Of all the books I’ve gifted over the years, the first edition of this book is at the top of the list. It’s the perfect Christmas gift! Even if someone isn’t a “reader”, they’ll love looking at the gorgeous photographs, getting movie recommendations, and having a beautiful piece to display during Christmas. It’s the perfect conversation starter! And this new edition is bigger and better than ever!
Included in the new edition are new sections highlighting classic Christmas cartoons, the merriest movie year of 1947, and Christmas and Film Noir. New movie sections include The Preacher’s Wife and It Happened on Fifth Avenue. This new revised and expanded edition is full of gorgeous photographs of all the holiday classics, and over 70 pages of new content!
I had the pleasure of doing an interview via email with author Jeremy Arnold. If you don’t know Jeremy, he is a film historian who’s been on Turner Classic Movies many times over the years. He also wrote two other books for the Turner Classic Movies Library; The Essentials Vol. 1 and The Essentials Vol. 2. Add these books to your TBR pile if you haven’t already devoured them like me.
I asked Jeremy an array of questions, starting with, why an expanded and revised edition. He said “I wanted to do one even as I was writing the original book. They wanted that edition short and sweet, like a little holiday morsel”. He went on to say “In the following years, I gave the concept of Christmas movies more thought, and came up with serveral other aspects I was interested in exploring, like why there were so many holiday movies in the 1940’s, and a way of acknowledging other versions of A Christmas Carol. Also, the photos in the first book were not professionally retouched and restored, and I really wanted them to be”. Jeremy ended by saying ” Basically, I wanted a more complete look at the history of Christmas movies, though like I say in the author’s note, I never attempted to make it an encyclopedia. (Sorry, fans of The Santa Clause movies – they’re not mentioned!)”.
The new sections in the book are really fabulous additions to what was already an amazing book. I asked him about how these came about, and here’s what he had to say: “They were ways of examining dozens of further titles without making what is already a heavy book all the heavier. Many of the extra films are relatively minor as Christmas movies, and I explore why they are or aren’t, according to my definition, despite being labled as such by others. I was fascinated by the simultaneous rise of Christmas movies, and film noir and why they never fully joined (except in one case that I analyze: Blast of Silence). I wanted a chapter on classic yuletide-themed cartoons because animation was such a normal part of theatrical moviegoing. I loved researching those – a great excuse to see some fantastic classic cartoons. Animation historian Jerry Beck was very helpful in pointing me in some directions there. My favorite is the Tom and Jerry title “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (1941), in which Tom undergoes a Scrooge- like transformation and rescues Jerry from freezing to death”.
Although he touches on choosing movies for the book in the Introduction, I was curious about the process, and if any movies had to be left out. He started by saying ” Possibly the original Black Christmas because it’s certainly a cult item, but I’m not sure how much it actually qualifies under my definition of Christmas movie – and also, there’s something about a slasher movie that seemed out of place in this book.” He discussed how in the epilogue he talks about more modern Christmas movies like Arthur Christmas and The Holiday, and how it felt more interesting to write about them there, in the context of recent trends in Christmas movies. The book is an official TCM book, and because of such, he felt that overall the book should veer more heavily towards the classic studio era than to recent films. Jeremy followed up with, “Obviously there are many established classics and there are no questions about including those – It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, and the like. But with others, I just started viewing them and gradually came to my definition of “Christmas movie” which allowed me to cut films left and right”.
One of the new sections, as I stated in the beginning is about the merriest movie year of 1947. This year was loaded with classics like It Happened on Fifth Avenue, Miracle on 34th Street, and The Bishop’s Wife. It definitely got me thinking about he 1940s as a whole, and why it’s such a special decade for Christmas movies. Along with the already listed classics, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Man Who Came to Dinner, and The Shop Around the Corner all came out in the 1940s. So why is this decade so special? Here’s what Jeremy had to say: ” There’s a sweetness and poignancy to 1940s Christmas movies that I think comes from the feeling in the air overall in society at the time. Millions of Americans were off fighting the war, families were broken up and missing each other, and then mourning great loss of life and coming together to try and reconstitute themselves, with many veterans returning as psychologically changed men. Of course there were all kinds of movies made in the 1940s, but that fact that Christmas pops up so much, so regularly, I think shows how the mournfulness, wistfulness, loss, and joy at reconnecting were being channeled into cinema. Christmastime is form any of us a time to naturally reflect and mourn, just as it is to experience joy and come together. And those things were happening in full force across society in the 1940s”.
We’ve all got Christmastime movie staples in our homes. But what are Jeremy’s? He listed It’s a Wonderful Life, Remember the Night, Cash on Demand, The Muppet Christmas Carol, and Joyeux Noel as his. All of these films are discussed in the book in some capacity. I had to smile when I saw he had The Muppet Christmas Carol on his list. Many in my family hold this one dear to their hearts.
I’m a super fan of his first two books! Of course I couldn’t let him go without asking about the possibility of an Essentials Vol. 3. As of now, he says there are no plans. The films within the Volumes were all drawn from The Essentials show that no longer airs on TCM. He did say ” If the show ever comes back, that might be a good moment to do a third volume, we shall see”!
Christmas in the Movies is on sale now. Click the link at the top of blog to order from amazon. Christmas in the Movies is published by Running Press Book Publishers. Many thanks to Jeremy Arnold for agreeing to an interview via email. I came down with Covid and couldn’t make our Zoom meeting sadly.
May this book bring you some joy and cheer this holiday season.