Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Today's Prompt - Holiday Movie Scenes

There is no one in the world, as my kids will attest, who loves a good holiday movie more then yours truly. I'll start watching them on Thanksgiving Day (Miracle on 34th Street) right on through New Years. I love them all. Lets face it, they all come out for the good in the end and whats not to like about that? Lets go to the video tape and look at some of my favorite scenes:

Love Actually
Favorite scene has to be Jamie (Colin Firth) proposing to Aurelia (Lucia Moniz) in the restaurant where she is working. I could watch that scene over and over. Very magical and from the heart. Second favorite scene is the school pageant and Joanna Anderson (Olivia Olson) singing "All I Want for Christmas". That girl can sing. If you ever watched the movie with the Directors comments on he said that she was so good that they had to dub in breath sounds to make it more believable that a 10 yr old (I think that was her age) actually sang the song.

One Magic Christmas
Favorite scene is where Ginny Grainger (Mary Steenburgen as the Mom) finds the letter that Abbie (Elisabeth Harnois as the Grainger daughter) has brought back from the North Pole given to her by Santa Claus. He tells Abbie that the letter will help her Mom make her dad all better (The dad had been shot and killed). The letter was written to Santa by Ginny when she was Abbie's age (6) and still believed in things like Santa Claus. Gets me every time. The list of toys in the letter are from a much simpler time. A Mister Potato Head was one and it always makes me smile.

The Polar Express
It took me a while to finally watch this movie. The whole digital capture/re-skin the characters took a while to get use to. The scene I like the best is at the end, where the narrator (The Hero Boy) explains that only true believers can hear the bell (a gift off of Santa's sleigh that was given to the boy as a gift from Santa) and how over time all his friends and eventually even his younger sister, could no longer hear the bell. Oh that we could all still hear the bell.

Miracle on 34th Street
The 1947 version with Natalie Wood, Maureen O'Hara and Edmund Gwen is my favorite version. There are two scenes that I love in this movie (actually more, but I'll limit myself to two). The first is where Santa first directs a Macy's shopper to another store to find that hard to find toy - a fire engine for her son. His talk to his Mother about where to find the fire engine and for how much and how Christmas was about making the children happy and not who makes the sale is priceless. The second is at the hearing into Santa's sanity (oh so politically incorrect these days) and the scene where Santa's lawyer is reading about the U.S. Postal Service and how big and efficient it is. That always brings a laugh and even more so when the judge tells him to bring in all the evidence and the bailiffs bring in bag after bag of letters (21 in all according to IMDb) to Santa that were in the NYC dead letter office. Love it.

Prancer
Another Christmas movie that I came late too. Your heart just goes out to this little girl who has lost her mother and her father is on the verge of losing their farm. My favorite scenes in this one is where the Minister reads an editorial from the local paper about her (Jessica Riggs played by Rebecca Harrell) and her belief in Santa Claus and her idea to get the injured Prancer back to him. The second is when her Dad reads to her from a book the article entitled "Yes Virginia There is A Santa Claus". Ok I'll throw in a third, but its a given when they release Prancer and he hooks back up with Santa (after thinking he jumped to his death - yikes) is always a tear jerker.

A Christmas Carol
I own the George C. Scott version of this classic although I always try to catch the 1938 version as well with Reginald Owen as Scrooge. It also stars practically the whole Lockhart family including a 16 yr old June Lockhart of "Lassie" and "Lost in Space" fame. Her father Gene, who play Cratchit also plays the judge in the 1947 Miracle on 34th Street. Actually my favorite scene comes early in the film when Scrooge's nephew Fred visits Scrooge at his office and gives a short speech on what Christmas means to him and mankind in general. I always use it in my Christmas Eve post.

That was fun reliving those memories and thanks to IMDb for help on dates and names. I hope some of you will jump in with some of your favorite scenes.


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