The Great Dictator (1940)

The Great Dictator (1940) straddles absurdity and warning.  The monologue Chaplin delivers at the end is shockingly timely today, and yet it was meant for a previous generation who fought fascism with humor, and then drama, and then, when that wasn’t enough, with armies.

Charlie Chaplin’s “Little Tramp” persona had been officially retired in his previous film, Modern Times (1936), which we covered here.  Yet the hapless misfit, here known only as a Jewish Barber, retains the Tramp’s innocence, athletic clumsiness, and knack for getting in and out of trouble.  But here he also has a doppelganger, in the form of a dictator who sends his goon squads to threaten Jews, as he plans for war on a neighboring country.  Despite the childishly pompous dictator’s fiendish actions, he is himself a buffoon, a joke, and something to be laughed at for his ineptitude. We do not really fear him…but we do have a sense of fear over his cult following, who carry out his every whim.

It was a daring film, not only to mock a figure who was clearly meant to represent Hitler during a time when we were not yet at war, but to draw attention to the fact that the Jews were so named as his scapegoats and his first victims.  Other films of the late 1930s and early 1940s, even those that boldly decried fascism at home and abroad, shied away from explicitly pointing out that Jews were being treated badly.  It was a courageous and utterly decent move by Chaplin, but he wrote in his 1964 My Autobiography (NY: Simon & Schuster, p. 392), Had I known of the actual horrors of the German concentration camps, I could not have made The Great Dictator, I could not have made fun of the homicidal insanity of the Nazis.  For all its boldness in showing ruffian soldiers painting “JEW” on a shop window, the movie has more than its share of silliness.

Some scenes, such as the dueling barber chairs between the dictator and his adversary dictator played by Jack Oakie, clearly meant to be Mussolini, seem right out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.  Mel Brooks-style Springtime for Hitler-type gags that mock the arrogance of the fascists, and the dictator's frantic speech delivered to his adoring throngs in a kind of pidgin-German reminds one of the fast and furious faux German speech of Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows. They were the imitators; Chaplin was the original.

There are two serious characters, though, on either side.  Henry Daniell plays an advisor to Adenoid Hynkel, the dictator.  Daniell is sinister, quiet and utterly serious.  He seems far more dangerous than the dictator, if only because he is more intelligent, more self-disciplined, and sociopathic. Compared to him, the dictator seems like a clown.

The other serious character is played by Maurice Moscovitch as Mr. Jaeckel, an elderly leader in the Jewish ghetto who helps the Jewish Barber and his community in any way he can.  We see his concern and his resolve, but he is actually helpless against the onslaught of oppression.

Billy Gilbert has a comic role as a bumbling staff member of the dictator, and we note the silly names further poke fun at the bad guys.  Gilbert is “Herring,” possibly a shortening of Hermann Göring, and the evil Henry Daniell plays “Garbitsch,” (garbage).

Two people who have the biggest impact on the Jewish Barber are Reginald Gardiner, who plays an officer in World War I who was saved by the barber and later repays the debt by saving him from the dictator; and Paulette Goddard as Hannah, a waif of the ghetto.  

Miss Goddard was married to Chaplin at the time, and serves as his innocent love interest.  Though this movie does not really have the Chaplin trademark pathos of many of his comedies, what there is can be discerned through the scrappy Paulette Goddard, orphaned and supporting herself doing housework and laundry, and facing the bullying soldiers.

The movie begins in the later days of World War I where Chaplin as the Jewish Barber is part of a German (or Tomanian, as the country is called Tomania) artillery.  Though the setting with its trenches and bombed-out landscape of leafless trees is bleak, there is a jolt of silliness in how he maneuvers the Big Bertha howitzer, and how he loses a live hand grenade up his sleeve.  

He comes upon Reginald Gardiner, a downed flyer who is desperately trying to escape in his plane from the advancing enemy, and Chaplin helps him, with more gags about flying upside-down.  Though the plane crashes, they survive and we have the end of the war in blaring headlines, movie fashion.

The Jewish Barber spends many years in the hospital due to his injuries from the crash, and has amnesia.  He does not realize a decade has passed when he leaves the hospital; he thinks it has been only a matter of weeks, and like Rip Van Winkle, he returns to find his village utterly changed.  His barber shop is now part of the ghetto, and “JEW” is written across the shutters.

But he seems oblivious to the change at first, or at least does not realize the significance of what is happening around him.  Soon, he ends up the prey of a troop of soldiers, who put a noose around his neck and try to hang him from a lamp post.  Suddenly, Reginald Gardiner intervenes, remembers his old friend, and saves his life.  Since he is an officer, he gives orders to the soldiers to leave Chaplin and the Jews alone.

Meanwhile, the dictator is still spewing his ridiculous orders, and it seems silly when he and Henry Daniell, wanting to preserve Aryan purity, which means getting rid of dark-haired and dark-eyed people as much as Jews, remark, “We’ll get rid of the Jews first, then concentrate on the brunettes!”

Planning world domination, we then have the memorable scene of the dictator considering a large globe in his office, which is actually a balloon, and he tosses it, dances a dreamlike ballet with it.  But at last, it pops in his arms.

Back to the Jewish Barber, who no less silly, shaves a man to the frenetic strains of Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5. 

The dictator wants a loan from a banker named Epstein, whom we do not see, but is denied, and therefore he will send his troops to march on a country named Osterlich (Austria).  First, he meets with his counterpart dictator, Napaloni, played by Jack Oakie, and they try to top each other in self-importance. 

The barber and Paulette Goddard are thrown together in the ghetto by circumstances and through the matchmaking efforts of Mr. Muscovitch, who advises the barber to open a beauty shop for women and insists he practice on Goddard.  At first, absentmindedly attempting to shave her as he would a male customer, the barber instead washes and coifs her hair, making the Cinderella of the ashes beautiful.

But life gets suddenly grim again when Reginald Gardiner refuses to attack Jews and has lost favor in the high command.  Though he heroically joins their resistance, he cannot protect them anymore.  He and the barber are captured and sent to a concentration camp.

When they make their escape in stolen officers’ clothing, we finally get to the point we knew was coming all along—the Prince and the Pauper switching of the identical barber and the dictator. (Chaplin’s famous character with his dark toothbrush mustache so resembled Hitler that people referring to Hitler on the sly sometimes called him The Little Tramp, to avoid saying his surname.)  The barber and Reginald Gardiner are whisked to an enormous outdoor stadium, Nuremberg-like, to make a speech of conquest. 

The jokes end here, as the barber, looking sickened in his seat, awkwardly steps up to the stage (how ironic that the word “liberty” is solidly in stone there) and the radio microphones, and the vast sea of willing cult members in uniform leaning on his every word.

He gives the famous speech that resonates with us today.  That it does resonate would not make Chaplin proud of his work, but would leave him, as it leaves us, dazed, depressed, and heartsick.  And angry.

The movie concludes with a close-up on Paulette Goddard, who listens to the speech on the radio.  It is a hopeful and inspiring ending.  But it is not true.  It would take several years of war to stop the madness, because when a people wait too long, madness can only be stopped by force.

It is important to face bleak facts and fight evil in any way possible, even to give one’s life to do so, but it is also important to realize that the evildoers are not invincible.  They can be taken down with the rule of law.  Laughing at them also helps. They hate that.

Watch the speech here below.  The entire movie can currently be found on YouTube.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism and Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

My new non-fiction book, CHILDREN'S WARTIME ADVENTURE NOVELS - The Silent Generation's Vicarious Experience of World War II -- is now available in eBook here at Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and a wide variety of other online shops.

Or here from my Shopify store if you want to buy direct from me and avoid the big companies.

And it is here in eBook, paperback print, and hardcover, from Amazon.

It is also here in paperback from Ingram.

And here in hardcover from Ingram.

From Cherry Ames, to Meet the Malones, from Dave Dawson to Kitty Carter - Canteen Girl, the Silent Generation spent their childhood immersed in geopolitical events through the prism of their middle grade and young adult books.  From the home front to the battlefield, these books are a window on their world, and influenced their hard-working, conformity-loving generation. 

Buy this or any of my books online here at Bookshop.org.

The Impatient Years (1944)

The Impatient Years (1944) is an example of the kind of movie that is hardly ever made anymore, but was a staple of Hollywood’s heyday: current events.  In this case, the consequences of a hasty wartime romance, a quickie marriage and a baby – but when the couple are reunited when the soldier returns Stateside, they discover they are strangers.

(By the way, have a look at the "A" sticker on the car windshield in the picture above - and have a look at this previous post on gas rationing as depicted in the movies of World War II here.)

It’s a comedy, but it’s also a poignant and even rather sad take on what was a common problem as the divorce rate soared in the post-war years.  Even for those couples choosing to stay together, it was often a tough adjustment.  In a real sense, there was no getting back to “normal.”  There was only a mature and resigned acceptance that adapting to a new life was the only course.  Both husband and wife would have become different people in the meantime, due to their wartime experiences.

Jean Arthur is the lady, and she brings her trademark comic chops and intelligent silliness to the role of a young woman, repeatedly described by her father as a “nice girl,” so that we wouldn’t mistake her marrying a soldier almost the moment she met him as indicative of a “V-girl.”  “But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t brought up right…it was wartime and they fell in love.” 

Now, however, waiting with her father at the bus station to welcome home her soldier husband on medical leave, she’s as nervous as a cat and clearly uncomfortable with the idea of being married to somebody she knew only for four days.

Lee Bowman plays her husband, home on temporary medical leave.  He’s just as uncomfortable with Jean as she is with him, more so because he is coming home not only to a wife he barely remembers, but to a father-in-law he’s never met, and must try to make himself at home in a house he’s never been to and is already crowded.

Charles Coburn is Jean’s father, reprising a similar role of curmudgeonly matchmaking as he did in The More the Merrier (1943) of the previous year.  In fact, you’ll notice his “The Torpedo Song” of that movie being reprised as a theme for his character in The Impatient Years every time Coburn enters a scene.  He is the voice of common sense, trying to get his daughter and son-in-law to give each other a chance before they divorce – the movie starts in divorce court and the plot is then revealed in flashback.

There are two more people in the house who are strangers to Lee Bowman, one is his infant son, in whom he is delighted, but nervous as to how to hold him.   He has seen only pictures, and is disappointed to have missed his first words – which include “Mama,” and “Henry.”

Henry, played by Phil Brown, is the other stranger, a boarder in the house.  He is a young man who has been immensely helpful with the baby and who regards Jean and the baby as his surrogate family.  A proper fellow who enjoys the routine around the baby that Jean Arthur has established for the home, Henry, as Charles Coburn remarks to Lee Bowman, “He’s a very fine young man.  You’re going to get very sick of him.”

And we see why, but I feel rather sorry for poor Henry, usurped by the baby’s real father.  Despite his late-hour, petulant confession to Jean Arthur that he is in love with her, he stands no chance.  Yet there he is, in Jean’s room, soothing the baby while she goes to warm up the bottle of milk, with Lee Bowman staggering around, trying to find a place to hang up his uniform.  

When Jean returns and the baby is settled, Bowman asks casually, “You finally got him in bed?” and we know that her uneasy reply of “yes,” just short of a double-take is because at that moment, they are both thinking of Henry.  It is one of a few clever double meanings in this script.

As I remarked in the post on her work in The More the Merrier: “Miss Arthur makes this brittle woman interesting, and lovably obtuse.”  One could say the same for her character here in The Impatient Years, except that here she is slightly more irritable as a means of defense.  Her skittishness, and his own being baffled by the strange surroundings and stranger family, Lee Bowman nonchalantly decides to sleep on the floor, giving the excuse that he is not used to a bed after rugged Army life.  It is a gallant move to put his wife at ease, though we can see that she might also take it as an insult.  He ruefully remarks of the baby in the crib next to her bed, “I think he’d be ashamed of his old man.”  It is both self-deprecating and a shaft of conscience to Jean Arthur.

But they quickly get on each other’s nerves the next day and decide to call their marriage quits.  We are brought back to the courtroom scene where Charles Coburn, in an attempt to force them to get to know each other as a way to avoid divorce, suggests to the judge, played by Edgar Buchanan, that they be required to re-live the four days of their courtship that led to their marriage.  Judge Buchanan remarks, “You boys and girls think it’s very romantic to get married just because it is wartime.  You don’t stop to think for a minute that there’s going to be an after the war time, with a whole long life to be lived together.”  Yes, if they're lucky.

It is an admonishment to the young lovers in the audience, and it is a daffy screwball comedy turn in the great tradition of that era, and so we have our second half of the movie as the now bickering couple find themselves in the scenes of their hasty courtship in San Francisco, revisiting the same restaurants, tourist sights, hotel, and marriage license office, leaving confused desk clerks in their wake.  As Miss Arthur grumbles about a marriage license clerk who does not understand that they need to fill out a marriage license to get a divorce, “For heaven’s sake, if he’s going to be so stupid, let’s go.”

Ironically, it is their very spatting like an old married couple that brings them closer together, along with reliving the scenes of their romance and being away from Pop, the baby, the crowded house, her regimentation with household chores, and Henry. 

Because they need to follow through on the judge’s orders, they kiss, but only to avoid committing perjury.  But aha, there’s a glimmer of falling in love again.

Grant Mitchell plays a befuddled hotel desk clerk very concerned about Jean Arthur’s welfare when he thinks Lee Bowman is not only a wolf, but mentally unstable; and Charley Grapewin is the world’s oldest bellboy.  

He loyally sits outside Jean’s door all night to protect her, and humors Lee Bowman when Lee says “I love you,” meaning this is the message he was trying to tap in their old code on the wall of Jean’s adjoining room.  Charley thinks Lee loves him.

When sailor Frank “The Old Magoo” Jenks cuts in at a hotel dance, we see Lee Bowman getting jealous, to Jean’s delight.  But she saves Bowman from the MPs by vouching he is her husband and takes him firmly by the arm, “C’mon, darling.”

Finally, they trek to the house of the minister who married them.  He is Harry Davenport, and his sweet wife is Jane Darwell.  She remembers the couple, and the old folks are thrilled that a couple married in their livingroom, for once, came back to visit them.  It is not a screwball moment, but a very sober example of what a long and dedicated marriage is, and Mr. Bowman and Miss Arthur feel somewhat shamefaced at their fecklessness.

Afterward, they end up at the place where they had their wedding dinner—a Chinese restaurant where the vocalist is Bob Haymes, actor and singer Dick Haymes’ younger brother.  I’m not sure the point of this interlude of him singing at their table, except to give the up-and-coming fellow a bit of screen time. He has a nice voice.  But the dinner is where they really relive their wedding night—Jean becomes ill on fried shrimp, just as she did the first time.

The hotel clerk and his erstwhile bellboy are on the alert when Bowman must carry her up the stairs and she blithely announces her husband has poisoned her.  Charles Coburn and poor Henry arrive at the 11^th hour with a telegram ordering Bowman to the military hospital for his end-of-furlough checkup. 

It now appears that since their trial courtship is over and Bowman is ordered back to active duty, there’s nothing to keep them together anymore. 

In a sweet ending, however, Jean returns to her father’s house to reunite with her baby and discovers Bowman there, playing with him on the floor.  Miracle of miracles—the little boy takes his first steps to Daddy, and Jean is overcome with emotion.  She wants the toddler to walk to her next, and Bowman asks, “Can I come too?”

We have our happy ending, except for Henry, of course.  He's out of luck.

The movie, while not packing a punch like The More the Merrier, has some good moments, and it is particularly noteworthy that the screenwriter and associate producer for the film was Virginia Van Upp (1902-1970) – a child actress in silent films, later a script writer, producer, film editor, casting director, agent – pretty much a Hollywood jack-of-all-trades, unusual for a woman at that time.  (And is this a swell photo or what?) She had been brought over from Paramount to Columbia for Cover Girl rewrites that same year by studio boss Harry Cohn.  Lee Bowman also appeared in that film.

Speaking of the studio boss, The Impatient Years was Jean Arthur’s last film for Columbia under her much-hated contract with much-hated Harry Cohn.  She was free at last, and the wonderful A Foreign Affair (1948) here, and Shane (1953), discussed here, were ahead of her.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism and Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

My new non-fiction book, CHILDREN'S WARTIME ADVENTURE NOVELS - The Silent Generation's Vicarious Experience of World War II -- is now available in eBook here at Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and a wide variety of other online shops.

Or here from my Shopify store if you want to buy direct from me and avoid the big companies.

And it is here in eBook, paperback print, and hardcover, from Amazon.

It is also here in paperback from Ingram.

And here in hardcover from Ingram.

From Cherry Ames, to Meet the Malones, from Dave Dawson to Kitty Carter - Canteen Girl, the Silent Generation spent their childhood immersed in geopolitical events through the prism of their middle grade and young adult books.  From the home front to the battlefield, these books are a window on their world, and influenced their hard-working, conformity-loving generation. 

Buy this or any of my books online here at Bookshop.org.

5th Anniversary of Treason and a Failed Coup

Never forget January 6th.  Hold it in the same vein of warning, mourning, and determination to right the wrong as we do with September 11th or December 7th.  It might even be more important, as the enemy within is more dangerous to our democracy.

The morons who were whipped to a frenzy to attack the Capitol, assault police, threaten to kill the Vice President and several in our government, and as if to punctuate their disgusting nature, to defecate in the halls of that hallowed building that President Abraham Lincoln was determined to finish even during the Civil War as a symbol of our survival as a nation -- they have been pardoned by the Felon, the lead traitor.

Now it's time to pursue him and the others who orchestrated the conspiracy, the ones who engineered the attack.  Be a patriot and watch Special Prosecutor Jack Smith's testimony.  Push your government to prosecute the traitors.

Public Domain Day - 2026

Welcome to 2026, and our annual celebration of Public Domain Day!

This year, movies from 1930 that are now in public domain include:

Betty Boop’s first cartoon Dizzy Dishes, and several more Mickey Mouse cartoons

All Quiet on the Western Front

Animal Crackers – starring the Marx Brothers in their second film.

In King of Jazz, in which, as the Center for the Study of Public Domain, Duke Law Center astutely notes: a man gets drunk and stammers: “You know what’s the matter with this country? It’s a tariff! That’s who!”, referring to the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that worsened the Great Depression and eerily reflects our own troubled times.

Morocco with Gary Cooper and Marlene Dietrich

The Blue Angel, likewise, with Marlene Dietrich in her breakout role, introducing her to American audiences.

Hell’s Angels – Jean Harlow’s first film

The Big Trail – John Wayne’s first feature role, though his stardom would wait until later in the decade.

Free and Easy – Buster Keaton’s first speaking role and singing role. 

For more on the movies, books, music, and art of 1929 that now enters public domain, have a look at this Center for the Study of Public Domain, part of the Duke Law Center website.

Here's a look at past posts on movies entering public domain:

Another Old Movie Blog: Public Domain Day - 2025

Another Old Movie Blog: Public Domain Day - 2024

Another Old Movie Blog: Public Domain Day - 2023

Another Old Movie Blog: Public Domain Day - 2022

Another Old Movie Blog: Public Domain Day - 2021

Another Old Movie Blog: Public Domain Day - 2020

 

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism and Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

My new non-fiction book, CHILDREN'S WARTIME ADVENTURE NOVELS - The Silent Generation's Vicarious Experience of World War II -- is now available in eBook here at Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and a wide variety of other online shops.

Or here from my Shopify store if you want to buy direct from me and avoid the big companies.

And it is here in eBook, paperback print, and hardcover, from Amazon.

It is also here in paperback from Ingram.

And here in hardcover from Ingram.

From Cherry Ames, to Meet the Malones, from Dave Dawson to Kitty Carter - Canteen Girl, the Silent Generation spent their childhood immersed in geopolitical events through the prism of their middle grade and young adult books.  From the home front to the battlefield, these books are a window on their world, and influenced their hard-working, conformity-loving generation. 

 

 

Happy New Year!

 

Thank you for the pleasure of your company.  Ginger Rogers, David Niven, and I (not pictured -- I must have been parking the car) wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Stars Caricatured in Christmas Television Cartoons

Classic film stars have been caricatured in many animated cartoons, even Christmas cartoons as noted in this previous post of Toyland Premiere (1934).  But the made-for-television holiday cartoons of Rankin/Bass utilized caricatures of stars of Hollywood’s heyday not for satire or even humor, but to lend cachet to their well-scrubbed retellings of pop Christmas folklore.

While not all classic film stars who voiced animated characters had their likenesses caricatured in the cartoon – Mickey Rooney, for instance, in the several times he voiced Santa Claus (The Year Without a Santa Claus – 1974, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town – 1970, and Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July – 1979) Santa never looked like Mickey Rooney.  I suppose Santa Claus is too well-known (or perhaps, trademarked?) to look like Mickey Rooney.

But Fred Astaire, playing a generic mailman character in Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town is okay to look like a caricature of Fred Astaire, likewise Red Buttons as the ice cream man in Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July – which also gave us a stupendously (or perhaps stupefying is the word) over-the-top Ethel Merman who runs a carnival show.  It’s a lumbering feature cartoon with no discernable point, but Hal Peary has his last role as a whale, with a Great Gildersleeve giggle.  I find that endearing.

These cartoons were all animated with the mesmerizing stop-motion photography of jerky movements and stiff portrayals, literally.

There were two Christmas cartoons of my childhood which were especially profound for me, first Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol (1962), which I’ve mentioned before in this previous post. Definitely NOT stop-motion photography here. Jim Backus owned the role of Mr. Magoo so thoroughly and was my introduction to Dickens at the tender age of probably three. 

The second cartoon that was really meaningful to me was The Little Drummer Boy (1968).  Like the other Rankin/Bass cartoons mentioned above, this also featured stop-motion photography (and all the cartoons are musicals) and told the story of an orphaned boy during the time of the Nativity who hates people because his parents were killed by bandits, and finds healing with the power of love.  I was fascinated by the scenes of ancient Judea, of narrow streets, endless desert dunes, and the people who came to their ancestral cities to be taxed by the Roman emperor.  Even as a six or seven-year-old, stories about real people interested me more than fairy tales about snowmen or Heat Miser (though I still know the words to that song).

Jose Ferrer (not caricatured) plays a rogue, a carnival showman who enslaves the orphan boy when he discovers the boy can sing and play a drum and charm animals into dancing.  The showman thinks he can make a bundle off the kid.  (Painting a phony smile on the kid's face horrified me as a child.) He even sells the boy’s cherished camel to one of the Wise Men, and the boy is even more furious and heartbroken.  

The boy follows the Star as the Three Kings are doing so that he can catch up to them and get his camel.  But then a Roman centurion charges by on his chariot like an ICE thug and runs over the boy’s other little friend, a lamb.  We suspect if he’d had a Taser, he’d have used it just for the thrill of cruelty.  Authoritarian governments haven’t changed in thousands of years.  This boy has suffered so much in this cartoon, we can barely take any more at this point.

One of the Three Kings tells the boy to appeal to the Baby Jesus for help, and here we have our opening to the song (cue Vienna Boys Choir) “The Little Drummer Boy” and “I have to no gift to bring…shall I play for him?”  Though the stop-motion photography is just as jerky and crude as in the other cartoons, the story here is deeper, and the thoughtful, contemplative telling of it leaves a greater impression.  This cartoon, for me, was also notable for introducing me to Greer Garson.

Miss Garson is an unseen narrator and is credited as “Our Storyteller.”  Her rich, cultured voice is soothing and enchanting, and we are carried through time and space in her opening, “And it came to pass that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed…”

When the boy’s heart is touched by the pure love of the Infant, and his lamb is healed, Greer tells us, “He realized the hate he carried there was wrong, as all hatred will ever be wrong.”

It would be many years before I discovered Mrs. Miniver or Pride and Prejudice, so The Little Drummer Boy was my introduction to Greer Garson, or at least her beautiful speaking voice.

Perhaps a cartoon Greer in caricature would have lessened the gravitas of the story, but I think I would have liked to have seen Our Storyteller.  A woman in such a serious, venerable role would have been inspiring.

But to depict her in caricature or not?  Hmm.

Wishing a peaceful and happy Christmas to all who celebrate.

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GIFTS FOR THE CLASSIC FILM FAN!!!!!!!

Christmas in Classic Films provides a roster of old movies with scenes to conjure Christmas of days gone by.  Makes a nice gift, if you know an old movie buff, or if you just like to give presents to yourself.  

The paperback is available at Amazon, but also here at Barnes & Noble.

The hardcover, so far, is available only at Amazon.

Here are a few other classic movie books I've written for your gift-giving pleasure:

Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. - for sale in paperback and hardcover at Amazon,

And in paperback and hardcover here at Ingram,

And in paperback and hardcover here at Barnes & Noble.

And in paperback here at Walmart.

Hollywood Fights Fascism -  here in paperback at Amazon.

Movies in Our Time - here in paperback at Amazon.

And all of these books are available as well at my page on Bookshop.org, which helps support independent bookstores.