A 50's TV Christmas

My mom picked up an early Christmas gift for me, an 8-DVD set of Christmas movies, cartoons, and TV programs. Called Holiday Family Collection, it features mostly material which is in the public domain, meaning that movie-wise, it's the same old tattered flicks you can buy for 5 bucks at a Wal-Mart holiday bin (the 1935 Scrooge, Beyond Tomorrow, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians). But the 4 discs with TV shows are worth having, if you like the holidays and don't mind mediocre prints of early television shows. There are Christmas episodes of relatively well-known shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, Ozzie & Harriet, and Red Skeleton, but what I'm enjoying are the shows that I'd never heard of, mostly from the late 40's and 50's. Who knew there was a Scarlet Pimpernel TV show with Marius Goring (the romantic lead in The Red Shoes)? Based on the vaguely Christmas-themed episode included here, it seems to have been a low-budget affair with lots of talk and little action, but as a novelty, it was fun to watch, and that's pretty much how it goes for the rest of the shows on the discs.

The most interesting thing I've watched so far is The Nativity, a 1952 hour-long episode of the Westinghouse Studio One anthology series. Notice I said "interesting," not "compelling" or "exciting" or "fun." It's an adaptation of the Nativity story put together from various mystery plays of the Middle Ages, presented in verse and intoned in a faux-Shakespearean spirit by a cast of slow-speaking, dreadfully serious actors, none of whom I recognized (there were no credits and the cast list on IMDb is woefully incomplete). The sets are shadowy and minimal, like I imagine an off-off-Broadway play would be like. The show was probably broadcast live; there are no noticeable dialogue flubs, but there are loud clunking sounds off-camera every so often--someone tripping, I presume.

The plotline is straightforward and traditional, with Mary and Joseph in a Bethlehem manger, angel visitations, three kings, four shepherds, and King Herod. Joseph has a whiny voice and Mary looks 30 if she's a day. A bright spotlight and echoey off-camera voice indicate the presence of an angel. The only real plot twist has the shepherds (three older guys, one younger "Gilligan" type) bringing humble gifts of their own to the Christ child. Most descriptions of this show online call it a musical, but the rhymed dialogue is spoken, not sung. The Robert Shaw Chorale does provide a more or less continuous flow of carols and hymns in the background, and they are well chosen to match the narrative. The writing is not the strong suit here (there are lines like "Kneel we down on knee" and "Heartily I pray with all my heart"), and neither is the acting. Actually, there is no strong suit; this isn't really very entertaining to a 21st century viewer, but I did stick with it, imagining I was a 50's TV viewer with only a couple of network choices available.

I also watched a half-hour 1949 production of Dickens' A Christmas Carol (oddly titled "The Christmas Carol"), narrated by Vincent Price. It hits most of the high spots of the story (the Cratchits, Marley, three ghosts, Christmas morning redemption) but given how much it has to cram into thirty minutes, it still drags along in the middle. The Ghost of Christmas Past (Nelson Leigh) is the most effective of the ghosts, despite being clad in pretty much just a sheet. Scrooge is played by Taylor Holmes, father of 30's leading man Phillips Holmes (pictured above with Leigh), and he's about the worst Scrooge I've ever seen--it's not that he's bad, but he commits the sin of making the character dull. His transformation at the end is OK, and I gave thanks that Tiny Tim's presence was kept to a minimum.

Lastly, I saw the Liberace Christmas show from 1953. It's a half-hour of Liberace mostly alone at his piano (complete with candelabra), playing and sometimes singing songs like "Sleigh Ride," "Jingle Bells," and "Silent Night." He's accompanied occasionally by strings, and the episode ends with his large family arriving, as through having come over the river and through the woods, and his brother George dressed as Santa Claus--see the picture at the top of the blog post. I mostly remember Liberace as a campy over-the-top schmaltzmeister, but here he plays it pretty straight (no pun intended) and the music is quite pleasant. He even gets all serious and tells the Christmas story. He introduces his mother, Frances, as his producer, and apparently she really was. There's a Thanksgiving episode included on the set which I haven't seen yet, but I hear it features a genuine Pueblo dancer performing to something called "Ritual Fire Dance," so I'll have to make room on my busy TV schedule this month to see it. I may report back later if anything else in the boxed set is worth noting, but I'm already happy I have it so I'll have some new holiday treats to indulge in this year.