It's the most wonderful time of the year!
Forget school being back in season, it's time to gear up for Christmas.
This is one of my favorites to watch every year sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Forget the remake, if you're scared of black and white movies, you should be more scared of the lispy girl in the remake. Ptooey!
This is the classic tale of a man who claims to be Santa Claus, and by the end of the movie, he very well may be the man he claimed to be.
To see the cynicism melt away from the little girl (Natalie Wood) as the movie progresses is a great reminder to let kids enjoy being kids for as long as they can. They become cynical adults like her mom (Maureen O'Hara) soon enough. But when someone like Santa (Edmund Gwynn) come along and can break through the layers...
Miracles can happen.
John Payne also does a great job (as does the entire cast) as the attorney who sets out to prove that his client is indeed St. Nick...and maybe prove to the lady next door that he could be her leading man. He is a great everyman actor, in the same mold as Jimmy Stewart.
The tale resonates today as much as it did back then, maybe more so. If the world was disillusioned by commercialism back in the 1940s, imagine what has taken place in the intervening half century?
Yes, it's a sweet story... and tell me you don't get a little lump in your throat when he breaks out the the song for the little Dutch girl.
If you don't believe in Santa Claus, or the spirit of Christmas by the time the movie finishes...
You're a mean one... Mr. Grinch!
Case dismissed!
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