Closing the Curtain

Film: Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things
Format: Streaming video from Hoopla on Fire!

One of the better ways to get an audience interested in a movie is to have a title that really tells the audience what to expect. There’s absolutely no mistaking what you’re going to get with a film called Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things. This is not going to be a drawing room comedy or a cute rom-com. No, we’re going to be dealing with dead bodies almost certainly coming back to life and causing problems for the “children” too dumb to let the dead rest.

The main thing different from the film title and the film is the nature of the children. We are not going to be witnessing 10-year-olds playing with body parts. Instead, this is going to be the story of an acting troupe wandering in a graveyard at the behest of their director and owner, Alan (Alan Ormsby, who co-wrote the screenplay). Alan is arguably the smuggest wanker to appear in film in the 1970s, and I realize that is saying a lot. One of the ways that he demonstrates how much more important and awesome he is compared with his actors is that he calls them “his children.”

Retirement, Kinda

Film: Tribute
Format: Internet video on the new internet machine.

As this project winds to a close, there are now only a couple of years (not count 2017) where I have more than one movie still to watch. Since the goal is to not do a bunch of movies from the same year right in a row, there’s got to be an effort on my part to get through as many of those doubled-up years as possible. Thus I watched Tribute today, a film that has been sitting on a flashdrive, downloaded off YouTube for a couple of years. I can’t admit to a great deal of anticipation for this. I like Jack Lemmon, and his nomination is the reason I watched this. But it also stars Kim Cattrall and Robby Benson. The last time I saw a movie with Kim Cattrall and Robby Benson, it was an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 called City Limits, and it’s truly wretched.

Tribute is going to start by jumping up and down on one of my pet peeves. Scottie Templeton (Jack Lemmon) works in the theater community as a press agent. While he seems to have a lot of friends, he’s divorced and has almost no relationship with his son. Scottie is in the hospital for some tests, and before the tests can happen, he sneaks on a doctor’s surgical gown and more or less attempts to pick up a patient named Sally Haines (Kim Cattrall), who is about 30 years his junior. And, we’re going to find out that this works—she goes home with him because that’s the way Tribute is going to work.

Off Script: Black Christmas (1974)

Film: Black Christmas
Format: Internet video on laptop.

Bob Clark made two classic Christmas films. The first is perennial favorite A Christmas Story, which (along with Die Hard) is one of my favorite holiday movies. The other is Black Christmas, a film that in many ways helped define the slasher genre. Sure, Halloween is the one that made the genre viable and Bay of Blood was probably the first in the genre, but Black Christmas set much of the tone for what the slasher genre would become. There’s not a lot of gore, which may make it less exciting for the modern crowd, but what it lacks in blood it makes up for in being flat-out disturbing. It's worth noting as well that it's a rare film that appears on all three of my horror lists, but Black Christmas joins that rare company.

There isn’t much of a plot here, as the genre doesn’t demand one. A psychotic (who we never really see) breaks into a sorority house over the Christmas holiday and slaughters half a dozen people one by one. As far as it goes, there’s not really anything more than that. Oh, there are a few characters with traits and events in their lives and because of this we have a suspect or two, but really, Black Christmas is about a psychotic stalking young women and, for the bulk of the film, them not realizing that they’re really even in danger.

Off Script: Deathdream

Film: Deathdream (Dead of Night)
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

I claim to like horror movies, and I do like them. I don’t seem to watch them that often though because of the needs of this blog and my tendency to focus on Oscar films. “Oscar film” and “horror” aren’t words said in the same sentence that often. I’ve decided that I’ve been neglecting my horror movie lists too long, though, so I’m going to try to start putting up a horror movie review every couple of weeks. After all, this is supposed to be fun. And so I watched Deathdream, also known as Dead of Night today. Thank the Buddha for DVRs, right?

Deathdream has an interesting pedigree. First of all, it was directed by Bob Clark, who is better known as the guy who directed A Christmas Story. Less interesting but more relevant is that this is a take on the classic story of the Monkey’s Paw. We begin in Vietnam and Andy Brooks (Richard Backus). In fact, we watch Andy get shot, and as he dies, we hear the voice of his mother Christine (Lynn Carlin) saying that he can’t die; he promised he’d come back.

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!

Films: It’s a Wonderful Life; A Christmas Story
Format: VHS from personal collection on big ol’ television

Y’know what? I’m not going to talk much about the plots of either of these films. I’m just going to talk about how much I love them and why you should love them. If you haven’t seen either of these movies, you should stop reading this and go watch them. Now. I’ll still be here when you’re done.

So, It’s a Wonderful Life is the story of George Bailey (James Stewart) and his small town of Bedford Falls. For the bulk of the film, we discover that George Bailey’s life is all about giving of himself to others and making everyone around him happy while getting nothing that he really wants for himself. And then it all goes to hell because of Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) can barely remember to keep his pants zipped, let alone what he’s done with $8,000. And naturally there is the evil, twisted Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) there to oversee the rapid demise of Bailey.

All in all, this should be a tragic and depressing film except for the intercession of wingless angel Clarence (Henry Travers) who comes to put George right and show him the true meaning and value of his life. The world without George Bailey, or at least the world of Potterville (nee Bedford Falls) is a gray and terrible place. There’s no Harry Bailey (Todd Karns), no houses for the masses of townspeople, George’s wife Mary (Donna Reed) turns into a spinster librarian (which is an unfortunate slam on librarians, dammit). And so we learn that George’s life is actually pretty good, despite the fact that he may end up in jail after all. But, this is a Capra film, so that’s not going to happen.

It’s a sweet movie. It still, 60+ years after its creation, manages to pull all the right strings, and no matter how many times I have seen it (and that number is pretty high), it still works exactly the same way every time. Every single time, I fall for it. It’s sappy and silly, and filled to the brim with saccharine sentimentality, and it never fails to entertain me or make me feel good. In many ways, it’s not really Christmas until I see this film.

What I like very much here, aside from the great performances all around, is that George Bailey is depicted as a real person. Sure, he’s a good guy. He’s the sort of guy we’d all like to know, and the sort of person we tell ourselves that we are, even when we know we’re not. But in the second hour of the film, George shows a real darkness that is necessary to the film. His world, the only world he has had and the world that he has spent his entire life trying to maintain, is suddenly shattered, and the wheels come off quickly and hard.

I like that. It doesn’t mean anything if George’s problems are cute or silly, or don’t have real consequences. He needs this dark midnight of the soul to bring him through to the other side.

And yes, like a sap, I go right along with him every time.

The basic story of It’s a Wonderful Life has been done and redone, imagined and reimagined time and time again, much like A Christmas Carol. There’s no need for this. The original film is still as good a holiday movie as you could ever hope to encounter. James Stewart is a great everyman because he seems so natural in that role. That, more than anything, sells the film. If we can’t relate to George Bailey, if we don’t sympathize with him completely and feel for the problems he is having and truly understand them, we don’t for a second buy into the film.

There are people who don’t like this movie. I feel badly for them. It must be difficult to walk through life emotionally petrified.

A Christmas Story takes place in essentially the same era as It’s a Wonderful Life, but the perspective is entirely different. This time, the film comes from the point of view of Ralphie (Peter Billingsly), who wants nothing more in the world than an official Red Ryder 200-shot carbine action range model air rifle. Unfortunately, standing in his way is his mother, his teacher, and even the Santa Claus at Higbee’s Department Store, all of whom tell him that he’ll shoot his eye out.

While this is the throughline of the film, in reality, A Christmas Story is really about being a kid at Christmas, about wanting something so desperately, as only a kid can want something. It’s about mom and dad being mom and dad, about memories and little brothers, and bullies, and getting in trouble. It’s about all of that, and a hell of a lot more.

The Christmas that is at the center of this film is arguably the most magical Hollywood Christmas in history. There’s no real magic, of course, but there is an incredible confluence of events leading up to the holiday that makes it incredibly memorable. It seems that every day brings something new, and for us, the viewers, that something new is almost always hysterical.

The film is aided greatly by a tremendous performance from Darren McGavin as Ralphie’s father. His performance is broadly comic and constantly entertaining. He’s long suffering, angry, and funny as hell. Equally long suffering is Melinda Dillon as the mother, who deals with everything the Old Man does, and still never gets to eat a hot meal.

Y’know what? Enough. A Christmas Story doesn’t need to have a plot, and it doesn’t really have much of one. It doesn’t matter. Who cares? This film is funny. It’s really funny. Every time I watch this film, I think throughout it that each scene is my favorite, only to forget what hasn’t happened yet. Just watching it tonight, I forgot, for instance, that the scene in which Ralphie and his brother Randy visit Santa comes really late in the film, and the fight against school bully Scut Farkas (Zack Ward) actually comes relatively early, or at least not at the end as I always remember it.

I love this film. It makes me happy. If it doesn’t make you happy, I feel bad for you. As with It’s a Wonderful Life, I’m sure there are people who don’t like this film, but I don’t want to spend any time talking to them. That, and I don’t know a single one of them.

So, go out and win yourself a major award. Stick your tongue to a flagpole. Sit on Santa’s lap and ask for a football. Write a theme about a bb gun with a compass in the stock and a thing that tells time. Get Chinese turkey for dinner.

Go watch this film. And enjoy your holidays, folks.

Why to watch It’s a Wonderful Life: It’s the most classic Christmas film imaginable.
Why not to watch: You’re soulless.

Why to watch A Christmas Story: Because it’s the funniest Christmas film imaginable.
Why not to watch: Bob Clark’s career after directing this.