revelation as saying Christmas Day this year is on December 25. Of course it is our favourite. It’s A Wonderful Life – the title alone is a pick-me-up. Jimmy Stewart is incomparable as the embodiment of innocent goodheartedness and even if his counsellor Clarence, the as-yet-wingless middle-aged angel, is a bit on the irritating side, he does a great job blessing-wise.
What with one thing and another, the two of them have a lot to contend with: incompetent relatives, an economic slump and ruthless capitalists.
George (Stewart) and angel Clarence (Henry Travers) rise to every challenge and resolve every crisis. You get the sense that the two of them could sort out Brexit without a cliff-edge exit or second referendum.
I describe the film in this detail on the assumption that sometime in the 72 years since it was released most readers have had the chance to see it. Even so, you may still think my account contains spoilers. All I can say is that nothing and nobody can spoil It’s A Wonderful Life.
Elsewhere this Christmas, the television schedules have much to offer. There are films chosen for our pleasure, but also our comfort. Flicking through Radio Times, it’s good to find – if you have children or grandchildren – that on Boxing Day morning, while you’re fighting exhaustion and a hangover, you can stick them in front of Song Of The Sea (5.40-7.20am, Channel 4), The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn (7.45-9.20 am, BBC2) and Free Willy 3: The Rescue (9.25-11.05am, ITV).
What everyone needs at Christmas is blameless pleasure moistened with the odd warm tear and there’s no shame in saying: “Play it again, Santa.” I have seen The Railway Children maybe a dozen times but I’m sure I’ll be happy to watch it again on BBC1 on New Year’s Day. I can’t count how often I’ve seen David Lean’s magnificent 1948 film of Oliver Twist, with Alec Guinness as Fagin, but at 5.40pm on Christmas Day (if I still have the mental capacity to find a channel called Talking Pictures) I shall be delighted to go for it.
Is there anything better than Raymond Briggs’s The Snowman? The answer for me is no. It runs the emotional gamut from elation to devastation to consolation in just half an hour. Channel 4, 4.40pm today. Follow it up with The Snowman And The Snowdog, and still be in time for carols from King’s College, Cambridge, at 5.50pm on BBC2.
Radio Times has published a list of what it says are our top 15 favourite Christmas films – It’s A Wonderful Life is top of course (as it was when they last polled in 2013), and then comes Elf. Love Actually has FAMILY FAVOURITES: It’s A Wonderful Life (above) never fails to win the hearts of viewers, but it’s not the only film to captivate audiences at Christmas. Left, from the top, The Muppet Christmas Carol, The Snowman and The Railway Children are also festive winners
dropped from two to four. That’s a step in the right direction, but not far enough in the right direction.
True, there is the brilliant scene where the jewellery salesman played by Rowan Atkinson makes a five-course meal out of giftwrapping jewellery for Alan Rickman, who is secretly buying it as a present for his mistress and terrified his wife (Emma Thompson) will walk into the shop. His only gift to her is a Joni Mitchell album, which is considered a disappointment, though I regard it as an absolutely cracking thing to get. But the film is a stinker.
The Snowman comes in at number 12, behind The Muppet Christmas Carol, excellent at number three. Home Alone is fifth; White Christmas ninth and the 1951 Scrooge, with Alastair Sim, 10th.
At 13 is Miracle On 34th Street, but the wrong version. They go for the 1994 remake with Richard Attenborough. Much better is the original version, with Maureen O’Hara and a young Natalie Wood, released in 1947.
The Radio Times list of favourites certainly wouldn’t be mine. It leaves out far more enjoyable films Christmassy enough to qualify. What of the irresistible Frozen? It is marvellous and it has ice, a snowman and a reindeer. It doesn’t make the Radio Times poll’s top 15, probably because too few of the respondents were six years old.
But that doesn’t explain the absence of When Harry Met Sally, as funny and heartwarming as you can get. True, the blissful final coming-together happens on New Year’s Eve, but surely Meg Ryan schlepping a big Christmas tree back to her
apartment is enough to qualify it as Yuletide fare.
What about Trading Places? Perfect for Christmas – a classic tale where manipulative evil-mindedness is overcome and social and racial mobility promoted. A black street hustler (Eddie Murphy) swaps lives with a white socialite banker (Dan Aykroyd) and we see how they are transformed. When it was released in 1983, Time magazine lauded it as “one of the most emotionally satisfying and morally gratifying comedies of recent times”.
tHE movie has maximum laughs, a fantastic cast – old Don Ameche twinkling, Jamie Lee Curtis stunning, Eddie Murphy near his peak and Dan Aykroyd is the lowest, scuzziest Father Christmas ever. It might make children cry, though there is of course a possible financial upside – it could stop them wanting Santa to visit your house ever again.
Meanwhile, BBC1’s afternoon schedule for Christmas Day has The Good Dinosaur (1.30-3pm) and, of course, from 3-3.10pm, The Queen’s Christmas Message.
So, chin up. The preparations will be onerous, there will be times when the kids are screaming, when the favourite unicorn’s horn is broken, you’ve been given a brand of whisky you can’t stand, you’ve roasted the turkey with the giblets in a plastic bag inside and there’s a pile of washing up as high as the Eiffel Tower. But just remember – it’s a wonderful life.