Christmas Films

As a rule I avoid Christmas films, that is films with a Christmas theme. You look forward to a week of wall-to-wall movies on TV and you get all this treacly, sentimental, optimistic, life-affirming, lets-all-love-each-other mush. Family films! But let me not be Scrooge-like. Here's a few that can seduce even me into a tearful desire to embrace humanity, plus one or two antidotes to philanthropy.

Mind you, I'm a sucker for the usual Christmas perennials, like The Great Escape and The Wizard of Oz, and I have my own personal treats, like my Laurel and Hardy compilation or their Way Out West. Or an old Bogart or Cagney. Doesn't The Roaring Twenties end at Chrstmastime? Back to the theme:

Three Godfathers is a greatly under-rated film. It has all the hallmarks of a John ford film - John Wayne, eccentric supports, comedy, amazing location photography, beautifully composed. What some would call sentimentality I call real emotion. In any case, it's Christmas! And why shouldn't there be a allegorically religious Western? This tale of redemption carries its message lightly and is rooted in deep humanity. The more I see it, the more it rises in my estimation.

Gremlins. Bedford Falls is invaded by malevolent cuddly dolls. Great fun, shot through with a dark, nasty streak, and full of little jokes for film buffs. Worth seeing, if only for the cinema full of entranced gremlins watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarf's. I like the one who puts a crisp packet over each ear. As the man said, 'We all dream of being a child again, even the worst of us. Maybe the worst of us most of all.'

A Christmas Carol, the one with Alastair Sim, the only one. Alastair was an actor with a face that could be jovial or unpleasant, with a delivery that could be very - I'm looking for a word here that means humorous with an edge - sardonic, that's it. He's the perfect Scrooge.

Holiday Inn. What more could you want? Bing and Fred. Irving Berlin songs. Bugger the plot.

Meet Me in St Louis. I don't like Judy Garland much. She wasn't pretty and I hated her self-indulgent, self-pitying, prima donna final years, but in her youth she had a certain charm when she sang. Somewhere Over the Rainbow always moves me, as does Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas in this film. Not only that, but it's a perfectly realised piece of turn-of-the-century Americana . . .(yawn).

There are a lot of Christmas films I need to see. I'm told Miracle on 34th Street (1947) is pretty good. The Bishop's Wife, with Cary Grant, is another.

If you need a corrective, how about Die Hard? I don't care what anyone says, I love it. Old Bruce undercuts all the impossible heroics with his little quips and Alan Rickman is the kind of villain that villains should be. British, for a start. All he lacks is a moustache to twirl.

But the greatest anti-Christmas film of all is It's a Wonderful Life. Oh yes it is. It is one of the best films ever made. Direction, acting, photography, editing are all impeccable. This is a dark story, a scream of despair, that ends in suicide. For George Bailey really does kill himself. All that stuff with the angel is a dream, that flashes through his brain as he drowns. There is no angel, only a good man who is ground down not only by the stupidity and the corruption and the small-mindedness of others but also by the crushing of his own dreams. Only the miracle of an angel can remedy this situation, and, as we know, there is no such thing.

I see there was an IMDb poll on this subject.