I hate to sound smug (well, perhaps "hate" isn't what I mean, I actually enjoy gloating), but I only watch TCM at other people's homes, because I don't have TV in my house. What I have is a huge collection of movies on DVD that probably rivals TCM's, and which I get to watch when I want to, and as often as I like. I'm very interested in movies, and love watching what I want when I want to. Leaving that discretion up to corporate shills will inevitably disappoint, which is why I don't do it that way. Independence and self-reliance, as many commentators here are no doubt aware, is a very good thing and has its benefits. Dependence on other people's choices means, inevitably, that you're going to be disappointed not only in their choices but in the reasons they made those choices, like the dim bulb referenced in the article. Of course, if you don't have the storage space for a large collection of DVDs, there's always Netflix, but my point is, why depend on TV to tell you about movies? I mean, there are other choices...

Jeeze, you young people... I haven't seen Die Hard hundreds of times, or even once, thank you. I liked your choice of Battleground, but you left out Stalag 17. Sleepless in Seattle??!! That used to be my litmus test for dates; if a woman admitted she liked it, that was enough for me to stop seeing her. God, sometimes reading this website makes me feel old, and I'm only in my mid 50s. It reminds me of when my kids' friends call movies like "Star Wars" classic movies, because they were made "way back in the '70s." Yeesh.

Great choices! I recently found the entire Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol on Youtube, and was enchanted to finally see it in color. For some reason, I remember How the Grinch Stole Christmas being aired soon after Walt Disney died; I remember feeling very sad when I first saw it. I've recently ordered it from Netflix, so that, again, I can finally see it in color. Ah, those days when the world outside was all in black and white...

Good choice; I recently saw Going My Way for the first time. The irony of using Carl Switzer in a choir was brilliant, I thought (everyone knows Alfalfa can't sing). I'm still looking forward to Bells of St. Mary's.

Frankly, I haven't seen movies in the theater for so long I'd have a hard time remembering which was the last one I saw. Instead, I have a very large collection of DVDs, most of which are in black and white and made many decades ago, which I watch on a projection screen at home. That way, I can watch WC Fields and the Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, John Ford's many masterpieces, Jean Renoir's epics, Orson Welles' gems, George Cukor's and Howard Hawks' brilliant comedies, etc. on a big screen, and enjoy real movies, starring real people. The only cartoons I own were all made in the 20s, 30s, and 40s by Warner Brothers or Walt Disney, and were made for real children, as opposed to the cartoons I hear about now which are made for 30 and 40 year old children. I get to see Gene Kelly musicals and REAL Christmas movies like Holiday Inn, or White Christmas, instead of snarky, politically correct "holiday movies" that make you think it's all about shopping. And I reckon I get real value for my money -- for about twice what the suckers pay each year for theater tickets, I get to see movies I actually enjoy, and can watch them as many times as I want.

I'm still in love with Hollywood, but the one I'm in love with died years ago. She was great, and I still get to see her wonderful products every night, and can pause them when I need to get more popcorn. The real masterpieces are still there on DVD, thank God.

Indeed, Hitler killed more than the 6 million Jews we all hear about, including some of my Catholic relatives in France! Those totalitarians -- to me, the most interesting fact about history is that governments kill more people than wars do. For example, the government ban on DDT has been responsible for more than 40 million deaths from malaria. That's nearly as many people as were killed in World War II.

I don't know what Eddie and the Cruisers is, though. Was there a Toby Tyler in that one? My post name comes from the book (and later film) about the boy who ran away and joined the circus, just like I did many years ago. I'll have to look up Eddie, et al. and see what it's about. Thanks!

When I hear people talking about how wonderful Castro is, I always remind them: Castro killed my children's great-grandfather. He had him lined up against a wall and shot, along with a lot of other people. And while about 300 people died trying to cross the Berlin Wall, as many as 80,000 people have died trying to escape Castro's Cuba, either by drowning when their makeshift boats fell apart, or being eaten by sharks, or machine-gunned by guards.

Facts are such troublesome things, aren't they?

As for Mao's China being a truly people's government -- I can't count how many Chinese I've met over the years who have relatives who were murdered by that same "people's government." There are 60 million graves in China as a result of that people's government's actions, ten times more slaughter than Hitler committed in Europe.

This Zinn sounds like a complete loon, frankly. But there's no shortage of loons here in America, is there? Freedom does indeed have its cost.

Great to see you again on Big Hollywood, Mr. Moriarty! Keep those posts coming!

My own take re: poverty and crime came from my own experiences with poverty. When I was a kid, my parents split up and my mom moved us into a housing project, which was all we could afford. Everyone there was, of course, poor, but I knew of no neighbors who were engaged in crime. If there was any common thread among the inhabitants, it was religion. People who were poor tended to be the most avid churchgoers, and all of our neighbors had pictures of Jesus and/or crucifixes hanging on their walls (since it was in the heart of Cajun Louisiana, most people were Catholics). One could argue that the values they held kept them honest, I suppose. Also, I recall most of my former neighbors going on to work their way through trade schools and/or local colleges, which in turn enabled them to become more successful and eventually move out of the projects. None of them stole their way out of it.

The only poor people we saw engaging in crime were in the movies, like the one you listed (you've only seen Dead End a couple of weeks ago? What is it with people in the movie business not watching movies? I guess you're either in the movies or you go to the movies, eh?). The point is: movies are fiction. They're basically parables, used to grind whatever ax the writer/producer/director was into. I've seen other movies about poverty -- The Grapes of Wrath, Tobacco Road are two that come to mind -- which show people who are poor who do not "automatically" gravitate toward crime as a solution. But then, John Ford wasn't a socialist.

I remember watching Dead End on television when I was a kid living in the projects, and I never thought that poverty led to crime. It just wasn't a message that made sense to me, because I didn't see any real people succeeding as criminals, nor did I think that just because my family was poor we were somehow failures, or even doomed to stay poor. Now, for example, I'm underemployed, and living in reduced circumstances, but it hasn't once entered into my mind that the solution would be to become a criminal. That's not something that poor people do, it's something that immoral people do. Assuming that poor people are also immoral smacks of class hatred to me.

The other thing I learned from being poor is that the poor aren't socialists. Socialism was an idea born in the comfortable middle class, after all -- Karl Marx wasn't poor. People who are a few steps removed from reality, like millionaires and the petit-bourgeois, come up with some goofy ideas. But then, idle hands can be the devil's workshop, eh?

Thanks again for a good post. And you should watch more old movies!

This website is starting to make me feel like an old curmudgeon. "The Santa Clause??!!" "Smokey and the Bandit!?!?!?"

Jeeze, the taste of you youngsters...

While I generally never watch the Academy Awards, I do have one happy memory of the Oscars from, I assume, 1970. There was a musical number -- several movie stars sang "Thank You Very Much" in different languages, and I'll never forget Burt Lancaster lustily singing "molte, molte gracie!"

A great movie! It's always been my favorite movie version of A Christmas Carol. I can't sit through the last ten minutes of the film without weeping for joy.

I'll be curious to see the rest of the 25th best Christmas movies. My own favorites include We're No Angels (with Humphrey Bogart), Comfort and Joy, and the one you listed today, Scrooge. Merry Christmas!