Top 10 Christmas Movies

Christmas is my favorite season and beginning with Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) the Christmas DVD's go in and I have some type of movie going day and night. In fact, I used to play these movies any time during the year until my wife made a new rule that I must keep the holidays in their proper chronological order!

I tried to put these in order of my love for them, but while some made the list because they are historically great movies, others just make me feel good and their value lies in their ability to transport me back to my childhood. Here goes:

10. Merry Christmas Charlie Brown And I don't care if there are countless bad film cuts, miscues, and background problems. When I hear Vince Guaraldi's Christmas Time is Here I know in my heart the season has begun. Linus' soliloquy is easily one of the most poignant moments in cartoon history.

9. How the Grinch Stole Christmas Who else but Boris Karloff could have pulled this off? Chuck Jones (of Bugs Bunny fame) gave this cartoon a cleaner look than the original book and brought so much more expression to the screen than my little imagination could muster. I even wanted to try some Who Roast Beast at one point.

8. Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer The stop-action animation looks so primitive by todays standards, but I still remember thinking that darned snow monster was real. Burl Ives singing of those great old Johnny Marks songs still takes me back.

7. It's a Wonderful Life Frank Capra's treatment of this story is one of my favorite childhood images (even if it is black-and-white.) My own children sometimes make fun of it's more cheesy parts, but I write that off to their being so far removed from that early 20th century poverty.

6. Miracle on 34th Street The only reason this movie isn't higher on the list is that Santa is SO short. It also used to bother me that he would be out and about in a department store, right out in public, instead of busy at the North Pole.

5. Scrooge This is one of four movies based on the Dickens classic, but this one stars Albert Finney and is a musical. How I wish someone would publish the libretto to this, it would be so much fun to perform in a community theater, thank you very much!

4. Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol This, like #5 above, is a musical. Every song is worth a a listen and many were written by Jule Styne, the famed jazz composer. The party at Fezzywig's is Christmas at it's jolly old best. This was also Jim Backus' finest hour as Mr. Magoo.

3. A Christmas Story You'll shoot your eye out! Ralphie's quest to get his one and only Christmas wish fulfilled makes for one of the most timeless stories in moviedom. The loud, working father; the mousy stay at home mom; a host of friends; and old school complete with icy flagpole, and even a town bully makes us think that it's not only real-life, but that it's our real life! (I actually did get a BB gun one year.)

2. (truly tied for #1) The Muppet's Christmas Carol Michael Caine has one of his finest cinematic moments in this movie. All your favorite Muppet stars are here, from Kermit and Piggy down to the vegetables in the Swedish Chef's kitchen. Having Gonzo appear as Charles Dickens playing the narrator is a brilliant touch. The visual transitions from the present time to the various Christmases is quite impressive, given the era in which it was produced, but Jim Henson never spared the horses when it came to making first class entertainment.

and finally...

1. A Christmas Carol This is the version starring George C. Scott as Ebeneezer Scrooge. Scott's seasoned acting put some new twists of interpretation on an otherwise familiar dialog. For instance, where most other versions have Scrooge in a vicious mood as he spouts that "every fool who goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips would be boiled in his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart," Scott utters these lines with a mirthful, even gleefully evil chuckle. I love it. Frank Finlay is perfect as Jacob Marley, David Warner is an ideal Bob Cratchit, and Edward Woodward, who I will forever remember as The Equalizer, makes the finest Ghost of Christmas Present I've ever seen. I don't know where they found Anthony Walters to play Tiny Tim, but he was just right amount of frail combined with hopeful spunk. It will be difficult to usurp this films place at the top of my favorites list.

As we count down the days until Christmas, I'll be getting out the storage boxes and loading up the DVD player and getting ready for some non-stop travels down memory lane. To me, that's a Merry Christmas.