A Holiday Celebration: Exploring Underrated Yuletide Pictures

Something that irks concerning many present-day seasonal movies is their insistent self-awareness – the gaudy decorations, the formulaic score selections, and the canned dialogue about the real spirit of the festive period. Maybe because the style was not yet ossified into formula, movies from the 1940s often tackle Yuletide from more imaginative and far less anxious angles.

The Fifth Avenue Happening

One delightful find from delving into 1940s holiday fare is It Happened on Fifth Avenue, a 1947 semi-romantic comedy with a great hook: a cheerful vagrant winters in a vacant luxurious estate each year. One winter, he welcomes new acquaintances to reside with him, among them a ex-soldier and a teenager who is secretly the daughter of the home's rich owner. Filmmaker Roy Del Ruth imbues the movie with a makeshift family coziness that numerous modern Christmas stories have to labor to achieve. It perfectly walks the line between a class-conscious narrative on housing and a whimsical city fantasy.

Godfathers in Tokyo

The late filmmaker's 2003 tragicomedy Tokyo Godfathers is a fun, poignant, and thoughtful interpretation on the holiday narrative. Drawing from a western film, it follows a trio of homeless souls – an drinker, a trans character, and a adolescent runaway – who discover an left-behind baby on a snowy December night. Their journey to reunite the baby's family sets off a chain of unexpected events involving gangsters, immigrants, and ostensibly magical encounters. The film celebrates the magic of coincidence often found in holiday tales, delivering it with a cinematic aesthetic that sidesteps overly sweet feeling.

Introducing John Doe

While Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life rightly gets plenty of praise, his lesser-known work Meet John Doe is a compelling holiday story in its own right. Featuring Gary Cooper as a charismatic "forgotten man" and Barbara Stanwyck as a plucky reporter, the film begins with a fake missive from a man threatening to leap from a ledge on Christmas Eve in despair. The people's embrace compels the reporter to find a man to play the fictional "John Doe," who subsequently becomes a country-wide symbol for neighborliness. The narrative functions as both an heartwarming fable and a brutal critique of ultra-rich businessmen seeking to manipulate grassroots sentiment for political ambitions.

Silent Partner

While Christmas horror pictures are now commonplace, the Christmas thriller remains a somewhat niche style. This makes the 1978 film The Silent Partner a novel discovery. Starring a delightfully sinister Christopher Plummer as a criminal Santa Claus and Elliott Gould as a unassuming bank employee, the movie sets two kinds of amoral characters against each other in a well-crafted and unpredictable yarn. Mostly ignored upon its initial release, it merits new attention for those who prefer their holiday films with a dark tone.

Almost Christmas

For those who like their holiday gatherings messy, Almost Christmas is a blast. Featuring a stellar ensemble that has Danny Glover, Mo'Nique, and JB Smoove, the story explores the dynamics of a family forced to endure five days under one home during the festive period. Hidden dramas rise to the top, culminating in moments of extreme humor, including a confrontation where a shotgun is brandished. Naturally, the story reaches a touching conclusion, offering all the enjoyment of a family mess without any of the real-life consequences.

The Film Go

The director's 1999 film Go is a Christmas-adjacent tale that is a teen-oriented take on woven narratives. Although some of its comedy may feel dated upon rewatch, the film nevertheless boasts many aspects to appreciate. These range from a composed performance from Sarah Polley to a standout appearance by Timothy Olyphant as a dangerous pusher who amusingly dons a Santa hat. It embodies a very brand of fin-de-siècle movie attitude set against a festive backdrop.

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek

The famed director's wartime farce The Miracle of Morgan's Creek skips typical Christmas warmth in exchange for irreverent comedy. The film is about Betty Hutton's Trudy Kockenlocker, who discovers she is pregnant after a hazy night but cannot remember the father responsible. A lot of the comedy stems from her predicament and the efforts of Eddie Bracken's hapless Norval Jones to rescue her. While not obviously a Christmas film at the beginning, the story winds up on the Christmas, revealing that Sturges has refashioned a playful version of the Christmas story, loaded with his signature sharp style.

Better Off Dead

This 1985 youth film featuring John Cusack, Better Off Dead, is a prime example of its era. Cusack's