In the 1940s, a decade beset with geopolitical conflict and domestic rationing. Festive flicks from the era show not only that tinsel was the decoration du jour, but that the cheek-flushed rush of days leading up to Christmas Eve promised endless possibilities for soul-searching. Fitting. Christmas was catnip for Hollywood script writers: endlessly pliable for use in both romantic comedies and tear-jerking morale boosting dramas, many filmmakers used Christmas as a setting in myriad genres, from western to film noir to the musical. Ernst Lubitsch, Frank Capra, John Ford, Vincente Minnelli: all incredibly different filmmakers, united around the same, snow-sprinkled setting.
This was the golden age of the Christmas movie: a decade filled to the brim with stirring films using formulas that many have tried and failed to replicate.
In this article, I will introduce the top 10 best 1940s Christmas movies for you.
1. Remember the Night (1940)
IMDb RATING: 7,6/10
Remember the Night is a 1940 American Christmas romantic comedy trial film starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray and directed by Mitchell Leisen. The film was written by Preston Sturges and was the last of his scripts shot by another director, as Sturges began his own directorial career the same year with The Great McGinty.
With a sparkling Preston Sturges script, labeled by the scribe as “quite a lot of schmaltz, a good dose of schmerz and just enough schmutz,” the witty back-and-forth and surprisingly bleak ending means this never quite becomes saccharine. Here, the overarching message is of taking responsibility for one’s actions; Christmas becomes a tool for bringing out the best in someone, whether that’s a soft-hearted jury or a gruff jobsworth who has lost sight of what’s important in life.
Universal Studios released NTSC editions of the film on VHS on September 12, 1995, and on DVD on October 18, 2010. A Region A Blu-ray edition was made available on November 13, 2018. Odeon Entertainment released a Region 2 DVD on November 3, 2014.
2. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
IMDb RATING: 8,0/10
The Shop Around the Corner is a 1940 American romantic comedy film produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart and Frank Morgan. The screenplay was written by Samson Raphaelson based on the 1937 Hungarian play Parfumerie by Miklós László. Eschewing regional politics in the years leading up to World War II, the film is about two employees at a leather goods shop in Budapest who can barely stand each other, not realizing they are falling in love as anonymous correspondents through their letters.
The Shop Around the Corner is ranked #28 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions, and is listed in Time's All-Time 100 Movies. In 1999, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
The Shop Around the Corner was dramatized in two half-hour broadcasts of The Screen Guild Theater, first on September 29, 1940, with Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart, second on February 26, 1945, with Van Johnson and Phyllis Thaxter. It was also dramatized as a one-hour program on Lux Radio Theater's June 23, 1941 broadcast with Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche.
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3. I’ll Be Seeing You (1944)
IMDb RATING: 7,1/10
I'll Be Seeing You is a 1944 American drama film made by Selznick International Pictures, Dore Schary Productions, and Vanguard Pictures, and distributed by United Artists. The screenplay was by Marion Parsonnet, based on a radio play by Charles Martin (1910-1983).
It stars a post-Oscar Ginger Rogers as Mary, a prisoner on eight-day Christmas furlough, and Joseph Cotten as Zachary, a shellshocked sergeant on 10-day health leave due to his “neuro-psychiatric” issues. The brevity of their romance is reflected in the ephemeral whirlwind of the festive period, with both Mary and Zachary hiding their respective secret from one another due to fear of judgment.
The film is sympathetic to the unfair plight of women who have survived attempted sexual assault and are penalised for defending themselves, too. In short, it transcends, and then some, its marketing as a superficial bauble of a film.
The soundtrack includes the song "I'll Be Seeing You", which had become a hit that year, although it dated back to 1938. The film's title was taken from the song, at the suggestion of Schary.
4. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
IMDb RATING: 7,5/10
Meet Me in St. Louis is a 1944 American Christmas musical film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Divided into a series of seasonal vignettes, starting with Summer 1903, it relates the story of a year in the life of the Smith family in St. Louis leading up to the opening of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in the spring of 1904. The film stars Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Mary Astor, Lucille Bremer, Tom Drake, Leon Ames, Marjorie Main, June Lockhart and Joan Carroll.
The film was adapted by Irving Brecher and Fred F. Finklehoffe from a series of short stories by Sally Benson originally published in The New Yorker magazine called "The Kensington Stories" and later in novel form as Meet Me in St. Louis. The film was directed by Vincente Minnelli, who met Garland on the set and later married her. Tony Award-winning designer Lemuel Ayers served as the film's art director.
Upon its release, Meet Me in St. Louis was both a critical and a commercial success. It became the second-highest-grossing film of 1944, behind only Going My Way, and was also MGM's most successful musical of the 1940s. In 1994, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
The film was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Color, Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture and Best Music, Song (Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin for "The Trolley Song"). Margaret O'Brien received an Academy Juvenile Award for her work in Meet Me in St. Louis and several other films of the same year.
In 1994, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
The American Film Institute ranked the film 10th on its AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals list. Two songs from the film were included in the AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs list ("The Trolley Song" at #26 and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" at #76).
5. Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
IMDb RATING: 7,3/10
Christmas in Connecticut is a 1945 American Christmas romantic comedy film about an unmarried city magazine writer who pretends to be a farm wife and mother and then falls in love with a returning war hero. The film was directed by English director Peter Godfrey and stars Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan and Sydney Greenstreet.
Adept at playing both femme fatales and comediennes, Barbara Stanwyck is on peak form in this screwball comedy. Her fraudulent character, Elizabeth Lane, pretends she’s a culinary-minded housewife for her magazine column when in fact she’s a rather shallow ‘modern woman’ whose main ambition in life is to look fabulous and own a mink coat. Trying to keep up the pretense when her editor sends a dashing sailor to her non-existent farmhouse for the holidays, she’ll go to any length necessary to keep her job and the ruse. Things go even further south when Elizabeth begins to fall in love with her guest, who is not only engaged but enamored with a version of her that doesn’t exist.
The film was a big hit, earning $3,273,000 domestically and $859,000 in overseas markets. It has an 88% score on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 17 reviews.
6. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
IMDb RATING: 8,6/10
It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas supernatural drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra. It is based on the short story and booklet The Greatest Gift self-published by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1943, which itself is loosely based on the 1843 Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol. The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has given up his personal dreams in order to help others in his community and whose thoughts of suicide on Christmas Eve bring about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers). Clarence shows George all the lives he touched and what the world would be like if he did not exist.
It's a Wonderful Life is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time and among the best Christmas films. It was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and has been recognized by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 best American films ever made. It was No. 11 on the American Film Institute's 1998 greatest movie list, No. 20 on its 2007 greatest movie list, and No. 1 on its list of the most inspirational American films of all time. Capra revealed that it was his favorite among the films he directed and that he screened it for his family every Christmas season. It was one of Stewart's favorite films.
It's a Wonderful Life was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being deemed as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Prior to its Los Angeles release, Liberty Films mounted an extensive promotional campaign that included a daily advertisement highlighting one of the film's players, along with comments from reviewers. Jimmy Starr wrote, "If I were an Oscar, I'd elope with It's a Wonderful Life lock, stock and barrel on the night of the Academy Awards". The New York Daily Times published an editorial that declared the film and James Stewart's performance to be worthy of Academy Award consideration.
7. The Bishop’s Wife (1947)
IMDb RATING: 7,6/10
The Bishop's Wife is a 1947 black & white American supernatural romantic comedy film directed by Henry Koster, starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven. The plot is about an angel who helps a bishop with his problems. The film was adapted by Leonardo Bercovici and Robert E. Sherwood from the 1928 novel of the same name by Robert Nathan. It all culminates in a moving sermon that reasserts “loving kindness, warm hearts and the stretched out hand of tolerance,” and you can forgive the rather pious ending when the atmosphere is so evocative and moving. It’s a snowy flick perfect for Sunday afternoons. One ice-skating scene where Grant’s body double pirouettes around an ice-skating rink is so gleefully silly and simultaneously charming that you can’t help but be sucked in by the joy of the whole thing.
It was remade in 1996 as The Preacher's Wife starring Denzel Washington, Whitney Houston, and Courtney B. Vance.
The Bishop's Wife was dramatized as a half-hour radio play on the March 1, 1948, broadcast of The Screen Guild Theater with Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven in their original film roles. It was also presented on Lux Radio Theater three times as an hour-long broadcast: first on December 19, 1949, with Tyrone Power and David Niven, second on May 11, 1953, with Cary Grant and Phyllis Thaxter and third on March 1, 1955, again with Grant and Thaxter.
8. 3 Godfathers (1948)
IMDb RATING: 7,0/10
3 Godfathers is a 1948 American Western film directed by John Ford and filmed primarily in Death Valley, California. The screenplay, written by Frank S. Nugent and Laurence Stallings, is based on the 1913 novelette The Three Godfathers by Peter B. Kyne. The story is something of a retelling of the story of the Three Wise Men in an American Western context.
Ford had already adapted the novelette once before in Marked Men (1919)—a silent film thought to be lost today. He decided to remake the story in Technicolor and dedicate the film to the memory of long-time friend Harry Carey, who starred in the previous movie. Carey's son, Harry Carey, Jr., plays one of the title roles in this 1948 film.
The film has maintained its positive reception. It holds an 82% "Fresh" score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 11 critics. According to MGM records, the film earned $2,078,000 in the US and Canada and $763,000 overseas, resulting in a profit of $450,000.
9. Holiday Affair (1949)
IMDb RATING: 7,1/10
Holiday Affair is a 1949 American romantic comedy film directed and produced by Don Hartman and starring Robert Mitchum, Janet Leigh and Wendell Corey. It was based on the story Christmas Gift by John D. Weaver, which was also the film's working title. The film allowed Mitchum to briefly depart from his typical roles in film noir, Western films and war films, and his casting was intended to help rehabilitate his image following a notorious marijuana bust.
Starring Robert Mitchum in one of his rare sweet roles (which he reportedly took to fix his image after a cannabis drugs bust), Holiday Affair sees two men fighting for the romantic affections of a fresh-faced Janet Leigh. She plays Connie, a single mother widowed after her husband’s death during the war, who supports herself working as a competitive shopper. Unluckily for her, store clerk Steve Mason (Mitchum) spots her “corporate espionage” and threatens to warn every store in town about her.
After this rocky start, the pair soon realize they get on and find themselves repeatedly drawn to one another in the days leading up to Christmas, much to the chagrin of Connie’s fiancé. Eight-year-old Gordon Gebert is impossibly cute as her six-year-old son Timmy, but it’s the gentle chemistry between Leigh and Mitchum that really helps this sprightly film sparkle.
10. Cover Up (1949)
IMDb RATING: 6,6/10
Cover Up is a 1949 American film noir mystery film directed by Alfred E. Green starring Dennis O'Keefe, William Bendix and Barbara Britton. O'Keefe also co-wrote the screenplay, credited as Jonathan Rix. The murder mystery takes place during the Christmas season.
According to Madeleine Stowe, guest host of the May 21, 2016, Turner Classic Movies screening of Cover Up, the producer changed the time of the film, feeling the subject was unsuitable for a Christmas setting.
Set during the festive period and also centring the flirtation between Barbara Britton’s Anita and Dennis O’Keefe’s protagonist sleuth Sam, the film is rather genial for typical noirs in the period yet dark for the era’s typical Christmas movies.
For every tinsel-garbed fireplace and sparkling fir tree, there’s a shadowy silhouette and trail of gun smoke – even if overall the dialogue is more over-easy than hardboiled. Despite the thematic tug-of-war, though, Cover Up builds gentle suspense thanks to the off-kilter townsfolk bent on stymieing Sam’s investigation. It’s one of a small collection of film noirs set at Christmas, including Christmas Holiday (1944) and Lady in the Lake (1946), the rather amicable ending here a sign of that good ol’ Christmas spirit winning over.
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