Recently, Tribune movie critics picked their favorite Christmas films. For another take, we surveyed Chicagoans and visitors to our city and asked them to share their choices for the holiday film that helps to make their season bright.
Predictably, “It’s a Wonderful Life” was most the common response.
“It’s a classic,” said Mayor Richard M. Daley. “You can’t go through the holiday without seeing it at least once.”
It is a testament to Frank Capra’s 1946 fantasy that it touches viewers in many different ways. An annual viewing of the film is “a tradition I inherited by marriage,” said News 2 Chicago anchor Linda MacLennan. “For 30 years, my husband David’s family has had a Christmas party and open house. It was his generation who glommed on to the film when it used to be shown on every channel. I’m the vagabond of my family. I get such comfort watching these people who I’ve only known for seven years plopped down on the couch after a good dinner, watching the film and quoting line after line. It’s the consistency of these family ties, the generations bonding over this old black and white movie.”
Hinton Battle, who portrays Coalhouse Walker in “Ragtime” at the Oriental Theatre, observed that the film “makes me reflect about the past year and gets me ready for the new year. Sometimes we get caught up in what we’re doing and we forget to give thanks for all we have been able to achieve.”
The film also hits close to home for Ron Hawking, star of the one-man Frank Sinatra tribute “His Way” at the Mercury Theatre. “I can relate that story to my own life,” he said. “I am a cancer survivor. I took my life for granted before. I’m not taking it for granted now. When I got cancer, I was angry and dumbfounded. Now, I’ve got this show and I’m living for today.”
Risking a one-way ticket to Pottersville, WFLD sports anchor Bruce Wolf said he was feeling less sentimental this year. “I’ll be watching the Golf Channel Academy and worrying about my swing. The green of the fake grass will remind of a Christmas tree. The kids will be in the other room watching ‘South Park’ and becoming heathens.”
WCKG’s Steve Dahl, who this year celebrates 20 years on Chicago radio, admitted that he, too, was “Wonderful Life’d out.” His holiday pick this year: “Spartacus,” inspired after watching the Thanksgiving roster of football games. “I’m getting myself in the holiday mood with the bathhouse scene (between Laurence Olivier and Tony Curtis),” he said, “and I feel none the less festive for it.”
Novelist Sugar Rautbord looks forward to another kind of Christmas spectacle with “Ben-Hur.” “It’s got everything,” she said. “The Jews are the good guys and the idolaters are the bad guys. It’s got the chariot race and gorgeous Charlton Heston. It illustrates in a novel way the death of Christ and the birth of Christianity. It’s an extraordinary movie.”
Nicole Dreiske, founder and artistic director of Facets Multimedia, offered a more traditional viewing choice, the 1951 Alastair Sim version of “A Christmas Carol.” “The dark vision of poverty and soulless grasping after money are truly haunting, and contrast so beautifully with Scrooge’s epiphany of generosity and abundance that we see from the moment he opens his window and buys the Christmas goose,” she said.
Donna Marie Asbury, who stars as Velma in the musical “Chicago” at the Schubert Theatre, sang the praises of “Miracle on 34th Street.” “The black and white version,” she emphasized. “It’s about hope and belief. Natalie Wood (as the skeptical little girl) gets me every single time.”
Hugh Hefner, founder and editor in chief of Playboy, expressed his love for “Jean Shepherd’s humorous tale of childhood, “A Christmas Story,” which originally was published in Playboy. Every year we run it at the mansion.”
Bonnie Hunt, who can be heard as the voice of the black widow spider in “A Bug’s Life,” called during a break from traffic school also to recommend “A Christmas Story” as well as “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” “They’re about struggle and family and they’re very sweet,” she said.
It doesn’t have to be old to be a Christmas classic. Warner Saunders, anchor/reporter for NBC Five Chicago News, chose “Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas” for its state-of-the-art stop- motion animation as well as the “pathos in (the residents of) Halloweentown trying to appropriate Christmas.”
Mike North, one of the “Monsters of the Midday” on WSCR radio, said that “Home Alone,” with Joe Pesci and Macaulay Culkin, is his new holiday favorite. “I watched it a couple of weeks ago and I laughed my ass off,” he said. “It’s almost like ‘The Three Stooges meet a kid.’ It’s hilarious, but yet it’s got some sadness to it, too. There’s something happening every minute.”
“The Toy That Saved Christmas,” from the “Veggie-Tales” video series, has found a welcome place in the home of actress Kate Collins, starring in “Nora” at the Court Theatre. Her two boys, she said, think it’s “their favorite of all time. They just delight in these characters. It’s very sweet and gentle and illuminates the true meaning of the season in such an entertaining way.”
Some unlikely films have become unexpected family traditions. “We’ve seen ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ at least 100 times,” said John Iltis, founder of John Iltis Associates, an entertainment marketing firm. “My daughters fell in love with the movie, as did my wife, and when they were growing up, this is the one everyone would watch.”
Michael Gross, starring in “Art” at the Royal George Theatre, said, “Our holidays wouldn’t be the holidays without watching the video of the Christmas episode of ‘The Jack Benny Show.’ “It’s the last of the great vaudevillian schtick. Mel Blanc does an incredible job as a salesman who Jack drives insane. We sit and watch as a family and say the punch lines together.”
For baby boomers, TV has provided some of the most indelible Christmas memories. “‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas,”‘ exclaimed Wendell Young, goalie for the Chicago Wolves. “The Grinch is the best. It gives a good message to kids that the holiday is not all about presents.”
Bill Zehme, author of the best-seller, “The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin’,” praised “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.” “The scope of the emotions of this near-sighted man always leaves a tear in my eye,” he said. “There’s not a year I don’t crave Razzleberry dressing (a staple at the Cratchit table), and more than that, wonder what the hell it is.”
“My sisters and I surf the dial to see if we could ever find that Christmas episode of ‘The Brady Bunch’ where Carol loses her voice singing in the choir,” said Robin Baumgarten, WGN-TV traffic reporter. “It’s the only ‘Brady Bunch’ reference to church, and being good Catholics from the South Side, it’s our only chance to bond with the Bradys.”
For Bob Sirott, host of “Fox Thing in the Morning,” the holidays aren’t complete unless he can watch the classic Christmas episodes of “The Honeymooners,” the “Night Gallery” presentation of “The Messiah of Mott Street” starring Edward G. Robinson, and “Happy Days,” in which “Fonzie has no place to go (for the holidays) but he’s too embarrassed to tell people. It moves me to tears. It was like a little movie.”
Martha Plimpton, starring in the Steppenwolf Theatre’s production of “The Glass Menagerie,” confesses a weakness for “those strange, stop-motion wooden animated” Christmas specials. “I love those. I do a great Heatmiser imitation (from ‘The Year Without a Santa Claus’). When they came out on video I was beside myself.”
Some holiday programming only comes along once in a decade. Chicago Cubs broadcaster Steve Stone said he will warm himself this season with a tape of the one-game playoff between the Cubs and the San Francisco Giants. “The Cubs win, the Giants go home, the Cubs go to the playoffs,” he said,”and then we fade to black.”
“The Grinch is the best. It gives a good message to kids that the holiday is not all about presents.”
– Wendell Young
