3 Movies | November 18th
The 1940s were a ripe time for Christmas movies. With World War II splitting millions of families apart, and the postwar period bringing the families—or what remained of them—back together, Hollywood started using Christmas onscreen to represent family itself, whether for sweetness and joy or despair and alienation. Movies about broken or dysfunctional families trying to rebuild or reconciliate became more common. And the holiday season proved to be a perfect setting for many such stories, since Christmas is a natural time for real-life family bonding. The truest Christmas movies, however, use the holiday not merely as a setting but as a storytelling force that spurs characters to transform for the better.
That certainly happens in all three of the films in this tribute, despite their distinctly different genres: musical, comedy and poignant drama. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), produced and released by MGM during the war, incorporates the season only into the film’s third quarter, but it is meaningful to the story and the journey of the characters. Set over the course of one year and divided into episodic acts marked by each of the four seasons, the movie is about a family—a mother, father, son, four daughters, grandfather and cook—whose lives unfold in 1903 St. Louis. When they face an impending move to New York because of the father’s job demands, the audience understands the family’s feeling that this is a major crisis. Naturally it’s one that winds up being resolved on Christmas, the ultimate family day, thanks to a transformation by the story’s version of a mildly Scrooge-type character.
The film’s source material, a series of New Yorker articles by Sally Benson based on her childhood, was purchased by producer Arthur Freed, who originally set George Cukor to direct. When Cukor was drafted into the war effort, the job fell to Vincente Minnelli, who had directed only two feature films. With Meet Me in St. Louis, he turned out one of the finest and most influential movie musicals ever made, integrating the numbers into the narrative so seamlessly that for these characters, singing is as natural as breathing. This was an innovation for a genre in which stories usually came to a halt whenever a musical number popped up.
Judy Garland, then 22, resisted taking on the role of 17-year-old Esther Smith because she had no wish to play another teenager. But MGM chief Louis B. Mayer stepped in to persuade her, and Garland was ultimately very glad: it wound up being her favorite role—and film—and she fell in love with Minnelli and married him the next year. She also got to introduce what is still one of the preeminent Christmas songs, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Garland’s rendition is among the most indelible of all Christmas screen moments not just for its gorgeous melody and Garland’s emotional performance (as well as Margaret O’Brien’s teary reactions), but for the words that she sings. Composed by Hugh Martin, the song has a beautifully melancholic feel, conjuring loss and sorrow beneath its nostalgia—and thereby injecting a strong dose of honesty into the film’s depictions of Christmas and childhood.
Christmas in Connecticut, released by Warner Bros. in August 1945—a month before the war would end—was one of the studio’s biggest hits of the year, though it only grew into a holiday perennial years later. With Barbara Stanwyck as a magazine columnist who doles out homemaking advice and recipes à la Martha Stewart, it creates farcical comedy out of the fact that Stanwyck is actually a fraud. She has claimed to live in an idyllic Connecticut farmhouse with a loving husband and young baby, but she actually lives alone in a Manhattan apartment and can’t even make toast. No one knows this except her Hungarian-chef friend, Uncle Felix (S. Z. Sakall), so when her publisher decides it would be a good PR move for Stanwyck to host a wounded sailor for Christmas, she must scramble to come up with a farmhouse, husband and baby. Naturally, sparks fly between Stanwyck and the sailor, played by a delightful Dennis Morgan.
Morgan had developed a devoted public following during the war years and even became the studio’s highest-paid actor for a time, showing great versatility as he shuttled among comedies, musicals and westerns. Stanwyck was also known for her excellence in widely varying genres—her previous role was the icy Phyllis Dietrichson in the film noir Double Indemnity (1944)—and she brings great sincerity that elevates what might have otherwise been just a frothy comedy. “When you’re kissing me, don’t talk about plumbing,” she says at one point, her earnest delivery making the line even funnier. And she brings perfect physical timing to a sequence where she fumbles with a baby, clueless as to how to give it a bath.
Like Meet Me in St. Louis and a great many other holiday films, Christmas in Connecticut gives prominent attention to a house, in this case a warm, cavernous yet inviting, snowy farmhouse. But keep a lookout for another set that provides a uniquely war-era Christmas vibe: the town hall, done up with holiday decorations for a square dance to raise money for the war effort. The joyful dancing by the large crowd radiates a feel of community that seems as if it could be happening in any rural American town on Christmas in the 1940s.
Two years later, producer Samuel Goldwyn brought a charming blend of romance, drama and comedy to the screen with The Bishop’s Wife (1947). As Christmas approaches, a bishop played by David Niven struggles to fund a new cathedral. He prays for heavenly help and receives it in the form of Cary Grant, a dapper angel named Dudley (who of course no one believes is an angel). Dudley tries to guide the bishop to regain his priorities and rediscover the value of his marriage, but along the way he falls for the bishop’s wife, played by Loretta Young. The attraction is mutual, prompting comic and romantic complications.
The Bishop’s Wife culminates on Christmas and is such a smooth, warmhearted fantasy, sure to put anyone in a cheery holiday mood, that it’s a surprise to note just how troubled the production was. Niven and Grant started filming in the opposite roles, but after three weeks Goldwyn shut the film down, determined to start over with Grant as the angel. The script was rewritten to adjust the characters for the casting change, sets were rebuilt and Goldwyn replaced his original director, William A. Seiter, with Henry Koster. Grant was so resistant to play Dudley that he asked to be let go from the film, but Goldwyn demurred.
To Grant’s, and the rest of the cast’s credit, everyone delivered polished and wonderful performances. Loretta Young later said her role of the neglected wife was “the hardest part I’d ever played.” Koster had her underplay her scenes to keep the film’s tone away from melodrama. “That’s why it was so hard,” Young recalled. “I had to avoid doing anything in the scene.” Grant may have disliked playing Dudley, but it’s a charming, playful performance. Dudley tosses office papers in the air, which fly into their proper files; he beguiles housekeeper Elsa Lanchester every time he enters the room; he decorates a Christmas tree with a wave of his hand; he gives Monty Woolley’s sherry bottle the power of remaining full; and he helps a little girl wallop a boy with a snowball by magically improving its trajectory. That last scene is especially fun because the girl is played by Karolyn Grimes, previously seen as George Bailey’s daughter Zuzu in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), and the boy is played by Bobby Anderson, who played George Bailey as a kid.
Woolley provides another Christmas movie link with his broken-down scholar recalling Sheridan Whiteside, his character in The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942), and there’s a touch of Christmas in the marvelous performance by Gladys Cooper as a wealthy widow who undergoes a Scrooge-like transformation. Overall, the constant snow, decorations and story centered on treating people with kindness and compassion lends an appealing holiday glow—whimsical with touches of seriousness.
The film was remade in 1996 as The Preacher’s Wife, with Denzel Washington as Dudley and Whitney Houston as the title character.
