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10
December 6-24
Holiday Classics
HOLIDAY AFFAIR
Fri, Dec 6, 3:20; Sat, Dec 7, 11:05 a.m.; Sun, Dec 8, 11:05 a.m.;
Mon, Dec 9, 5:10; Wed, Dec 11, 5:10
WWII widow Janet Leigh works as a department store
comparison shopper during the Christmas season in NYC, and
after buying and returning the most expensive train set from
the competition's store, gets good-hearted sales clerk Robert
Mitchum fired for letting her off easy. Mitchum uses his resulting
free time to pal around with Leigh, and romance blooms.
However, Leigh's longtime admirer Wendell Corey has just
proposed to her. And then there's her young son Timmy – who
really wanted that train! Mitchum and Leigh, both just starting
their careers, truly shine in this holiday charmer, recently re-
discovered for the gem that it is.
DIR/PROD Don Hartman; SCR Isobel Lennart,
from the story "Christmas Gift" by John D. Weaver. US, 1949, b&w, 87 min. NOT RATED
Preservation print courtesy of the Library of Congress
25th Anniversary!
SCROOGED
Fri, Dec 6, 5:20;
Sun, Dec 8, 9:00
Comedy icon Bill Murray
stars as a media-age
Scrooge in this comic
reimagining of Charles
Dickens’ “A Christmas
Carol.” Television exec
Frank Cross (Murray)
reigns with an iron fist,
keeping his fearful staff
on edge and even
worse, forcing them
to work Christmas Eve
in order to mount a
live production of A
CHRISTMAS CAROL.
Mirroring the Dickens
classic, Frank is soon visited by the Ghosts of Christmases Past,
Present and Future, who take him on a hilarious journey toward
redemption. With Bobcat Goldthwait, Karen Allen, Carol
Kane, David Johansen, Alfre Woodard and Robert Mitchum.
DIR/PROD Richard Donner; SCR Mitch Glazer, Michael O'Donoghue, from the story “A Christmas
Carol” by Charles Dickens; PROD Art Linson. US, 1988, color, 101 min. RATED PG-13
AFI Silver’s perennial Christmas favorites IT'S A
WONDERFUL LIFE, THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS
CAROL and MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET return,
alongside rare treats like HOLIDAY AFFAIR, WHITE
CHRISTMAS and the 1938 version of A CHRISTMAS
CAROL. And for a change of pace, check out the
25th anniversary presentations of SCROOGED
and—
yippee kai-yay, mistletoers!
—DIE HARD!
AFI Member passes accepted at all films in the
Holiday Classics series.
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
Fri, Dec 13, 5:30; Sat, Dec 14, 2:45; Sun, Dec 15, 1:30;
Wed, Dec 18, 7:15; Thu, Dec 19, 7:15; Fri, Dec 20, 12:45;
Sat, Dec 21, 11:00 a.m.; Sun, Dec 22, 11:00 a.m.;
Mon, Dec 23, 1:50, 7:10; Tue, Dec 24, 1:50, 7:10
Guardian angel Clarence Odbody saves George Bailey (James
Stewart) from a Christmas Eve suicide by showing him how
dismal life in the small town of Bedford Falls would have been for
his family and friends had he never been born. With Donna Reed
as George's adoring wife, Henry Travers as the angel hoping to
get his wings and Lionel Barrymore as the villainous Mr. Potter, this
all-time Christmas classic may be Frank Capra's finest work. "The
epiphany of movie sentiment and a transcendent experience."
–Chicago Reader.
DIR/SCR/PROD Frank Capra; SCR Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Jo
Swerling, Philip Van Doren Stern, Michael Wilson. US, 1946, b&w, 130 min. NOT RATED
A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1951)
Fri, Dec 13, 3:15; Sun, Dec 15, 11:05 a.m.; Tue, Dec 17, 5:15;
Thu, Dec 19, 5:15
This 1951 British film features Alastair Sim as Ebenezer
Scrooge—for many, the definitive performance of the iconic
character. Miserly and mean-tempered, Scrooge is shaken to
his core when he is visited on Christmas Eve by the ghost of his
late business partner, Jacob Marley, and the spirits of Christmas
past, present and future, whose phantasmagoric revelations
help him to see the error of his ways.
DIR/PROD Brian Desmond Hurst; SCR
Noel Langley, from the story by Charles Dickens. UK/US, 1951, b&w, 86 min. NOT RATED
MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET
Fri, Dec 6, 1:20; Sat, Dec 7, 11:00 a.m.; Sun, Dec 8, 11:00 a.m.;
Tue, Dec 10, 5:10; Thu, Dec 12, 5:10
Do you believe in Santa Claus? No-nonsense Macy's exec
and single mom Maureen O'Hara certainly doesn't, and she
won't raise her daughter Natalie Wood to believe so, either.
But Christmas is big business for Macy's, and the store needs
Santas. So when a funny old man named Kris Kringle shows
up for the job—insisting he's the real Santa Claus—O'Hara
humors the old guy and hires him. But he's so successful at
spreading the spirit of Christmas, even O'Hara starts to wonder
if he's the real thing. Twinkle-eyed Edmund Gwenn shines as
the jolly fellow in this Christmas classic.
DIR/SCR George Seaton, from a story
by Valentine Davies; PROD William Perlberg. US, 1947, b&w, 96 min. NOT RATED
75th Anniversary!
A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1938)
Sat, Dec 14, 11:10 a.m.; Mon, Dec 16, 5:15;
Wed, Dec 18, 5:15
MGM’s family-friendly 1938 adaptation of Charles Dickens’
Christmas classic, long a holiday season television staple
alongside the spookier 1951 British version, stars character
actor Reginald Owen as the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge. Gene
Lockhart plays his put-upon clerk Bob Cratchit, alongside his
real-life wife Kathleen Lockhart as Mrs. Cratchit and real-life
daughter June Lockhart—here just a teen, later a television
stalwart in LASSIE, LOST IN SPACE, PETTICOAT JUNCTION
and GENERAL HOSPITAL—making her screen debut in an
uncredited role as their daughter Belinda. Music by Franz
Waxman.
DIR Edwin L. Marin; SCR Hugo Butler, from the story by Charles Dickens; PROD
Joseph L. Mankiewicz. US, 1938, b&w, 69 min. NOT RATED
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
HOLIDAY AFFAIR
MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET
Courtesy of Photofest
Courtesy of Everett Collection
Courtesy of MGM
