Thoughts on two lesser known festive favourite films
- Flicks Film Posters
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
Frank Capra's evergreen classic It's A Wonderful Life (1946) didn't embed itself in the collective 'Christmas movie consciousness' of film lovers overnight. In fact, it's only in recent decades that this much-loved drama of small-town American life has acquired its lofty status as the Christmas movie. A cultural institution that probably doesn't need highlighting, let's focus instead on a couple of perhaps less well known or remembered festive favourites.
Joe Dante's 1984 film Gremlins is a wickedly funny, mischievous horror-comedy. A clear riposte to Capra's film, it's set in an instantly recognisable small town appropriation of the cosy hamlet of Bedford Falls in It's A Wonderful Life. Dante's cult movie, however, subverts our expectations by focusing on the eponymous gang of devilish little creatures, unleashed on the local populace by an unsuspecting teenager. Gifted a strange creature called Gizmo by a mystic Chinaman, the boy is explicitly warned to keep it away from light, especially sunlight, which will kill it; not to let it come in contact with water; and above all, to never let it eat after midnight. Of course, none of these guidelines are subsequently followed, and mayhem swiftly ensues!
The tone of the film is best summed up by the famous sequence in the local cinema, where the gang of fiendish little creatures whoops it up, disturbing the other patrons, throwing popcorn, and laughing raucously at the movie on show - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (of course!). Witty and entertaining, Gremlins is a great alternative Christmas classic.
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) is a very different festive film, directed by the great Ernst Lubitsch, a master of romantic comedies and melodramas, to the extent that the famed 'Lubitsch touch' was admired by a generation of filmmakers. None came close to matching the unique Lubitsch style, though.
The Shop Around the Corner, starring a young James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan, is one of the best examples of the director's unique style. The film is about two employees at a small leather goods shop in pre-war Budapest, who can barely stand each other, not realising that they are falling in love as anonymous correspondents through each other's letters. A charming and beautiful film, a big favourite of ours, it was remade in 1998 by Nora Ephron as You've Got Mail, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. That's good too, but it shines like a rhinestone compared to Lubitsch's black and white gem.
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