This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
There were no pine trees in Bethlehem, either.
Plot Overview
Circa 1972 when this movie was made, a narrator (Patricia
Hamilton) introduces some scenes from her life in 1946
Clearwater, Nebraska, which helped form her, Addie's, life.
This story harks back to earlier times that influenced her earlier
generations' lives and thus hers. A pretty Helen, age 18, is seen
in a wedding photo just married to Addie's dad Jamie Mills (Jason
Robards) in 1926. She would have been affianced to him in the
roaring twenties; album photos show them having a high time of it.
Come the Great Depression, “10, 15 years no jobs, no
money, no charity,” Jamie keeping his pride made do for his
family without accepting any handouts. After ten years of marriage,
they had a much-wanted child Addie, but “the pregnancy
weakened Helen.” Then in a few weeks, with the hustle &
bustle of Christmas—Jamie always provided a tree for her to
decorate—she contracted pneumonia and died. If Jamie had his
druthers, he'd rather it were the baby who died, but he took her
in, loved her as best he could, and provided for her through the
years. Living in his mother's house, he raised her as the boy he
always wanted, teaching her how to box, how to figure the odds in
games of chance, and to break a cluster of marbles on the floor.
Now that Addie is ten
she has her own girlie, artistic interests—like her mom's who
liked to paint & draw. She wants them to have a Christmas tree
as do all the other kids, to brighten the home, make it more
Christmasy. Her dad is adamantly opposed, especially to a gift
tree—he doesn't take handouts. At the risk of reading
something extraneous into the plot, I'll go with my gut
feeling along the lines of author Olen Steinhauer: “He
was excited in the way that all researchers are when they've
discovered connections where previously nothing existed”
(4).
Their 5th
grade teacher Miss Thompson (Kathryn Walker)
interrupted an altercation in the cloakroom telling
the children that fighting never solves anything and asking
them what the disagreement was about. Seems some of them had
insulted Addie's grandmother (Mildred Natwick) saying,
“Your grandmother's a character” and “She
looks like a nut.” The teacher took them aside and opened a
discussion about the difference between “a character”
and “a nut.” It's largely a matter of degree. The
grandmother wore moccasins, not in style, which, granted, made her a
character but didn't elevate her to the status of some shoe lady with a
closet full of footwear that she didn't need and never wore.
For ten years now after
his wife's demise, Jamie still wears his wedding ring, treats his
daughter like a boy, and refuses to get a Christmas tree as it would remind
him of his wife. That's part of his character, sure, but now that his
daughter legitimately wants a tree, it's time to move on
Ideology
The movie itself develops an
application of being a “character.” Classroom
instruction involves learning vocabulary lists, and there is one
instance at home of recognizing a pronoun for a crossword
puzzle: “Horizontal here for feminine pronoun.”
“It's her.”
According to Prof. Thomas Berry,
“In days gone by, grammarians insisted on an extensive and precise
pattern of rules to govern the use of ‘he’ and
‘she’ and ‘his’ and ‘her.’ Now,
however, the rules have been simplified as follows: …
In situations involving the female sex alone, the practice is now
to use feminine pronouns.” (42–3)
At the Christmas pageant the following passage was
quoted: (Luke 2:10-12)
“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring
you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For
unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is
Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find
the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a
manger.” In the KJV dialect you is plural and the
object (of a preposition): “angel said unto them, … I
bring [to] you good tidings”, “unto you is born”,
“shall be a sign unto you.” Ye,
however, is a plural subject, “Ye shall find
the babe.” The ASV (1901) treats this passage similarly. In the
sacred dialect of the King James Version (KJV), thee &
thou are second person singular pronouns referring to
the one addressed, in the objective & subjective case
respectively. Plural is you or ye. Webster
defines, “ye pron
you 1 —
used orig. only as a plural pronoun
of the second person in the subjective case and now used esp. in ecclesiastical or literary
language and in various English dialects.”
Today's standard English employs you—sometimes you understood—in all 2nd person cases. This is a step down in language refinement. As H.W. Fowler discusses in an article:
Any word that does the work of two or more by packing several notions into one is a gain (the more civilized a language the more such words it possesses), if certain conditions are observed: it must not be cumbersome; it should for choice be correctly formed; & it must express a compound notion that is familiar enough to need a name. (175–76)
Thee & thou are singular pronouns used as object & subject respectively but do not occur in this movie. Our modern English, used in later Bible translations, employ you for object and subject both singular and plural, leaving it up to us to determine the referent, which can be easy, or tricky, or impossible.
In
our movie a gift exchange is done by random drawing from a class of
thirty-three. It leads to the following exchange between Addie and
her grandmother:
Grandmother: Who got your gift?
Addie: I'm not telling.
Grandmother: Was it a boy or a girl, somebody you like or didn't like? Did he give you something you like or didn't like?
Addie: How do you know it was a he?
Grandmother: Was it a she?
Addie: No more questions.
Grandmother: From Billy Wilder?
Addie: How did you guess that?
Grandmother: Because I'm a smart old character.
From the context per Prof. Berry, “In situations involving only the male sex or in situations involving both the male and the female sexes, the pronouns ‘he’ and ‘his’ are to be used” (42–3). It is evident that Addie was expressing the latter, but they changed it to the former being the characters they were.
In later years circa 1972 when the narrator speaks from her changed world, he or she is used wholesale for the latter even in some Bibles. It's cumbersome. The NIV was copyrighted: 1973, 1978 & 1984, a time when our English language underwent deliberate modification due to problems (some) women had relating to men. Said Rush Limbaugh, “It's almost as if America went through its own feminist Cultural Revolution in the 1970s and early 1980s. Everything went mad for about ten years, and only now [1992] are we seeing young people who now view those years as somewhat bizarre” (191). “Somewhat bizarre” is how we might characterize those nutty times.
Production Values
“” (TV Movie 1972) was directed by Paul Bogart. It was written by Eleanor Perry and Gail Rock. Rock wrote a book (under another title) after the movie came out. It stars Jason Robards, Mildred Natwick and Lisa Lucas who were quite professional in their portrayals.
The movie is unrated but should be suitable for general audiences if they can handle the smoking throughout. The only thing borderline racy about it is the homemade toy Helen made, “a bunch of bells suspended on a ribbon.” It was hung over a crib, and when the baby kicked, it jingled. It was called a ding-a-ling. The baby wasn't a boy but had a ding-a-ling.
It was divided into acts by childlike storyboard drawings by which it faded out & in for the commercials. The scenes were also transitioned by fade outs/ins. Two cameras were used to switch subjects & perspectives. They were mounted on tripods allowing them to swivel and zoom in or out. The action was so slow that when I removed my headset and put my DVD player on fast forward or fast rewind, the movie seemed to progress at the same slow speed. At first I thought my machine was broken. The end narration detailing where the narrator ended up can be supplemented by “The Thanksgiving Treasure” in the same storyline. The house and the school were filmed on location in Uxbridge, Ontario, Canada. Runtime is 1½ hours.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
The teacher's example set a high standard for empathy, intelligence and diplomacy. These are simpler times portrayed.
This is a veritable classic that can hold its own with other Christmas classics, at least in the TV movie venue. If you can find it, count yourself fortunate. Highly recommended.
Movie Ratings
Action Factor: Weak action scenes. Suitability for children: Suitable for all ages. Special effects: Well, at least you can't see the strings. Video Occasion: Good for Groups. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture is taken from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Berry, Thomas Elliott. The Most Common Mistakes in English Usage. Copyright © 1961 by Thomas Elliott Berry New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1971. Print.
Fowler, H.W., A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. USA. Oxford UP. 1926–1946. Print.
Limbaugh, Rush. The Way Things Ought To Be. New York: Pocket Books, 1992. Print.
Steinhauer, Olen. The Cairo Affair. Copyright © 2014 by The Third State, Inc. New York: Minotaur Books, 2014. Print.
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield, Mass.: MERRIAM-WEBSTER. 1984. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org