Mr. Massaro will be sharing four films from his Christmas collection with us this Advent Season. Lunch and babysitting will be provided.
November 29, 12:45 pm: WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND (1961 – 99 minutes)
A young farm girl (Haley Mills), living in North Country, England, discovers during the Christmas Holidays, a fugitive murderer (Alan Bates) who has taken refuge in the family barn. She and her brother and sister come to believe he is Jesus Christ. This story of childhood innocence, written by Mills’ mother, illustrates well a statement from Mother Teresa. When told by her admirers that the spirit of Christ lived in her, she replied, “No. Rather, I try to see the spirit of Christ in every human being I meet.”
December 6, 12:45 pm: IT HAPPENED ON 5TH AVENUE (1947 – 115 minutes)
It’s not Dickens’ A CHRISTMAS CAROL but a wonderful Holiday tale, nevertheless, of a multimillionaire “Scrooge” (Charlie Ruggles) who finds his common humanity once again by being forced, by his demanding daughter (Gale Storm), to live with his fellow-suffering human beings. A bit over-long, this film is still a great joy to experience as it resolutely unfolds.
December 13, 12:45 pm: JOYEUX NOEL (MERRY CHRISTMAS) (2006 – 116 minutes) Here is a film dramatizing what truly happened in 1914 when on a World War I battlefield Scottish, French and German troops declared a Christmas Eve truce and abandoned the trenches for one night to band together in brotherhood, sing together and forget about the brutalities of war. The film’s closing scenes, where our Anglican bishop bawls out and tries to humiliate the Scottish chaplain for his common human impulses, shows clearly why John Wesley left that religious institution. This is the film that makes you proud to be a Methodist! This film is rated PG-13 for war-violence and is not suitable for children.
December 20, 12:45 pm: MEET JOHN DOE (1941 – 123 minutes)
America was in the grip of the Great Depression, over 12 million citizens unemployed, when Frank Capra made his greatest film. Ballplayer Long John Willoughby (Gary Cooper) is fed his lines by a woman reporter (Barbara Stanwyck) which starts a movement of universal, Christ-like brotherhood that ends unemployment. The Pontius Pilates of our day destroy it, and the story reaches its climax on the last floor of a skyscraper on Christmas Eve. What the Stanwyck-character has to say about Jesus in the film’s final minutes will bring tears to the eyes of any listener. This is one of the 10 great films of Cinema history.
--- David Massaro
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