Reviews

Christmas films

Miracle On 34th Street

Directed by George Seaton, starring Edmund Gwenn, Natalie Wood, Maureen O

It's a film about a delusional man who believes himself to be the real Father Christmas - the whiskery British actor Edmund Gwenn is the man with the sack; little Natalie Wood the girl who believes he's the real deal.

You don't need a month of white noise and electric shocks to force your mind to place it in the same loop of the Venn diagram as turkey and crackers.

But in over a century of film-making, this is the only Santa flick we've really taken to our hearts. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians stirs no warm thoughts. We don't come back from the carol concert and settle down to anything involving Dudley Moore in an elf costume.

Unlike its competitors, Miracle On 34th Street never asks us to believe that we're seeing the real Santa Claus - only to enjoy the pleasure of submitting to the benign madness of its central character.

The Wizard of Oz

Directed by Victor Fleming, Mervyn LeRoy, starring Judy Garland, Ray Bolger

In 1939, the only kind of turkey associated with the Yellow Brick Road was the box office species. But when this achingly odd musical about tornadoes and devil monkeys and shoe-envy was shown on CBS in November 1956, 45 million people tuned in.

So CBS began screening it every Christmas - with the respectful exception of December 1963, when the American public, mindful of the bloody events the previous month in Dallas, were in no mood to hear Ray Bolger bash his way through If I Only Had a Brain.

But the BBC can take the credit for naturalizing the link between gravy granules and ruby slippers in this country - since 1975, the film has made 15 appearances in the Christmas double issue of the Radio Times.

The Man With the Golden Gun

Directed by Guy Hamilton, starring Roger Moore, Christopher Lee

For the past 20 years, the UK commercial TV network ITV has worked hard to put James Bond into the nativity scene. And it's done this because, for as long as anyone can remember, the BBC has driven a sturdy yule log through the main commercial broadcaster's hopes of gathering the biggest Christmas Day audience.

In 1978, putting out Diamonds Are Forever was a persuasive fightback strategy. But The Man With the Golden Gun deserves the headline here. When ITV showed it in 1980, it looked like the Crown Jewels.

Then, with amazing cheek, the channel dragged it out again 1984. Moonraker provided the same service in 1985 and 1990. But here was a subtle admission: Like Christmases, one James Bond film is very much like another - and both seem to generate a sense of constipation and disappointment.

The Guardian

(China Daily 12/25/2007 page20)