Bowie was scheduled to sing a duet with Crosby of “The Little Drummer Boy.”

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The pair seemed an odd fit artistically, but commercially it made sense, at least in theory. Bowie was then seeking to somewhat mainstream his career, and the producers of Crosby’s special no doubt hoped that a young, ultra-hip performer like Bowie would bring in a demographic not normally inclined to tune in to a very old-fashioned holiday special.

But Bowie balked at the choice of songs; he thought “Little Drummer Boy” was wrong for him, and asked the producers if he could do something else.  So, as The Washington Post described the scene:

Just hours before he was supposed to go before the cameras, though, a team of composers and writers frantically retooled the song. They added another melody and new lyrics as a counterpoint to all those pah-rumpa-pum-pums and called it “Peace on Earth.” Bowie liked it. More important, Bowie sang it.

But before he sang it, the conventions of the form dictated that the two men, who barely knew each other (indeed, there is some dispute whether or not Crosby even knew who Bowie was), engage in some very canned, very stilted banter. And boy, did they ever succeed.

The segment begins with a doorbell ringing. Crosby answers the door and lets in David Bowie, who introduces himself and asks Bing, “You’re the one who sings, right?” Ouch. Crosby answers, ‘Well, right or wrong, I sing either way.” Bowie casually mentions that he, too, is a singer. Bing’s eyes light up: “Good! What kind of singing?”

The whole thing is so cheesy, so painful to watch, that when the piano at last heralds the beginning of the inevitable duet, one cringes at the train wreck about to ensue.

But then something very strange happens: There is no train wreck. The two men slip into perfect, haunting harmony. Bowie looks into the camera and sings his part with a sincere and restrained melancholy, Crosby buoying him softly with the staccato refrain pah-rumpa-pum-pum. It is, frankly, weird. It shouldn’t have worked at all. But it did, in true Christmas miracle fashion.

It was one of Crosby’s finest moments, and also one of his last; one month after recording the special, and one month before it aired, the 73 year-old crooner was dead.

The Crosby/Bowie duet remains one of the most memorable and surreal moments in television history. It is far and away my favorite Christmas song. I hope you like it, too.

Merry Christmas.

JAVIER BARDEM IS BOND 23′S VILLAIN

This is good news. Bardem is a larger-than-life presence on the screen and Bond could use some larger-than-lifeness — especially if all that larger-than-lifeness is filmed on a tripod.

GENE HACKMAN TO COME OUT OF RETIREMENT?

Somewhere around 1983, Gene Hackman became my favorite living actor and remained so until his 2004 retirement (Michael Caine now owns that spot). Last I heard, The Mighty Gene Hackman is loving life somewhere in Arizona, where at the age of 81 he paints and writes.

I’d like to– No, I want to always remember Hackman as the epitome of everyday masculinity that he portrayed so brilliantly in every film regardless of the role. I don’t want to see him old and frail. Today he might be as strong and vibrant as Robert Duvall is at the age of 80, but if he’s not I don’t want to know about it.

This is why I refuse to see “Ragtime.” I simply cannot bear the thought of The Mighty Jimmy Cagney as an old man and won’t put myself through it.

TARANTINO CASTS DON JOHNSON AS PLANTATION OWNER PIMP IN ‘DJANGO’

What a superb piece of casting. With better script choices I’m almost positive Johnson could’ve been the movie star he deserved to be. You want to see an underrated pulper that thanks to Johnson’s hangdog performance deserves a bigger audience…?

“Dead Bang,” my friends. B-movie heaven, directed by the great John Frankenheimer. Rent it tonight. You’ll thank me in the morning.

IS IT TIME FOR NETFLIX CEO REED HASTINGS TO STEP DOWN?

Anyone want to guess my answer to this question? I have never seen the goose that lays the golden egg murdered by so much stupidity and arrogance. After he steps down Hastings should then assume the permanent position of being ashamed of himself.

Dumbass.

And, wow… (though it seems alarmist):  Analyst: Netflix Will Go Bankrupt In A Year

ULTRAVIOLET TO THE RESCUE: CLOUD FORMAT DEBUTS WITH ‘HORRIBLE BOSSES’

So the whole idea here is that because movies can now be stored in some online “cloud” that makes them accessible on any mobile device, this will revive the decimated DVD sales business.

Does “the cloud” make the movies not suck as much?

Does “the cloud” make the movie stars more likable and less obnoxious?

Does “the cloud” have an option that allows you to watch “shaky-cam free”?

Cuz if not… No sale.

Also, Apple wanted no part of this and from what I’ve read that Steve Jobs fella was nobody’s fool.

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINK-TACULAR

Side note: Does ScottDS find the coolest links, or what?

LIFETIME REMAKING ‘STEEL MAGNOLIAS’ WITH AN ALL-BLACK CAST

HBO PICKS UP STEVEN SODERBERGH’S LIBERACE BIOPIC STARRING MICHAEL DOUGLAS AND MATT DAMON

SANDRA BULLOCK TO PLAY CLINT EASTWOOD’S DAUGHTER?

‘PRIMER’ DIRECTOR SHANE CARRUTH PREPPING NEW FILM

COOL VIDEO: ORSON WELLES’S LAST INTERVIEW TAPED TWO HOURS BEFORE HIS DEATH

FIVE COOL MOVIE PRESIDENTS

WHY WE KEEP COMING BACK TO H.G. WELLS’S DYSTOPIAN FUTURE

‘AUSTIN POWERS’ HENCHMAN ACCUSED OF KILLING CELLMATE

‘HUGO’ ADVANCED SCREENING REVIEWS & FEATURETTE

‘LORD OF THE RINGS IN CONCERT’ COMING TO HONDA CENTER

CBS BOSS SAYS NO FRIGGIN’ WAY TO ‘JERSEY SHORE’

GANG TRIES TO KIDNAP SADDAM LOOK-ALIKE TO MAKE PORN *link fixed*

10 MOST DISGUSTING MEALS IN CINEMATIC HISTORY

25 ACTORS YOU DIDN’T KNOW APPEARED IN ‘STAR TREK’

TONY BENNETT SAW LADY GAGA NAKED

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

Another debate where our genius GOP stupidly agreed to let hostile and not terribly bright MSM leftists ask them loaded questions based on the premise that your compassion can only by judged by how big you want the State to become.

You know what I miss most about being a liberal? Voting against Republicans. But the Left is evil and we’re only awful, so what are you going to do?

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CLASSIC PICK FOR THURSDAY,  OCTOBER 13

TCM:

2:00 AM  EST: Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, A (1949) — A blow to the head sends an auto mechanic back to the days of Camelot. Dir: Tay Garnett Cast:  Bing Crosby, Rhonda Fleming, Sir Cedric Hardwicke. C-107 mins, TV-G, CC.

DerBingle at his most relaxed and charming. The winning plot just rolls along at its own leisurely pace and sweeps you up in the splendid silliness of it all that pastes a 107-minute smile across your face.

First time I saw this, I was 11 years-old and every viewing since still makes me feel that way.

Here’s a preview. Believe it or not, the old man is Sir Cedric Hardwicke.

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“If you insist?”

“I dust, I dust.”"

As I mentioned before, I’m currently making my through James Cagney’s auto-biography and he tells a fascinating story about how hard Crosby worked to make it looks so easy and laid-back. Up close, Cagney says, after one of those “easy-going” performances, Crosby would walk backstage covered in sweat. Only then would the strain show.

Giants. These men were giants.

--Please send tips/suggestions/requests/complaints to jnolte@breitbart.com

Big Peace: Professor Kengor, Hollywood is celebrating its Academy Awards, a look back at great actors and actresses and films.

Kengor: For me, it’s a moment to look back at Hollywood’s worst communists, communist sympathizers, Stalinists, and duped liberals and progressives—as well as the good guys (and gals) that fit none of those categories.

Big Peace: Fair enough. This should be fun. Let’s start with communists.

Charlie Chaplin comment, “Thank God for
communism!” will make you see (him) red.

Kengor: How about the Hollywood screenwriters who liberals still insist were innocent lambs? Dalton Trumbo, Communist Party code “Dalt T;” Albert Maltz, party no. 47196; Alvah Bessie, no. 46836; John Howard Lawson, no. 47275. Or, if you turn to page 191 of my book—if you don’t have a copy yet, shame on you—you can view Arthur Miller’s party application. Miller wrote The Crucible, about how Joe McCarthy pursued “liberals” unfairly suspected of being communists—“liberals” like Miller, Trumbo, Maltz, Bessie, Lawson.

Big Peace: As you say in Dupes, Hollywood produced “quite a cast.” Let’s narrow the focus to the Academy Awards.

Kengor: Among films that have canonized communists, Julia (1977) celebrated the scowling Lillian Hellman and her mystery lover/writer, Dashiell Hammett, who we now know was a CPUSA member. Hellman wrote a bitter play called Scoundrel Time, about Joe McCarthy. In Hellman’s universe, it was Joe McCarthy, not Joe Stalin, who was evil. Winning Oscars for Julia were Jason Robards and Vanessa Redgrave. Fittingly, Lillian Hellman was played by Jane Fonda, recently retired from her real-life role as Vietcong go-go girl. “If you would understand what communism was,” Fonda pleaded with a student audience, “you would pray on your knees that we would someday be communist.”

Big Peace: Another film from that period that celebrated American communists was Warren Beatty’s Reds (1981).

Kengor: That film lionized American Bolshevik John Reed. Reed today is buried in the wall of the Kremlin, a structure responsible for upwards of 60-70 million deaths. Maureen Stapleton won an Oscar for her role in that film as “Red” Emma Goldman, a woman so radical that Woodrow Wilson’s Justice Department deported her to Russia.

Big Peace: Which Academy Award winner made the worst statement about communism?

Kengor: I would roll out the red carpet for Charlie Chaplin. “Thank God for communism!” said the silent film star. “They say communism may spread all over the world. I say, so what?” The Daily Worker thrust that comment onto its front page. Communism, of course, did spread around the world, killing 100-140 million. How’s that for a “so what?”

Big Peace: You have several Oscar winners in Dupes whose names were raised as potential communists by a party organizer in Los Angeles who testified under oath to a grand jury and to Congress.

Kengor: The party organizer was John Leech. Most of those he named turned out to be proven party members. Among those who denied Leech’s charges were Jimmy Cagney, who won an Oscar for Yankee Doodle Dandy, Fredric March, who won it twice, and Humphrey Bogart, who won for The African Queen. I think Cagney was at least momentarily interested in the Communist Party.

Big Peace: We talked previously about your fascinating material on Humphrey Bogart, profiled in a feature by Big Hollywood (click here).

Kengor: In the Soviet Comintern Archives on CPUSA, I found a “Bogart” at the Workers School in New York in 1934. With great care, and with all the declassified documents, I consider whether this was Humphrey Bogart. I found no smoking gun, but it’s extremely intriguing.

Big Peace: We do know that Bogart was a dupe.

Kengor: He was a self-admitted dupe, ashamed at how the communist screenwriters lied to him and other celebrities that formed a group called the Committee for the First Amendment. They flew all the way to Washington to defend their “progressive” friends, only to learn that the screenwriters were closet Stalinists. Bogart was enraged, snapping, “You [expletives] sold me out!” Yes, they did. The Reds had no concern for the reputations of these actors.

Other duped liberals who threw their support behind these communists, and won Academy Awards, were Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, and Judy Garland.

Big Peace: Perhaps the biggest Oscar winner is also one of your biggest dupes: Katharine Hepburn.

Kengor: Yes. One of the sorriest episodes in Hepburn’s illustrious career came when she delivered, in flame red dress, a speech at a May 1947 Progressive Party Rally. The speech was unerringly close to the Soviet line. Why wouldn’t it be? It was written by one of those “liberal” screenwriters: Dalton Trumbo. People’s Daily World reprinted the entire text. Hepburn hit a home-run for the comrades.

Big Peace: Burl Ives won an Oscar for The Big Country (1958). Tell us about Ives.

Kengor: Burl Ives also sang some wonderful Christmas tunes. He was in a folk group called “The Almanacs,” which alternately included Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and (among others) Will Geer—“Grandpa Walton” on The Waltons, a wild left-winger, and Columbia University grad, naturally. Some of these guys joined the party. “The Almanacs” were exploited by the seditious communist front-group, American Peace Mobilization, which appeased Hitler because Hitler signed a non-aggression pact with Stalin. They were the musical entertainment for the mobilization’s signature event in New York in April 1941. Go to pages 142-157 of Dupes, which presents materials from that rally—including Soviet orders to sucker “social justice” pastors, which occurred with tremendous success.

Big Peace: On the plus side, you highlight duped liberals who learned and changed, including in Hollywood. Sticking to Oscar winners, give some examples.

Kengor: If I were giving awards for best converted dupes, male and female—who also won Oscars—they would go to Melvyn Douglas and Olivia de Havilland. Douglas warned his fellow liberals about being duped. Ditto for de Havilland, who we discussed previously (click here). Unlike Katharine Hepburn, de Havilland, who played “Melanie” in Gone With the Wind, refused a pro-Soviet speech written by Trumbo.

Big Peace: Also on the plus side, list some Oscar winners who remained committed anti-communists throughout their career.

Kengor: Top billing goes to John Wayne, of course, who won for True Grit, and declared that Hollywood needed a good communist “de-lousing.” Others: Charlton Heston, Red Buttons, Frank Sinatra, Donna Reed, Loretta Young, Bing Crosby, Ginger Rogers, Jimmy Stewart, Shirley Temple. William Holden, who, with Ronald Reagan (click here), crashed a meeting of Hollywood communists in 1946. Gary Cooper, who won two Oscars, testified before Congress as a friendly witness on communist infiltration in Hollywood. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert both won awards for It Happened One Night (1934).

Finally, I tip my hat to Haing Ngor, real-life survivor of Pol Pot’s Cambodian holocaust. Ngor won an Oscar for playing “Dith Pran” in The Killing Fields (1984). After all that, he was murdered in California in 1996.

Big Peace: Most of those we’ve noted are deceased. Give us some names of dupes or potential dupes among recent Oscar winners.

Kengor: George Clooney won for Syriana (2005). Mercifully, he didn’t win for Good Night, and Good Luck, another film where anti-communists are the demons. Barbra Streisand won for Funny Girl (1968). Of course, Sean Penn won in 2003 and 2008. Penn fits the theme of my book well, as he’s somewhat of a bridge from Cold War dupes to War on Terror dupes.

Among the non-dupes who won recent Oscars, there’s Jon Voight (Coming Home, 1978). His role in a major film on Pope John Paul II was wonderful, and would never garner modern Hollywood’s approval.

Big Peace: Professor Kengor, thanks for a unique take on the Academy Awards.

Kengor: My pleasure.

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Not entirely sure what the point of this is. Maybe you can figure it out.

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5. Johnny Mathis (b. 1935)

A host of other crooners fought tooth and nail for this fifth slot — Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Jim Reeves, Gene Autry, Nat King Cole — but Mathis wins the day via an impressive five Christmas-themed albums, the best of which are immeasurably improved by the melodic mastery of maestro Percy Faith (1908-1976), whose inventive yet unashamedly unambiguous orchestrations make him my favorite instrumental interpreter of Christmas tunes.

The only one of our Top 5 who is still alive, Mathis made his Xmas bones by singing what is, for my money, the single most beautiful rendition of “Ave Maria” ever recorded — a feat accomplished when he was just twenty-two. Fifty years on, no one has matched the infectious, jingling energy Mathis and Faith brought to “Sleigh Ride.” And despite a good showing by Andy Williams, I daresay he takes the prize for “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and “Winter Wonderland” as well.

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4. Louis Armstrong (1901-1971)

A national treasure and one of the twentieth-century’s premier musical icons, Pops’ affinity for Christmas stemmed from the fact that his poverty-stricken youth was utterly bereft of holiday cheer (his grandparents were slaves). Armstrong’s fourth wife once told of the childlike delight he expressed when she presented him, at the ripe old age of forty, with his first decorated tree. In the following decades, his many Xmas performances never failed to capture the singular joys of the season.

Many singers try to out-cool Satchmo in this arena — Dino, Elvis, Frank, et al. — but all of their “red-beaked reindeer” and “big black Cadillac” stuff, fun as it is, can’t match the authentic jazzy hipness of tunes like “Christmas in New Orleans,” “Christmas Night in Harlem,” “Cool Yule,” and “’Zat You, Santa Claus?” His live nightclub take on “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” accompanied by a game Velma Middleton, captures the humorous ribaldry at the heart of the song better than anyone else, making it the only “essential” variant to the classic Margaret Whiting/Johnny Mercer duet.

Even at the end of his life, wracked by failing health, Armstrong knocked several more Christmas standards out of the park, virtually whispering his way through “White Christmas” and “Winter Wonderland.” The way his weak, perilously quivering voice evinces holiday enthusiasm despite his palpable pain is quite moving. And in February, 1971 he gave us one last bit of holiday gold: a tender, intimate performance of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (a.k.a. “’Twas the Night Before Christmas”) captured on tape at his home just a few months before his death.

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3. Burl Ives (1909-1995)

A young Boy Scout turned wandering itinerant folk-singer during the Great Depression, a veteran of World War II, a target of the House Un-American Activities Committee (who ticked off his commie folk-singing friends by cooperating with the investigation), and a powerful Academy Award-winning actor in the 1950s, Burl Ives had already led an eventful life before appearing in Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer in 1964. That stop-motion animated special singlehandedly cemented both his visage and voice in the Christmas pantheon, and his renditions of “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Silver and Gold,” and the show’s title tune are unlikely ever to be surpassed.

While not as prolific a Christmas crooner as some others, Ives followed up Rudolph with some wonderful songs both standard and new. His longstanding love of Christian-themed folk anthems served him in good stead, lending unparalleled emotional authenticity to pieces like “Christmas Child” (“Loo, loo, loo….”), “Christmas is a Birthday,” and “Happy Birthday Jesus,” all of which would have sounded hopelessly corny in other hands. “Snow for Johnny” is one of those songs that should be a popular standard but isn’t, and his “Christmas Can’t Be Far Away” is in my opinion the most underrated song in the entire holiday canon, deserving of a fame comparable to “White Christmas” and “Silver Bells.”

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2. Bing Crosby (1903-1977)

When we think of the classic Christmas sound, the one that conjures up thoughts of our grandparents decorating a tree by firelight in the wake of the Second World War while listening to the crackling radio, we think of Bing and his seemingly effortless warm and inviting baritone.

Whether solo or accompanied by the Andrews Sisters, from the staggeringly successful “White Christmas,” to holiday staples like “The Christmas Song (“Chestnuts Roasting….”), “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “A Marshmallow World,” and “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town,” to unheralded gems like “The First Snowfall” “Little Jack Frost Get Lost,” and “The Secret of Christmas,” he’s one of those guys who couldn’t screw up a Christmas song if he tried. Add to that the respectful and reverent Father O’Malley aura gracing his readings of the overtly Christian lyrics of “Silent Night,” “The First Noel,” “Away in a Manger,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and “Faith of Our Fathers,” and you have the quintessential sound of the season.

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1. Perry Como (1912-2001)

If you’re under forty, you likely don’t have a full appreciation of how central Perry Como is to Christmas. A baritone so influenced by Bing Crosby that the two are often confused, he nevertheless became immensely popular in his own right. Known far and wide as a devout family man (whose marriage lasted sixty-five years), he was also that precious rarity: one of the genuine class acts in show business. The rich, simple, honest voice that powers such perennial favorites as “O Holy Night,” “Do You Hear What I Hear?”, “Bless This House,” and “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays” resonates with the same eternal vibration that courses through our shared recollections of the holiday itself.

But it was his decades of televised Christmas specials that secured his place in the hearts of our parents and grandparents. From 1948 until 1994 — a span of almost fifty years! — he routinely warmed the wintry living rooms of America with his music and personality. That makes him the Iron Man of holiday crooning, hands down, the one singer who can purr “There is No Christmas Like a Home Christmas” and mean it.

I still remember the sparkle that would fill my late grandmother’s eyes whenever a Como tune would play. His was the voice of an era, her era. Her brood of youngsters were long grown and scattered across the country, her husband was dead and gone. But thanks to the miracle of sound recording, Perry Como’s voice remained as vibrant as ever, and his dulcet tones never failed to imbue ol’ Grandma with a deep comfort and satisfaction borne by memories of a life — and many, many Christmases — well-lived.

With that in mind, here are five drool-worthy stocking stuffers for the cinemaphiles in your family, all of them due to be released in the next few weeks.

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1. Frank Sinatra: Concert Collection (November 2, 2010, $54.99 at Amazon)

Get hep to this, man: seven discs containing fourteen hours of TV specials and filmed concerts, with Ol’ Blue Eyes joined by Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Gene Kelly, Antonio Carlos Jobim, John Denver, Bing Crosby, and of course Dino. Four of the specials have never been released, and a host of isolated TV clips are thrown in for good measure. Top it all off with a 44-page booklet chock full of rare photos and scholarly commentary, and the Chairman of the Board is truly back in all his scotch-soaked glory.

The seventh “Bonus Disc” sounds like the perfect thing to have playing in the background while you are decorating your tree: a “Happy Holidays with Bing and Frank” color TV special.

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2. The Goonies: 25th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition (November 2, 2010, $34.99 at Amazon)

A story by a pre-pretentious Steven Spielberg, a script by Chris Columbus, and a typically satisfying directing job by Richard Donner in between his work on classics like Superman (1978) and Lethal Weapon (1987). The Goonies is one of those movies that instantly time-warps guys and gals of my generation back to 1985. Nestled among other films like Back to the Future, Rambo: First Blood Part II, The Breakfast Club, Real Genius, Cocoon, Rocky 4, Pale Rider, and Witness, it helped make that summer magical.

I remember first catching it on a triple-bill with Gremlins and some now-forgotten horror movie. This is one of those movies that, in hindsight, is seen to have assembled a particularly deep cast. Young Sean Astin (later to play Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings films) Josh Brolin, Eighties staple Corey Feldman, Ke Huey Quan (whose performance had been the best thing in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom the year before) the always fun Joe Pantoliano, Eighties cuties Kerri Green and Martha Plimpton, and even one of Big Hollywood’s own, The Mighty Robert Davi! I’m not sure how they managed to fit so much awesome onto only fifty gigs of Blu-ray, but that’s technology for you.

Whereas so many special DVD sets have extras that don’t impress, I dig the inclusion of a new board game in this Goonies Ultimate Edition — given the treasure hunt motif, it’s something that your kids will likely have fun playing after experiencing the movie for the first time. There’s also the requisite documentary, outtakes, Cyndi Lauper video, souvenir booklets, and even a rare commentary track that manages to reassemble all seven main actors along with the director twenty-five years later.

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3. The Night of the Hunter (The Criterion Collection) (November 16, 2010, $36.49 at Amazon)

The great actor Charles Laughton is already being represented on Blu-ray this winter via 1935’s Mutiny on the Bounty, but you’ll also want to pick up this, his sole directorial effort. François Truffaut once wrote that Laughton’s strange film feels “like a horrifying news item retold by small children,” and noted that “it makes us fall in love again with an experimental cinema that truly experiments, and a cinema of discovery that, in fact, discovers.” What did he mean by that, you ask? Buy this new edition on Blu-ray and find out.

One of the things that attracted me to this new release is the massive 2.5 hours of outtakes included in this two-disc set. It’s a rarity to be privy to so much detritus where an old classic film is concerned, and I’m wondering what sort of illumination it will cast on Laughton’s directing methods.

Another boon is a video interview with actor Simon Callow, who in addition to being a fine thespian in his own right wrote a well-received biography of Laughton some years ago. Those of you who, like me, have been patiently waiting for Callow to finish the final tome in his magisterial three-volume biographical treatment of Orson Welles can content yourselves in the meantime with hunting down his Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor (1988).

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4. The World at War (November 16, 2010, $112.49 at Amazon)

This ranks with Ken Burns’ The Civil War as one of the all-time great documentaries. Sprawling over nine discs and containing some thirty-five hours of material, it’s a must-see for all World War II buffs (and, in a better world, would be required viewing for schoolchildren). Narrated by the great Laurence Olivier and fully restored both visually (in 1080p HD) and aurally (in surround sound), each of the twenty-six episodes has never looked or sounded better — with one enormous caveat.

If you click over to this article on restoring the series for Blu-ray, you’ll note that the producers made the controversial decision to crop each disc’s image in order to make them fit comfortably onto the rectangular widescreen TVs which are commonplace in today’s living rooms. This has caused an uproar among cinema purists, who have damned the set with such ferocity that it now sports a paltry one-star ranking at Amazon despite its otherwise stellar production values.

Whether you mind losing 25% of the image in order to have it fit on your screen without black bars is an open question — I know plenty of people who hit the “zoom” button on their TVs as a matter of course, which effectively crops old movies the same way, so perhaps it’s not a big deal to many of you. But if it is, and you want the full image presented in the OAR (original aspect ratio), you’ll want to skip the Blu-ray entirely and buy the 30th anniversary DVD set released in 2009.

Either way, you’ll want to see this epic series if you haven’t yet been exposed to it.

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5. True Grit (December 11, 2010, $17.99 at Amazon)

As one commenter said on the Blu-ray.com forums when this title was announced, “Nothing makes a format viable like a large selection of John Wayne films.” Amen, brother.

This is, of course, a play at marketing synergy by Paramount, who is releasing John Wayne’s 1969 original on Blu-ray in order to coincide with the release this Christmas of the (admittedly promising) Coen Brothers remake starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and The Goonies’ Josh Brolin. But who cares about the excuse? It’s enough that Wayne’s Oscar-winning performance will be shining on your TV screen in high-def, with Elmer Bernstein’s wonderful score thundering through your speakers.

Don’t make ol’ Rooster Cogburn tell you twice to “Fill yer hands!” with this one.

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Is there anything else coming out on Blu-ray this Christmas that you’re particularly excited about? If so, share it with us in the comments below.

Going My Way  won seven well-deserved Oscars including best picture, actor (Bing Crosby), supporting actor (a sweet and crusty Barry Fitzgerald), director (Leo McCarey), screenplay, and song (Swingin’ On a Star). The story is a gentle and moving one about Father Chuck O’Malley (Crosby), a seemingly low-key, even lazy priest who’s really a fixer for the diocese with an uncanny ability to effortlessly maneuver everyone into under-estimating him.

At first this includes the elderly Father Fitzgibbon (Fitzgerald), who’s no longer able to efficiently run his parish and thisclose to losing a crumbling church to bankruptcy. The heart of  Going My Way is the complicated road both men walk until they finally reach a warm and rich friendship.  

The plot sets up with head-whipping speed when Jim Hardy (Bing) breaks the bad news to his friend and partner Ted Hanover (Fred) that he’s breaking up their successful act so he can marry part three of their song and dance trio, Lila Dixon (a superbly caustic Virginia Dale). Jim’s plan is to whisk Lila away from the grind of the show-biz rat race and retire to Connecticut where life as a leisurely and lazy gentleman farmer awaits.

As he does with most everything in life, Jim takes the news rather well when Lila changes her mind. More in love with show business than any man, Lila announces that she’s fallen for Ted … and so with little more than a “Sorry, old man. No hard feelings,” Jim flicks his wrist, forgives them both, and heads off to the country where another harsh dose of reality awaits.

Using a very funny montage, veteran musical director Mark Sandrich (he directed five of the ten immortal Astaire-Rogers musicals) crushes every naive notion Jim had that farming’s anything other than damn hard work, which leaves the retired singer in quite the pickle: he owns a farm with an overdue mortgage, but he’s too lazy to work it. 

What’s a fella to do?

Jim hatches a brilliant scheme (the story idea that won Irving Berlin an Oscar nomination for Best Story — though the actual screenplay was written by Elmer Rice). He’ll open an inn, but one that won’t require a whole lot of work. Rather than being open year-round, it will be a ”Holiday Inn,” only open on holidays and sure to lure plenty of paying customers with the promise of quality holiday-themed floor shows.

Using this lighter than air concept, the film does dutifully cover all the holidays (even Washington’s Birthday with a memorably funny scene where a jealous Bing screws up Fred’s romantic dance routine), but in its heart and soul Holiday Inn is a Christmas film, and more importantly, the one that introduced the timeless (and Academy Award winning) White Christmas.

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Other highlights include a rousing, militaristic and patriotic 4th of July show topped off with a smashing number [see above] with the incredibly inventive Astaire saying it with firecrackers. Legend has it that in trying to achieve the “improvised” look for this number, Astaire rehearsed himself down to a mere 85 pounds. Look also for Astaire’s lovely version of Easter Parade (a preview of the film of the same name he’d come out of retirement to do years later), and Bing’s tribute to Abraham Lincoln, which manages to be both catchy and refreshingly offensive to the preciously politically correct at the same time.

Thanks to the lost art of perfect pacing and a humorous plot-turn involving the lovely Marjorie Reynolds in the film’s second live triangle, this story hums through its 100 minutes with the great Walter Abel  uncharacteristically stealing every scene he’s in as a mercenary put upon agent.

The impact of Holiday Inn is hard to measure. White Christmas would go on to be one of the biggest selling records of all time, Crosby would forever more be identified as Mr. Christmas, a chain of Holiday Inn hotels would spread across America, and just twelve years later an inferior sequel/remake would be one of the biggest hits of 1954. 

In 1946, Astaire, Crosby, Berlin and director Mark Sandrich would re-team for Blue Skies, in an attempt to recapture Holiday Inn’s lightening in a bottle that comes a helluva lot closer than the near-awful White Christmas. Sadly, that would be the last time Fred and Bing worked together. Tragically, after nine days of shooting, Sandrich died of a heart attack at the age of 44.

Read the full countdown here.

It’s Christmastime in New York City and the Kid hatches a scheme to cash in on holiday sentiment through the cynical deployment of an unwitting cast of colorful characters dressed as Santa Claus and filled with goodwill hoping to collect money for an “old dame” retirement home that will never open after the Kid embezzles every penny to save his own skin and a little extra for himself.  Along the way he lights up his old flame Marilyn Maxwell and coins a standard with the definitive version of “Silver Bells.”

Based on a Damon Runyon story, The Lemon Drop Kid naturally offers up a host of those ever-fascinating Runyonesque characters personified here by greats such as William Frawley, Jane Darwell, Lloyd Nolan, Tor Johnson and many others. 

Best of all, the story is nowhere near as sentimental as it sounds. Sure, the tone is comedic and there’s never any real sense of danger, so the fun is in wondering how the Kid will pull it off and see the light and change his ways. Of course, the many profile shots of Marilyn Maxwell’s incredible figure might help to explain any man’s decision to settle down.  

Great cinematic comedies require a simple story, fast pace, a lot of heart, a strong leading man, and a few memorable scenes. The Lemon Drop Kid doesn’t disappoint on any front. Hope is set on rapid-fire as he quips his way through the brisk 91 minutes without ever losing sight of his character, and a winter windstorm and storefront mannequin provide two imaginative and unforgettable comedic set pieces.

My favorite moments, however, come from a litany of shots aimed at Hope’s friendly screen rival Bing Crosby. Whether they were in the same film or not, the onscreen insults these longime friends traded with each other over a couple of decades is not only a reminder of the intimacy of their personal friendship but also of the close relationship each had with an audience who always got the joke.

Both on the screen and off it always seemed to be Crosby who got the last laugh. ”Silver Bells” would end up becoming a holiday classic, but the Academy Award for best song that year would go to Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael’s “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening” as sung by …. yep, Crosby…

Consider this the first and best Bad Santa. One you can enjoy with the kiddies.

Who doesn’t remember watching White Christmas as a kid? Every year on some winter weekend afternoon on some local UHF channel you couldn’t help but stop and be dazzled by the big bright holiday colors and Bing Crosby’s warm comforting voice. Director Michael Curtiz’s sequel/remake to the wonderful Holiday Inn really is a kind of Christmas Porn and we should all be big enough to acknowledge that it just isn’t a very good movie.

I know, I know, it’s a classic, a perennial. But it’s also long, slow, talky and, well, sorry … kinda dull in spots. Long spots.

Then why do we love it, why do we hunker down annually and lose ourselves in the slow predictability of it all? Because when you’re feeling Christmassy, the sets, costumes, and oh-gawd-yes, the Vista-Vision, works the senses like mainlined eggnog. And of course, there’s Irving Berlin’s unforgettable score, the stunning Rosemary Clooney, the impossibly leggy Vera-Ellen, the energetic Danny Kaye, and the unique pleasure of watching the ease with which Crosby — Mr. Christmas himself — does everything. 

And then there’s those few final minutes where the title song and a big, gorgeously produced, sentimental last-burst-of-Hollywood-Golden-Age finale combine to erase the memory of all the mediocrity that came before.

Mark my words: you’ll watch again next year. Oh, yes you will.

[Note: Other than some revising, pruning, and improving (hopefully), longtime readers will recognize this series from last year at my old perch.]