Focus Features

This film is exemplary on many levels: as an independent film producer myself, I am enthralled by the technical accomplishments represented by Frank Capra’s 1946 masterpiece:
a.    It was shot entirely in the 90+-degree-heat of a Hollywood summer (PRE-air-conditioning), using over 3,000 T0NS of ice
b.    The film’s main street was over 300 yards long, required the building of nearly 75 building facades, and a small oak forest was transplanted along its thoroughfare—making it (at the time) the most elaborate movie set ever built; and adjusting for inflation, it is still one of the most expensive of all time!
As Santa Claus, the film exemplifies to me the ability of the human spirit to rise above the physical challenges of life and to lift others along with it: remember, the movie begins with an attempted suicide—and winds up as a celebration of all things living! I consider this comfortingly analogous of the role Santa is sometimes called upon to play in the real lives of many modern families—troubled times may cause the parents uncertainty which the children can also pick up on—but Santa Claus represents the spiritual well from which hope is said to eternally spring, in the hearts of the young…

This one could easily have topped my list—I LOVE THIS FILM!!! Not only is Will Ferrell one of the most gifted actors of all time, but the story itself is imaginative & well-written—with a minimal reliance upon special effects (which must have been a temptation difficult to resist, given this film’s budget).  Buddy the Elf (“What’s your favorite color?”) is simply one of the greatest characters of all time: his troubles are obvious right from the beginning  (even to himself)—but the angst he feels isn’t depression; when he learns of his father and strikes out for New York to find him, the trepidation he feels can’t really be called fear; when he encounters hostility (from the diminutive author whom he mistakenly & repeatedly calls an “elf”; from his department manager at Gimble’s; and most shockingly, FROM HIS OWN FATHER), he never gets angry back at anyone! 

I simply cannot imagine anyone watching this masculine Pollyanna, striding through the modern-day jungle of the Big Apple—not only oblivious to the dangers surrounding him, but actually morphing the jungle itself into something more warm & welcoming—without having their heart grow three sizes that day…

This one is an object lesson in how to survive the holidays when you’re forced to share your home with all those relatives whom you’re generally able to avoid during the rest of the year! 

Although Chevy Chase played the character Clark Griswold a total of 5 times, this film contained not only his best portrayal of that character—but arguably one of his greatest performances of all time!  Beverly D’Angelo & Randy Quaid lead an all-star supporting cast, making the Christmas-light scene a tapestry of co-stars subtly elevating Chase’s underplayed suburban foil to the level of Geek God.

Even more interesting to me were the links to my favorite Christmas film, “It’s A Wonderful Life”, such as:
·      Clark Griswold was troubled by a loose newel post on his stairs, just as George Bailey was; and
·      Assistant Director on Christmas Vacation was Frank Capra III, the grandson of the legendary director who first envisioned, then inspired, and finally created the greatest Christmas film of all time!

This film catapulted producer Darryl Zanuck (a scripwriter for the RinTinTin movie series)—despite the fact that he nearly sank the project himself: he allocated such a meager budget that director George Seaton had to perform a few miracles of his own—and then Zanuck released the film in the summer of ’47 because he was afraid it would fail in the critical Christmas season box office competition (Zanuck was so wrong on that count that Miracle was still playing to packed houses when December rolled around!).  Maureen O’Hara was a little-known twentysomething actress whom Zanuck insisted upon casting in his black-and-white film—although by 1946, with her flaming red hair and brilliant green eyes, she was known as the Queen of Technicolor; Edmund Gwenn became such a close friend that Zanuck was at his death bed in 1959.

As a nacent screenwriter myself, I admire this film most of all for the final scene, in which the U.S. Postal workers bring in bag after bag of mail to deliver to defendant Kringle—proving to the judge’s satisfaction that he WAS Santa Claus, after all. In an interview years later, Seaton & head script writer Valentine Davies admitted that they’d written themselves into a corner at that point in the film, and for WEEKS had no idea how to end it. Each credits the other with the last-minute inspiration with the mail bags—and when director John Hughes’ 1994 remake of the film saw that scene removed entirely, the public quietly (but permanently) rejected it.

I have to confess to a virtual 3-way tie for this final slot: I am equally passionate about the animated treasure A Charlie Brown Christmas and the tongue-in-cheek tweenie cult classic Home Alone—each of which deliver a few key Christmas-themed aphorisms cleverly contained within a fluid but followable story line.

But  A Christmas Story transcends the pedantically-positive & ubiquitously-uplifting—and delivers for several generations of Americans a pleasant trip down Nostalgia Lane… and all because so many of us can so completely relate to the film’s nuclear family:

·      a put-upon father (“the Old Man”), hard-pressed to make ends meet in a world seemingly hell-bent on distracting him from his greatest delight: his family (about whom his wife works hard to preserve his illusions…)
·      a hectic & harried Mother, striving to maintain the balance between the world occupied by her two young children, and the greater adult world around them; as so many of us can recall about our own moms, this Mother is constantly acting as a buffer between the two worlds!
For instance, she washes Ralphie’s mouth out with soap to teach him that cursing is NOT okay in the adult world—then goes out of her way to keep Father from learning about the incident, thus demonstrating that not all that happens within the children’s world need be judged (nor reacted to) from the perspective of the adult’s!
·      Ralphie himself is a study in “tweenism”—and at that most precious of ages (from a Santa’s point of view): when the wide-eyed optimism of the toddler who utterly believes in me begins to give way to the gradually-eroding confidence of the older child, still wanting to believe, but wondering whether the older kids might just be right about the Jolly Jent!  Neither the best nor worst-behaved child in his peer group, Ralphie represents the vast body of “average” people; this is no doubt intrinsic to our universal ability to relate to Ralphie— the Goody-Two-Shoes amongst us are just as likely to consider themselves “normal” as the Class Clowns  are—very few people actually think of themselves as “unusual”!

Ultimately, it’s the way Ralphie manages to keep his personal “child-world” dream alive, while the “adult-world” tries to kill it at every turn —and still sees that dream come true. That, as Santa Claus, makes me feel that A Christmas Story embodies all the hopes of all the children of all ages. P.S. – Only one “Genuine Red Ryder Model Air Rifle” ever existed—and it can still be admired today, at St. Catherine's Museum in Ontario.