Oscar Profile #578: Yuletide Oscars

Many films have memorable Christmas scenes, but few are so intricately connected to the holiday that they wouldn’t be as memorable as they are without those scenes.

The first film with a significant emphasis on Christmas to capture Oscar’s attention was George Cukor’s 1933 version of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, the first of four versions to receive Oscar recognition. Nominated for Best Picture and Director, it won for Adapted Screenplay. This one with Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Frances Dee, Jean Parker, Spring Byington and, Edna May Oliver remains the favorite of many.

Although Edward L. Marin’s 1938 version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was the first to receive a major theatrical release, it failed to elicit Oscar’s attention. While it later become a TV staple, it has long since been eclipsed by Brian Desmond Hurst’s 1951 version which also failed to recive Oscar’s attention. It would be left to Ronald Neame’s 1970 film, Scrooge to attract Oscar, earning four nominations.

Oscar ignored Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner and Mitchell Leisen’s Remember the Night, both released in 1940, and gave Frank Capra’s 1941 film, Meet John Doe a measly single nomination for its Original Story.

Although Christmas scenes were only a small part of Leo MaCarey’s Going My Way, Vincent Minnelli’s Meet Me in St. Louis, and McCarey’s The Bells of St. Mary’s, they most certainly were part of those films enduring popularity, helping to earn 1944’s Going My Way ten Oscar nominations and seven wins, that same year’s Meet Me in St. Louis four nominations, and 1945’s The Bells of St. Mary’s eight nominations and one win.

1945’s other major Christmas films, Christmas in Connecticut and The Cheaters were passed over, but 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life received five nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Actor belying its reputation as a flop upon original release.

Two 1947 Christmas films, The Bishop’s Wife and Miracle on 34th Street were nominated for Best Picture, both taking home one Oscar apiece, the latter for Edmund Gwenn’s beloved portrayal of Kris Kringle. The decade ended with the 1949 Christmas film, Come to the Stable which received seven nominations but no Oscar.

The most popular Christmas film of the 1950s was the 1954 blockbuster, White Christmas which received just one Oscar nomination for Irving Berlin’s song, “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep”.

The most memorable Christmas films of the 1960s were the ones somberly celebrated by Billy Wilder’s multiple 1960 Oscar winner, The Apartment, and Anthony Harvey’s 1968 film, The Lion in Winter, which took home three of its own.

It would be another nineteen years before we got another adult themed Christmas film that Oscar too to heart. John Huston’s posthumously released The Dead from James Joyce’s The Dubliners was the film, earning his son Tony an Oscar nod for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Adult themed Christmas films didn’t make another showing until the 2000s with such releases as 2003’s, Love Actually, 2004’s Noel; 2005’s The Family Stone, and 2006’s The Holiday, all of which Oscar ignored.

Christmas was back in favor with Oscar with Peter Farrelly’s 2018 film, Green Book, which won three Oscars out of five nominations including Best Picture. Greta Gerwig’s 2019 version of Little Women with its six Oscar nominations and one win brought us back full circle to the beginning.

ESSENTIAL CHRISTMAS THEMED FILMS

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946), directed by Frank Capra

If you haven’t seen Capra’s masterpiece by now you have either been working every Christmas Eve for the past forty years or so or don’t have a TV. Suffice it say that James Stewart’s Everyman; Donna Reed’s adoring and adorable wife; Lionel Barrymore’s meanest man in town and Henry Travers’ angel Clarence have attained screen immortality without your help, but you owe it to yourself to find out what everyone else already knows.

MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (1947), directed by George Seaton

We tend to see this more as a Thanksgiving movie than a Christmas film, but it’s the only film I can think of that covers the entire Christmas season, or at least the commercial, rather than the spiritual, end of it, that has come to epitomize Christmas in the Western world of the last sixty plus years. Edmund Gwenn’s twinkly eyed Kris Kringle (AKA Santa Claus) heads a dream cast that includes Maureen O’Hara, John Payne, Natalie Wood, and an unbilled Thelma Ritter.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1951), directed by Brian Desmond Hurst

Dickens’ beloved Christmas story has never been better served than by this British version with an unforgettable Scrooge played by Alastair Sim. Barely released in the U.S., the film was shown in L.A. but when it was rejected by Radio City Music Hall as being too dark, it was relegated to the Guild Theatre, a small playhouse in the basement of the giant showplace and not shown anywhere else in the U.S. until it became a TV staple a few years later.

THE APARTMENT (1960), directed by Billy Wilder

Jack Lemmon is at his best as an insurance clerk whose career goes on a fast track when he loans his humble flat to his bosses for their extramarital hookups. He meets his equal in Shirley MacLaine’s beguiling elevator operator who unbeknownst to him is boss Fred MacMurray’s latest conquest. He finds out the hard way when she attempts suicide in his bed on Christmas Eve. The bittersweet dramady resolves itself in a most charming way on New Year’s Eve

THE LION IN WINTER (1968), directed by Anthony Harvey

A chilling Christmas in the middle-ages is the setting for the intrigue in the court of Henry II as he and his imprisoned wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, battle it out over the royal succession. Peter O’Toole, Katharine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton, John Castle, Jane Merrow, Nigel Terry and Nigel Davenport bring enormous acting talent to bear with O’Toole and Hepburn especially something to behold.

THE DEAD (1987), directed by John Huston

Taking place on the Feast of the Epiphany, Huston’s last film is an old man’s film in the best sense of the word. Tony Huston’s perfectly pitched screenplay, and the performances of Anjelica Huston, Donald McCann and the rest of the cast make this a Christmas movie to enjoy at any time of the year. The last scene in which McCann recites a good chunk of James Joyce’s poem form The Dubliners was the camera pans the snow covering all of Ireland is unforgettable.

LITTLE WOMEN (1994), directed by Gillian Armstrong

The most faithful of the screen’s four major adaptations features strong direction and winning performances from Winona Ryder as Jo, Trini Alvarado as Meg, Claire Danes as Beth, Kirsten Dunst as the younger Amy, and Samantha Mathis as the older Amy as well as Gabriel Byrne as Mister Bhaer, Christian Bale as Laurie, Eric Stoltz as John Brooke, and Susan Sarandon as Marmee. Unfortunately, Mary Wickes’ Aunt March is underwritten.

LOVE ACTUALLY (2003), directed by Richard Curtis

London, England in the month leading up to Christmas is a frantic place as eight couples come together, split, and in some cases come back together again in this witty modern classic. The splenid, mostly all-star cast includes Hugh Grant, Martine McCutcheon, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Laura Linney, Rodrigo Santoro, Colin Firth, Lucia Moniz, Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Keira Knightley, and Andrew Lincoln.

THE HOLIDAY (2006), directed by Nancy Meyers

Meyers’ comedy adds a few modern twists in this fish out of water tale of two women (Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz) who switch homes for the holidays, with Winslet staying at Diaz’s Beverly Hills digs while Diaz hangs out in Winslet’s Surrey home. The two find new romance in their temporary new environments with Diaz hooking up with Jude Law and Winslet with Jack Black. Eli Wallach co-stars.

GREEN BOOK (2018), directed by Peter Farrelly

A sort of Driving Miss Daisy in reverse as New York Italian-American night club bouncer Viggo Mortensen drives African-American classical pianist Mahershala Ali to engagements in the deep south in the 1960s, this fact-based tale received five Oscar nominations and won three. The harrowing trip home through a monster snowstorm leads to several heart-tugging reunions on Christmas morning .