Movie Quote of the Day (‘Elf,’ on Meeting a Fake Store Santa)

Buddy [played by Will Ferrell]: “You stink! You smell like beef and cheese—you don’t smell like Santa!”—Elf (2003), screenplay by David Berenbaum, directed by Jon Favreau

Quote of the Day (Bill Nighy, on Leading-Man Roles)

“Young actors have difficulty separating their job from how they generally feel about stuff, and I had difficulty because if I had to sort of be attractive to a girl in a film or on television…I had zero confidence in that area on a personal level. It took me years to realize, oh, you just act it. They don’t know that you’re actually physically repulsive and not eligible to be intimate with a woman.”—British actor Bill Nighy quoted in Alexandra Wolfe, “Weekend Confidential: Bill Nighy: The Tony-Nominated Actor on the Trials of Theater, The Advantages of Age and the Call of Coffee,” The Wall Street Journal, May 30-31, 2015

Bill Nighy—born 75 years ago today in Caterham, Surrey, England—is proof that you don’t have to have leading-man looks to have a long, distinguished career as an actor.

This versatile character actor has appeared in all kinds of movies, including Notes on a Scandal and the Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Underworld franchises. But he’s likely to be best remembered by my readers for a romantic comedy that shows up on the small screen repeatedly this time of year.

Let me state my position on Love Actually right away: it is so eager to please that it’s like a St. Bernard that can’t stop licking your face. It’s simply too, too much.

But Nighy (pictured here, from the film) manages to rescue listeners from overdosing on all this sugar with his hilarious turn as vintage rocker Billy Mack, hoping for a return to the charts with a new version of his hit, "Christmas Is All Around."

Two years ago, in an interview with the British paper The Independent, Nighy even thought that a quote from the film would lead off his obituary:

“Hiya, kids! Here is an important message from your Uncle Bill. Don’t buy drugs. Become a pop star, and they give you them for free!”

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Elf,’ on the Four Food Groups of His Kind)

Buddy [played by Will Ferrell]: “We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup.”—Elf (2003), screenplay by David Berenbaum, directed by Jon Favreau

This Day in Film History (‘Pocketful of Miracles,’ Capra’s Lesser Yule Tale, Opens)

Dec. 18, 1961—Pocketful of Miracles opened in American theaters almost 15 years to the day that It’s a Wonderful Life premiered, and likewise failed to meet expectations at the box office. But, while veteran director Frank Capra’s earlier film went on, through countless repeat TV showings, to become a holiday classic, his later production—also containing Yuletide elements—has never gained similar popular traction.

It’s not that Pocketful of Miracles is completely unknown: The comedy has, after all, been shown numerous times over the years on TCM, and its stars included the very recognizable Bette Davis, Glenn Ford, and, in her big-screen debut, Ann-Margret.

But even many fans of older movies don’t recognize it, as was borne out for me a few days ago, when another fan of such fare could not bring it to mind when I spoke to her. And lines from the film have not entered popular memory, as they have with It’s a Wonderful Life or a much more recent movie, A Christmas Story.

Making the movie, Capra admitted a decade later in his autobiography, The Name Above the Title, was a “miserable” experience. It soured him so much on how the industry had changed since his heyday at Columbia Pictures in the 1930s that it turned out to be his swan song.

Part of the reason why the production turned out to be so joyless and disappointing was that Capra had begun it with such high hopes. It was, after all, a remake of Lady for a Day, which had earned him the first of six Oscar nominations for Best Director back in 1934.

Among Capra’s generation of older directors, the idea of remaking their own black-and-white films of more than 20 years before had a certain appeal, as evidenced by Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934 and 1956), and Leo McCarey’s Love Affair (released first in 1939, then redone as An Affair to Remember).

The logic behind their reasoning seemed overpowering, even inescapable: If Hollywood was going to remake these (and it would), who better to do so than the original creative force who knew not only what aspects of it were worth preserving but also what could be corrected and what could be added that wasn’t around a generation before (notably, color and bigger screens)?

There were only a couple of problems with this in Capra’s case, but they were significant. First, although he was eager to adapt Damon Runyon’s Prohibition Era tale “Madame Le Gimp” for a later generation, Hollywood executives did not feel similarly, believing audiences would find it dated.

Second, Hitchcock and McCarey had, in James Stewart and Cary Grant, stars not only well-cast but also uninterested in throwing their weight around. But Capra had as his male lead Glenn Ford, who, as associate producer, had helped finance the film and was not shy about determining its direction.

In particular, Ford insisted that, as gangster moll Queenie Martin, his girlfriend Hope Lange should replace Shirley Jones, a recent Oscar winner for Elmer Gantry whom Capra had already promised the role. The reluctant director acceded to his star’s cast-her-or-I-quit threat, but it rankled.

One of the few fundamental deviations that Pocketful of Miracles made from Robert Riskin’s script for Lady for a Day was a larger presence for Queenie  (whom 1930s audiences would have recognized as a fictionalized stand-in for nightclub hostess Texas Guinan). It is hard not to see the hand of Ford in that decision.

Lange was hardly a disaster in her role. But her presence represented a mounting list of initial casting choices that weren’t turning out as Capra had wished.

Ford himself was not his preference for superstitious gangster “Dave the Dude.” But his desired choices—Steve McQueen, Jackie Gleason, Kirk Douglas, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra—didn’t work out, for one reason or another. (Sinatra’s association with the production would, in the end, be limited to turning its theme song into a hit.)

Likewise, Bette Davis was not whom Capra had in mind for street peddler Apple Annie. But Shirley Booth felt she couldn’t improve on May Robson’s Oscar-nominated performance in Lady for a Day; Helen Hayes couldn’t find space in her schedule; and Katharine Hepburn and Jean Arthur (so memorable in Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) both turned down the role.

Davis, with increasingly lower-profile roles since her triumph a decade before in All About Eve, was eager for the work and the $100,000 salary, and agreed to take on the part when Capra offered it.

As great an actress as she was, Davis was, at 53, younger and less believable as woebegone Annie than the two-decades-older Robson. But Capra had a more immediate problem with her, caused by—yes, Ford.

The trouble began a week after Davis came to the set, when Lange requested a dressing room next to Ford. That room belonged to Davis, who was miffed about yielding her position to a younger, less-established actress. 

In a well-intended but clumsy attempt to smooth things over, Ford only made matters worse by saying in an interview that he was repaying Davis for giving him his start in films by putting her in this movie, hoping it would be a comeback vehicle for her.

“Who is that son of a bitch that he should say he helped me have a comeback!” Davis stormed. “That shitheel wouldn’t have helped me out of a sewer!”

From then on, the production was “shaped in the fires of discord and filmed in an atmosphere of pain, strain, and loathing," Capra wrote in The Name Above the Title.

Years later, he regretted that with Davis, he “didn’t see that needed consolation and reassurance after so long away.” But on set, he was not inclined to mediate the noticeable tension between her and Ford, and he developed increasing headaches.

It’s hard not to read Capra’s memoir without the sense that, over and above everything else, he resented Ford for undercutting his authority and creative freedom as the director: “My ‘one man, one film’ Hollywood had ceased to exist. Actors had sliced it up into capital gains.”

The results showed on the screen. It wasn’t so much in the performances of the supporting players. (Particularly wonderful are “It’s a Wonderful Life”’s Uncle Billy, Thomas Mitchell, here in his last movie role; Mickey Shaughnessy, given perhaps the funniest line of the film, “She's like a cockroach what turned into a butterfly!”; and Peter Falk, nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Dave the Dude’s cranky right-hand man “Joy Boy”).

Rather, the trouble is apparent in the film’s pace—which, uncharacteristically for Capra, is uneven, even slack at points. Lady for a Day had a running time of an hour and 34 minutes—plenty of time to tell its story and be on its way. In contrast, Pocketful of Miracles clocks in at two hours and 16 minutes but feels like it could use a good half hour cut.

Capra received a Directors Guild of America nomination for this film. But overall, he agreed with reviewers like The New York Times’ A.H. Weiler, who noted, “Mr. Capra and his energetic troupe manage to get a fair share of laughs from Mr. Runyon’s oddball guys and dolls, but their lampoon is dated and sometimes uneven and lifeless.” 

A couple of years later, Capra expressed interest in directing an adaptation of the Broadway satire The Best Man, but creative differences with playwright Gore Vidal kept him from taking on that project, probably for the best.

Pocketful of Miracles was an exercise in nostalgia for a world that had passed. So had the studio system in which Capra had once flourished.

(The image accompanying this post shows Ford, Falk and Davis. Though it seemed imperative to have the two feuding co-stars in a still for my commentary, I couldn't resist including Falk, whose performances gives viewers as much pleasure as it did Capra.)

Movie Quote of the Day (‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ With George in Mr. Potter’s Spiderweb)

Mr. Potter [played by Lionel Barrymore] [to George Bailey]: “I'm offering you a three-year contract at $23,000 a year, starting today. Is it a deal or isn't it?”

George Bailey [played by James Stewart]: “Well, Mr. Potter, I... I... I know I ought to jump at the chance, but I... I just... I wonder if it would be possible for you to give me 24 hours to think it over?”

Potter: “Sure, sure, sure. You go on home and talk about it to your wife.”

George: “I'd like to do that.”

Potter: “In the meantime, I'll draw up the papers.”

George: “All right, sir.”

Potter [offering hand]: “Okay, George?”

George [taking his hand]: “Okay, Mr. Potter.”

[As they shake hands, George feels a physical revulsion. He drops his hand, then peers intently into Potter's face.]

George [vehemently]: “No... no... no... no, now wait a minute, here!  I don't have to talk to anybody!  I know right now, and the answer is no! NO!  Doggone it!” [Getting madder all the time] “You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn't, Mr. Potter! In the... in the whole vast configuration of things, I'd say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider!”—It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), screenplay by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, and Frank Capra, based on an original story by Philip Van Doren Stern, directed by Frank Capra

I haven’t watched It’s a Wonderful Life yet this year, but after multiple viewings, I don’t think I need to anymore. Over the last few weeks, this snatch of dialogue sprang to mind.

I think many of us have encountered a “scurvy little spider” at some point in our lives. I can think of at least one at the national level—maybe you can, too.

The message of Frank Capra’s film classic—and of this holiday season—is that such ceaseless schemers don’t win, and that for every Potter, there’s a George Bailey in our community—and maybe even our own family.

Merry Christmas, Bedford Falls—and beyond!

(By the way, for an absorbing look at one of the little-known aspects about the environment in which It’s a Wonderful Life was released, see this article from the Website “History Collection” about how the FBI initially regarded the film as Communist propaganda, even though Capra, a conservative Republican, not only loathed Marxism but even Franklin Roosevelt. It seems that, in J. Edgar Hoover’s paranoid organization, Mr. Potter was seen as an insidious reflection of the capitalist system as a banker—even though George and Peter Bailey also ran financial institutions.)

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Scrooged,’ on Christmas Programs’ Need for ‘Pet Appeal’)

Network president Preston Rhinelander [played by Robert Mitchum]: “Frank, have you any idea how many cats there are in this country?”

Frank Cross [played by Bill Murray]: “No, I don't have those... no.”

Preston: “Twenty-seven million. Do you know how many dogs?”

Frank: “In America?”

Preston: “Forty-eight million. We spend four billion dollars on pet food alone. Now I have here a study from Hampstead University which shows us that cats and dogs are beginning to watch television. Now if these scientists are right, we should start programming right now. Within twenty years they could become steady viewers.”

Frank [trying to hide his incredulity]: “Programming? For cats?”

Preston: “Walk with me, Frank.”

Frank [Whispering to his secretary, Grace, as they leave the office]: “Call the police!”

Preston: “Now I'm not saying build a whole show around animals. All I'm suggesting is that we occasionally throw in a little pet appeal. Some birds, a squirrel...”

Frank: “Mice.”

Preston: “...mice! Exactly. You remember Kojak and the lollipops? What about a cop that dangles string as his gimmick? Lots of quick random actions. Frank, wasn't there a doormouse in Scrooge?”

Frank: “No, but now that you say it... I always felt that it needed a doormouse.”

Preston: “Doormice. Better.”

Frank: “Bingo.”— Scrooged (1988), screenplay by Mitch Glazer and Michael O'Donoghue, directed by Richard Donner

Many years ago, when I rented this holiday flick on video, its jokes fell flat for me. Maybe I’ve grown more cynical with age, but when I watched this update on A Christmas Carol again on cable TV this week, I thought that it lost its energy about halfway through, but it hit its satirical targets far more often at the beginning.

This scene especially scored. (I have no idea how Mitchum and Murray managed to keep straight faces as they filmed this.) In fact, I think even more people can relate to it now. (While revenues for pet services—i.e., visits to the vet—have been challenged during the pandemic, pet food sales have continued to hold on, at least till recently—especially online pet sales.)

Quote of the Day (Ex-Child Actor Mara Wilson, on the ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ Remake)

“It was 100 degrees out, and we were in layers of corduroy and wool. There were all these flies on set, and Elizabeth [Perkins] smashed one against a wall and then walked away, looking gorgeous and elegant, with a smashed fly on her palm. It was so gross, but it's those weird, funny memories that stick with you.”—Ex-child actor (and current writer/voice-over artist) Mara Wilson, on filming the remake of Miracle on 34^th Street amid a muggy Chicago summer in 1994, quoted in Ashley Spencer, “Child Actors of Christmas Movies Past,” The New York Times, Nov. 24, 2019

This Day in Film History (John Payne, ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ Male Lead, Dies)

Dec. 6, 1989—Even as the TV was on in the house playing his—and countless other people’s—favorite holiday movie, John Payne—a likable B-movie lead best known for Miracle on 34th Street—died at his Malibu home at age 77 of congestive heart failure. 

The proximity between death and Payne’s most famous role made it practically inevitable that I would write about him. 

As I learned more about his life, though, I found that Payne was far more interesting than that pleasant attorney he played who, by saving a department store Santa named Kris Kringle from an insane asylum, won the heart of a skeptical mother and her adorable little girl. 

Not unlike the trial in his holiday classic, Payne’s life took some unexpected turns. the scion of a well-to-do Virginia farmer, he saw the family circumstances sharply reduced after the Great Crash of 1929. While studying drama and voice at Juilliard and Columbia University, he took radio work and roles in low-budget Shubert shows. 

When Hollywood finally beckoned, studio execs, eyeing that lanky frame, cast him in musicals instead of in the obvious—Westerns and crime dramas. As a 20th Century Fox contract player, he appeared in the likes of Tin Pan Alley, Sun Valley Serenade and Hello, Frisco, Hello.

Actresses liked Payne just as much as their screen characters—so, while not in the same class as, say, Errol Flynn, he did quite nicely for himself, with three wives (Anne Shirley, Gloria DeHaven and Alexandra Crowell Curtis) and romances with the likes of Jane Russell and Kansas City Confidential co-star Coleen Gray.

One actress who enjoyed being around Payne—professionally, though not romantically—was Miracle on 34^th Street co-star Maureen O’Hara. They had already co-starred in two films, To the Shores of Tripoli (1942) and Sentimental Journey (1946), and would go on to make another, Tripoli (1950).  

Miracle would turn out to be especially enjoyable for them. Early on, they realized they were working with fine material (the George Seaton screenplay would, in fact, win an Oscar). At the end of the day, the two would go out with co-star Edmund Gwenn, often strolling up Fifth Avenue. 

Even so, none in the group ever thought the film would remain a beloved Christmas film over 70 years after its release. 

Legends cling to the film and its star, some true (at the time of his death, O’Hara wrote in her autobiography, Payne was writing a sequel to it) and some not (when Miracle was being created, Payne’s daughter Julie later related, he could not have used his own money to get it produced because he was not only paying alimony and child support to his first wife but needed to support his third child, with his second wife). 

Like the somewhat older Dick Powell, aging forced Payne to demonstrate his versatility beyond the  musical comedy roles that gave him his start. Film noirs such as The Crooked Way and 99 River Street provided him with tougher roles, and a two-year stint in the TV western The Restless Gun gave him the opportunity to play an anti-hero.

Ironically, Payne’s last acting role, as a former musical star in the detective series Columbo, reflected in some senses his own dire circumstances of the decade before. 

On the show, his career feels guilt over a long-ago car crash that derailed his career and that of his co-star (played by Janet Leigh). In real life, Payne had been struck by a car in New York City in 1961. 

“No one thought I would live,” he recalled in an interview a decade later. “I had a fractured skull. My left leg was broken in four places. My chin was literally cut off. There was a question of whether or not the leg would have to be amputated."

Corrective plastic surgery, performed on the back of his head, allowed Payne to resume his career several years later. 

But the scars from the accident were still visible in close-ups and, having grown tired of hours of filming, he decided not to continue acting after his Columbo guest appearance in 1975. 

Fortunately, shrewd show business and real estate investments allowed him to live out his last years comfortably.

Movie Quote of the Day (‘A Christmas Story,’ After the Turkey Disaster)

Narrator (Ralphie as an adult): [voice of Jean Shepherd] [After the Christmas turkey is stolen by the neighbors' dogs] “The heavenly aroma still hung in the house. But it was gone, all gone! No turkey! No turkey sandwiches! No turkey salad! No turkey gravy! Turkey Hash! Turkey a la King! Or gallons of turkey soup! Gone, ALL GONE!”— A Christmas Story (1983), screenplay by Jean Shepherd, Leigh Brown, and Bob Clark, based on Shepherd’s novel In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, directed by Bob Clark