Lists appeal to everyone, whether it’s the top five things you can use to jazz up your Ramen noodle soup  (1. fried chicken, 2. more noodles, 3. hard-boiled eggs, 4. corncakes wrapped in American cheese,  5. peppermints) or the Best/Worst Sports Injuries of the Century (Theismann).

In order to appeal to the growing list-conscious American reader who wants easily digestible information without all the calories, I’m offering my Top Five Holiday Movies That Have Christmas as Backdrop in no particular order.

1. Bell, Book and Candle (1958)
Based on the hit Broadway play, Bell, Book and Candle includes a family of witches celebrating Christmas,  the Zodiac Club, where Philippe Clay and The Brothers Candoli perform, and a fabulous mod minimalist Christmas tree. Plus you get Kim Novak in sultry overdrive, an adorable Jack Lemmon (one of my numerous childhood crushes), and Ernie Kovaks’ breezy performance all set on a faux snow-covered back lot New York City set. Through Oscar-nominated art direction and the assortment of oddball elements mentioned above, the film manages a charming balance of holiday magic and occult irreverence.   

 

 

 

 

2. Desk Set (1957)

The best office Christmas party ever committed to film is the centerpiece of Desk Set: mixed drinks, giant bottles of champagne, presents, interoffice romance, dancing, singing, live piano music with Spencer Tracy on bongos. It’s a real honey of a shindig all within the confines of a fact-checking department at a TV studio. Not to mention Katherine Hepburn’s sweet little apartment where she shares a dinner of fried chicken and floating island dessert with Spence in front of a cozy fireplace and gives her noodlehead boyfriend a piece of her mind.

 

 

 

3. The Thin Man (1934)

Over the holidays someone gets murdered and there’s a whole passel of suspects but that’s incidental to spending the silly season with Nick and Nora Charles, a handsome couple of wits each of whom thinks the other is the cat’s PJs.

Lounging around in a swank hotel room and mixing martinis to a waltz rhythm, leaves just enough time to solve a crime and entertain your criminal pals with a killer Christmas party.

 

 

 

 

 

4. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Shostakovich, swaths of red, and the twinkling lights of Kubrick’s London-for-New York City set extrapolate a cold and empty Christmas atmosphere that takes a scalpel to the holiday spirit and hollows it out.

With all the joy sucked out of the world, who wouldn’t end up at a ridiculous S&M party where people try to kiss each other while wearing molded plastic masks?

 

 

 

 

5. Black Christmas (1974)

The eerie glow of red Christmas lights and a faint frost on the windows of a doomed sorority house are the only holiday elements in this slasher flick.

A psychotic killer, a bleak, death-riddled Christmas, and John Saxon as a frustrated cop who can’t catch a break on this case will make your yuletide gray, but you’ll muddle through somehow.

 

 

 

Deborah M. Staab usually writes about 400 words and then has a cup of coffee. Her Cine-meh House is a regular series of movie commentaries. The pithy musing focus on old, forgotten, sometimes really bad movies from the 1980s, a time when she and her brother watched many a film while their Dad snoozed in the aisle seat.
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