Christmas Movies of the 1940s

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

1940
REMEMBER THE NIGHT
Barbara Stanwyck/Fred MacMurray

1945
THE BELLS OF ST. MARY'S
Bing Crosby/Ingrid Bergman

1940
BEYOND CHRISTMAS
Harry Carey/C. Aubrey Smith/Charles Winningar

Melton, Chadwick and O'Brien, engineering firm bigwigs, invite three strangers to dinner on Christmas Eve. Two show up (a kindergarten teacher and a rodeo performer), and those two eventually fall in love with each other while becoming friends with the three businessmen. The businessmen are later killed in a blizzard's plane crash, come back to their old home as guardian angels, and help the two young lovers over some rough patches.



1949
HOLIDAY AFFAIR
Robert Mitchum/Janet Leigh

Connie Ennis (Janet Leigh) is widowed with a young boy, engaged to lawyer Carl Davis (Wendell Corey), and works as a comparison shopper.  She meets war veteran Steve Mason (Robert Mitchum) while he's working at Crowley's Department Store, and she's never quite the same again. 

1942
HOLIDAY INN
Bing Crosby/Fred Astaire

1944
CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY
Gene Kelly/Deanna Durbin

1944
I'LL BE SEEING YOU
Ginger Rogers/Joseph Cotton/Shirley Temple

Sergeant Joseph Cotton (Zachary Morgan) suffering from battle fatigue meets Ginger Rogers (Mary Marshall), a convict (accidental manslaughter) on Christmas furlough.  Troubled and lonely, they find love and laughter with each other. 

1946
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
Jimmy Steward/Donna Reed

1947
MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET
Maureen O'Hara

1945
CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT
Barbara Stanwyk/Dennis Morgan

1947
THE BISHOP'S WIFE
Cary Grant/Loretta Young/David Niven

My Personal Favorite - Little Women (1949)
(All the warmth of a Christmas movie with several Christmas scenes.)

Tom and Jerry in The Night Before Christmas (1941)


Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer (1948)




Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) 
"FDR enjoyed receiving Christmas cards as much as he enjoyed sending them. He established his own private collection of Christmas cards, and by 1940, the collection contained over 3,000 designs. The National Christmas Tree was decorated sans lights that year because electric lights were being rationed while America was at war."

Harry S. Truman (1945-1953)
1945: "For the first time since 1941, the National Community Christmas Tree contained electric lights for decorations. 10,000 people attended Truman’s first Christmas tree lighting ceremony as President, which took place on the South Lawn of the White House. Truman declared to his audience: 'This is the Christmas that a war-weary world has prayed for through long and awful years. With peace come joy and gladness. The gloom of the war years fades as once more we light the National Community Christmas Tree.'”

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Disney: Snow White (1937), Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941), Bambi (1943), Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1959).
1952: Pluto's Christmas Tree

 Donald Duck's Christmas