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Since the Christmas weekend begins tomorrow, this week's «Film Friday» is going to be a little bit different than usual. Instead of telling you about only one Christmas film, which was my original plan, I thought I would compile all the Christmas-y films I have written about since starting this blog. Most of them are part of a « 12 Days of Christmas Films » feature I did last December. If you are looking for a film to watch over the holidays, I think these are some good choices. Let's begin with The Thin Man (1934), an excellent comedy-mystery starring the delightful duo William Powell and Myrna Loy. They play Nick and Nora Charles, a debonair detective and his sophisticated wife, who find themselves embroiled in a murder case during the holidays. While Christmas is not crucial to the central plot of the film, there is still a lovely scene between the Charleses on the morning of December 25. W. S. Van Dyke directed from a script by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, based on...

Directed b y Mitchell Leisen, Remember the Night (1940) opens just before Christmas as assistant district attorney Jack Sargent (Fred MacMurray) is forced to delay his trip to his mother's home in Indiana in order to prosecute a young woman named Lee Leander (Barbara Stanwyck) for shoplifting. Since jurors are more likely to be compassionate to defendants during the festive season, Jack contrives to postpone the trial until after the beginning of the new year. Then, feeling guilty because he has condemned someone to a prison cell over the holidays, he arranges Lee's bail. However, she is not especially grateful; she has no money and nowhere to spend Christmas. Learning that she is also from Indiana, Jack offers to drop her off at her mother's house.   After a road trip filled with wrong turns and  adventures with small-town justice, they finally arrive at Lee's mother's farm. Lee finds that her embittered mother (Georgia Caine) has remarried and does not want any...