One of the features of Christmas is the repetition of certain rituals, which are always the same, year after year. Many might find them reassuring.
I prefer to not express my own opinion too openly.
I might mention in casual order the overdose of red Santa’s hat, which are not only worn by consenting people, but are often imposed on the unaware heads of innocent creatures, like babies and pets.
The procedure is the following: you put the hat on the head of a baby
(preferably babies who cannot walk that much yet, to prevent them from running
away) or on the head of your patient and resigned dog ( in alternative also false
reindeer antlers can be suitable), you might also try with your cat, if he’s
sleeping, but be ready to face his reaction; the hat won’t stay on place for a
long time , when he wakes up. Then you take pictures of your victims and you
show them to friends and relatives, who are supposed to giggle and to
exclaim: “How cute!”.
What else? …ah yes, the old films on TV. They are a classic of Christmas Eve and Christmas afternoon. They are usually rather old and must overflow with good feelings and all the clichés of Christmas moods. Some of them are like those distant friends whom we meet only once a year so we find them pleasant, while if we had to meet more frequently, we could not bear them at all. An overdose of moving characters, smiling children, grumpy old men who at the end are touched by the magic of Christmas and become generous and caring. You know the old story, so it’s useless I repeat it.
I fell in this trap too. In a kind of lazy boredom I switched on TV and I stumbled upon the last film directed by Frank Capra starring Beth Davis and Glenn Ford. A Christmas comedy of 1961, old stuff, of course, but Frank Capra was Frank Capra,
the master of sophisticated Hollywood comedy and then Beth Davis and Glenn Ford, well…they were actors with a big “A”
I watched it. Then at the end I came to the conclusion that it was really old fashioned and the only amusing thing was recognizing the actors who played second roles and were still so young then, as the one who became famous playing the role of “Columbo” in a series of telefilm and the Swedish American Ann-Margret , in her first role in a film, I think.
But what made me think over were the presumed good feelings that the film was supposedto convey. It was all based on lies, people pretending to be different from what they are. A mother who deceives her daughter pretending to be a lady from high society, so the girl can get married to an improbable Spanish count. Of course it was just a kind of fairy-tale. Nevertheless the moral of the tale is that pretending to be rich and to show off is a good thing, so helping an alcoholic old street peddler who sells apples to cheat a rather naïve and equally presumptuous Spanish aristocratic is definitely a good deed. So the merry bunch, the daughter, her aristocratic fiancé and his father go back to Spain, while the false lady of New York high society, immediately becomes again the leader of her band of beggars.
I spare you the rest. But this is the essential plot.
Luckily I can remember Frank Capra as director of the delightfully "politically incorrect" film "Arsenic and Old Lace"
I prefer to not express my own opinion too openly.
I might mention in casual order the overdose of red Santa’s hat, which are not only worn by consenting people, but are often imposed on the unaware heads of innocent creatures, like babies and pets.
The procedure is the following: you put the hat on the head of a baby
(preferably babies who cannot walk that much yet, to prevent them from running
away) or on the head of your patient and resigned dog ( in alternative also false
reindeer antlers can be suitable), you might also try with your cat, if he’s
sleeping, but be ready to face his reaction; the hat won’t stay on place for a
long time , when he wakes up. Then you take pictures of your victims and you
show them to friends and relatives, who are supposed to giggle and to
exclaim: “How cute!”.
What else? …ah yes, the old films on TV. They are a classic of Christmas Eve and Christmas afternoon. They are usually rather old and must overflow with good feelings and all the clichés of Christmas moods. Some of them are like those distant friends whom we meet only once a year so we find them pleasant, while if we had to meet more frequently, we could not bear them at all. An overdose of moving characters, smiling children, grumpy old men who at the end are touched by the magic of Christmas and become generous and caring. You know the old story, so it’s useless I repeat it.
I fell in this trap too. In a kind of lazy boredom I switched on TV and I stumbled upon the last film directed by Frank Capra starring Beth Davis and Glenn Ford. A Christmas comedy of 1961, old stuff, of course, but Frank Capra was Frank Capra,
the master of sophisticated Hollywood comedy and then Beth Davis and Glenn Ford, well…they were actors with a big “A”
I watched it. Then at the end I came to the conclusion that it was really old fashioned and the only amusing thing was recognizing the actors who played second roles and were still so young then, as the one who became famous playing the role of “Columbo” in a series of telefilm and the Swedish American Ann-Margret , in her first role in a film, I think.
But what made me think over were the presumed good feelings that the film was supposedto convey. It was all based on lies, people pretending to be different from what they are. A mother who deceives her daughter pretending to be a lady from high society, so the girl can get married to an improbable Spanish count. Of course it was just a kind of fairy-tale. Nevertheless the moral of the tale is that pretending to be rich and to show off is a good thing, so helping an alcoholic old street peddler who sells apples to cheat a rather naïve and equally presumptuous Spanish aristocratic is definitely a good deed. So the merry bunch, the daughter, her aristocratic fiancé and his father go back to Spain, while the false lady of New York high society, immediately becomes again the leader of her band of beggars.
I spare you the rest. But this is the essential plot.
Luckily I can remember Frank Capra as director of the delightfully "politically incorrect" film "Arsenic and Old Lace"
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