Classic Holiday Movies and Where to Find Them This Year

I tend to watch Christmas in Connecticut (the 1945 version) a few times every year around this time. Barbara Stanwyck is irresistible as a popular magazine writer who pretends to be an expert on everything domestic when she hasn't a clue how to keep a house, with Dennis Morgan as the handsome military man who dreams of a homey holiday dinner at her place. To accommodate the war hero, Babs will have to borrow a home in Connecticut, complete with husband and baby, and find a talent for flapjack flipping. "Cuddles" Sakall steps in as a friend who happens to run a restaurant, while Sydney Greenstreet is her demanding boss. This year, TCM will air Christmas in Connecticut Sunday the 11th at 1 pm Central time, at 9 pm on December 15, and at 7 pm on December 24.

Another romantic comedy I can't do without is The Shop Around the Corner, the sweet, sentimental movie about two shop clerks at a Budapest parfumerie who think they hate each other when they're really in love as pen pals. Like Christmas in Connecticut, The Shop Around the Corner is part of TCM's Christmas Classics lineup, airing December 15 at 7 pm and December 24 at 3:15 pm.

My third must-see rom com is Holiday, the 1938 Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn charmer where she's a rich girl and he's a self-made man who thinks he's in love with her snooty sister. Unfortunately, Holiday isn't showing up anywhere that I can find it between now and December 31. Not to worry: I have it on DVD because I really, really love this movie and I don't want to spend New Year's Eve without hearing "Happy New Year, Johnny," in Katharine Hepburn's voice. Still... Somebody at some network needs to get cracking and find a slot for Holiday.

One of my other favorite Christmas movies is Elf, a Will Ferrell vehicle from 2003 that casts him as a full-sized human accidentally raised as an elf at the North Pole. When he sets out to find his real father in New York, things get funny. And sweet. And charming. With Bob Newhart and Ed Asner in supporting roles, Elf can't go wrong. The newly dubbed Freeform network is offering Elf on December 12, 13, 18 and 19. The times are a little wacky (8, 6, 8:50, 5:50) so check your local listings to be sure you know when it starts. Or you can save your Elf for the big screen, since the Normal Theater will screen this holiday classic on Sunday the 11th at 7 pm.

There are, of course, a million zillion different versions of A Christmas Carol running around out there. The one with the Muppets will be on HBO at 5:40 am on December 16, while the 1938 black-and-white version with Reginald Owen as Scrooge airs on TCM at 8 am on December 18. TCM is saving the 1951 Alastair Sim Christmas Carol that has become the standard from endless TV reruns until December 22 at 10:30 pm, while it will offer Albert Finney's musical Scrooge at 7 pm on December 18 and then again at 9:30 am the day before Christmas. If George C. Scott's A Christmas Carol is more your style, Scott will be humbugging on AMC at 7 pm Central on the 17th and then again at noon on the 18th. The Muppets Christmas Carol and the Reginald Owen Carol are also part of the Normal Theater's holiday schedule, with the Muppets on December 17 at 1 pm and Reginald on Tuesday December 20 at 7 pm.

White Christmas isn't among my own faves, but it and It's a Wonderful Life certainly seem to sit at the top of everybody's else lists. Bing & Co. will be  extolling the virtues of snow snow snow on December 14, 16, 18, 22 and 24 at the Normal Theater, or at 9:30 pm on the 17th on the AMC channel, if you'd like to watch in your jammies in your own living room. Jimmy Stewart will illustrate all the reasons to live in It's a Wonderful Life at the Normal Theater on December 15, 17, 21 and 23, or on the USA network on the 10th (7 pm), 11th (8 am) and 16th (7 pm). All of these Normal Theater choices start at 7 pm.

A note about times: I tried to be careful and put everything in Central time, but it is a good idea to double-check what's what for you if you really don't want to miss one of your own faves.

Along with Holiday, I don't see Holiday Inn, Scrooged or the 1947 original Miracle on 34th Street* anywhere on the dial throughout the rest of December, although Scrooged and the Richard Attenborough remake of 34th Street are available on Netflix and Amazon can always hook you up with the others if you really need a copy or an instant view. I'm just happy I have copies of my own so I won't be left out in the cold. Cary and Kate will do acrobatics, Fred will dance with firecrackers, Bill Murray will get smacked with a toaster and little Natalie Wood will believe in Santa Claus at my house, anyway.

* I did see Miracle on 34th Street on demand on HBO, so it is out there!

The Best of the Holiday Movie Barrage Tonight and Tomorrow

We get an onslaught of holiday-themed movies this time of year, although a few of my favorites always seem to get left out. But this year, Turner Classic Movies is airing five of my favorites between 5 pm (Central) today and 4 am Wednesday morning.

The 1970 Albert Finney version of Scrooge is up first at 5 this evening. There are lots of Christmas Carols around, with excellent versions ranging from the 1938 black-and-white one with Reginald Owen to Alastair Sim in 1951, George C. Scott in 1984, Bill Murray in 1988, The Muppets (with Michael Caine) in 1992, and Patrick Stewart in 1999. You can also choose versions of this popular story that involve Barbie, Blackadder, The Flintstones, Susan Lucci, Mickey Mouse, Scrooge McDuck or Mr. Magoo. But the Albert Finney one is really fine, using the classic Victorian setting and co-stars like Edith Evans and Alec Guiness, plus music from Leslie Bricusse, to bring the tale of Ebeneezer Scrooge to life. Finney is one of the few Scrooges to play both old and young Ebeneezer, and that gives this version something extra.

The musical Meet Me in St. Louis, with young Judy Garland singing up a storm as part of a family enjoying the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair plays on TCM at 7 pm tonight as well as 8:15 tomorrow morning. Meet Me in St. Louis covers more holidays than Christmas -- its Halloween scenes are famous, as well -- but when Judy sings "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" as the family prepares to move away from St. Louis, this particular holiday trumps everything else. It's the saddest, sweetest Christmas song you can imagine, and it gets me every time. Margaret O'Brien repeatedly attempts to steal the show as Judy's youngest sister, while Mary Astor and Leon Ames play her parents and Marjorie Main makes a dandy family servant.

Ernst Lubitsch's lovely The Shop Around the Corner is up at 1:30 pm Tuesday. You know the story of two feuding co-workers who don't realize they are also romantic pen pals from other versions of it, from Parfumerie to She Loves Me, In the Good Old Summertime and You've Got Mail. But the light Lubitsch touch makes The Shop Around the Corner and romantic leads Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan something special. It doesn't hurt that the supporting cast -- Felix Bressart and The Wizard of Oz himself, Frank Morgan, among them -- is also first-rate. Christmas enters into the story as the shopping season that stresses out our gift shop employees and the family time that upsets the singles among them. It's truly a sweetheart of a movie.

The marquee seven o'clock slot on Tuesday is saved for Christmas in Connecticut, that jolly wartime charmer with Barbara Stanwyck as a magazine columnist who pretends to be the perfect housewife, cook, mother, wife and general home and hearth expert, even though she is really none of those things. Her ruse is discovered when a soldier (handsome Dennis Morgan) asks to spend Christmas with a "real" family like hers. And hilarity ensues! Look for S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall and the always irascible Sydney Greenstreet in the ensemble. For more about my thoughts on Christmas in Connecticut, click here.

You'll need to stay up late Christmas Eve or set the DVR to get my all-time favorite holiday movie, aptly titled Holiday, at 2:15 am Central time. This one pits Cary Grant against Katharine Hepburn -- he's a self-made man who wants to marry her sister and quit the biz to enjoy life, but the Seton family is too entrenched and too rich to let that happen. Edward Everett Horton and Jean Dixon play eccentric friends of Grant's Johnny Case, while Lew Ayres does an affecting turn as Hepburn's character's brother. As I said the last time I wrote about Holiday, "When it's Cary Grant playing Johnny, it's hard not to support his holiday. It's hard not to try to book a cabin on that ship and go right along with him. As Linda says, 'If he wants to dream for a while, he can dream for a while, and if he wants to come back and sell peanuts, oh, how I'll believe in those peanuts!'"

Right there with you, sister." Even at 2:15 am.