Personally, I think my favorite Christmas movie is 1974’s Black Christmas, which can be referred to as an anti-Christmas one. It’s about the loneliness and disparity that can come with the supposedly “most wonderful time of the year”. Take away the slasher plot, and you’ll still get a realistically bleak holiday movie. However, that’s not included in the new and improved edition of Jeremy Arnold’s Christmas in the Movies, which showcases 35 more family-friendlier holiday flicks.
With more details than ever before, Arnold takes a look at original entries, including Miracle on 34th Street (1947), White Christmas (1954), The Apartment (1960), and Love Actually (2003), and a few new ones, such as The Cheaters (1945), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Holiday Inn (1942) Die Hard (1988), Home Alone (1990), and Joyeux Noel (2005).
Just like the original book, there’s tons of behind-the-scenes stories, rare photos (publicity and otherwise), information on crucial holiday moments from each film, and special pages: classic Christmas cartoons, Christmas in Film Noir, different versions of beloved adaptations that incorporate Christmas into them, and emphasis on the year 1947, which was a big year for holiday films.
I wish there could have been at least a couple of films from the 1970s included because there were some holiday hits in that decade, so this new edition feels a little incomplete, but that’s just me.
Despite that, this new book is still a great read and you’re bound to get a lot out of it, even if Christmas isn’t exactly your favorite time of the year.
