Every year around this time, I find myself searching through a myriad of TV channels for two particular movies. It's really more of an urge than tradition, and just like figuring out which came first - chicken or egg, I'm not quite sure if my being in the holiday spirit makes me to want to watch my classics, or if watching them gets me into a festive mood.
My first choice is, and always will be "How the Grinch stole Christmas". No, not the silly and eminently unlikeable Jim Carrey version. (There is something to be said for toning down body acting when more subtlety is called for. Carrey cannot help but gyrate and undulate his torso reminiscent of an evil rattlesnake. Entirely too off-putting even for such a love-to-hate guy as the Grinch).
My favorite version remains the old cartoon classic, with the delicious narration by Boris Karloff. There is a reason I find myself singing "You're a Mean One, Mr Grinch" all the way through July after having seen the movie. .
The second classic I must watch in order to have had a successful and satisfying holiday week is the very old tearjerker, or what we nowadays call 'Chick Flick' "It's a Wonderful Life". Here is a man, at the end of his rope, ready to throw it all away because he sees suicide as the only alternative. Broke and destitute, debtors at his throat, wife and child potentially homeless, George Bailey decides to hop off a bridge into icy river waters. Surely ending his life would free his family from his ineptitude.
Luckily for George, Clarence the Angel is looking for a willing victim from whom he can earn his wings and finds Bailey a perfect choice. Clarence decides to show George how life would be if he had never been born. They visit various places and people (reminiscent of 'A Christmas Carol's Scrooge and his Christmas spirits) and with each visit, George likes what he finds less and less. Instead of being much improved, the world without George Bailey is sad and lacking.
"It's a Wonderful Life" would not have become a holiday classic if the ending had been anything but happy, so suffice it to say, they all lived happily ever after.
After watching this movie, and interesting phenomenon sets in with many people. They begin to imagine what life might be like, had they never entered it. Most of these 'what if' daydreamers arrive at the same conclusion George Bailey did. Life isn't so bad and it could be much worse without them.
But let us all imagine another George B. being given a walk-through of life without him. How would the world look without Dubya in it?
Stephanie Miller has this new take on an old Christmas classic.
Where is Clarence when we need him? Then again, the real George B. would probably make the same choice the movie George made, thinking life would be horrible without him in it. Unfortunately, he would pretty much stand alone with that opinion.
