About Christmas TV History

Friday, December 4, 2009

Naughty but Nice

SET YOUR DVRs: Saturday 12/5 for 1:45 pm (EST) on TCM channel to watch the movie Holiday Affair.

This classic Christmas romance movie is noted here because it stars the handsome and irresistible Robert Mitchum. I included Mitchum in the Cool MYOM listings on pg. 25. Mitchum was a well-known Bad Boy of Hollywood, actually serving jail time for getting busted smoking pot (he claims he was framed.) Anyhoo....he's irresistible to not just me but to Janet Leigh's character in Holiday Affair. This is the same actress that many may recognize from Hitchcock's Psycho.

This film was so charming that it inspired a remake in 1996 starring David James Elliott and Cynthia Gibb. Elliott is recognizable from his starring role on the long-running JAG TV series and Gibb has been in many made-for-TV movies. This version is adaquate but few actors best Mitchum for machismo. My favorite Mitchum movie is 1958's Thunder Road which he wrote, produced and starred in. He also sang the theme song! Very ambitious for a convicted pot-smoker.

Christmas movie fans know that Mitchum also appears in 1988's Scrooged as Bill Murray's character's network executive boss, Preston Rhinelander. Mitchum also plays the lead in the noir/horror film The Night of the Hunter, a film which ends with a Christmas scene.

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