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Got snow?

      On the recent winter solstice day, which was depressingly overcast from the moment my eyes were forced open by the reproach of a hungry cat to what I would have imagined to be sunset around 4, I decided that I must find some pleasant images to associate with winter that I could share with you. It seemed a simple task to scan my brain for a cozy ski-lodge scene with rosy-cheeked people in bulky sweaters, drinking hot chocolate in the flickering light of a roaring fire, but the subject must have given me brain-freeze (sorry) and the only thing I could think of was Two-Faced Woman (1941, Metro Goldwyn Mayer) which was the last film Greta Garbo made and the one that reputedly drove her into retirement (but not actually as she was set to do another before the production fell through). She plays a ski instructor and there are scenes on the slopes with co-star, Melvyn Douglas, but a failed comedy that was the last film of Garbo?  Not a  happy choice.

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So, now I'm really thinking snow, snow, what movie has snow?  I think of The Mortal Storm (1940, Metro Goldwyn Mayer) and I see Margaret Sullavan skiing to freedom away from the Nazis -- oh, they shot her. Forget that one.

 How about Spellbound (1945 Selznick International) with that hypnotic score by Miklos Rozsa?  Of course, the snow in this story was used by Ingrid Bergman to jar the memory of Gregory Peck who had witnessed a murder, so it was terrifying snow, not happy snow. Let's see, there was a truly bleak, but excellent, film directed by Nicholas Ray, On Dangerous Ground  (1951 RKO Radio Pictures) with Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan and Ward Bond, half of which takes place in snowy upstate New York, as Ryan blindly pursues blind Lupino’s brother, but as I said, bleak.

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The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin Productions, 1925), the Chaplin classic, although snowy and funny, and Call of the Wild (20th Century Pictures, 1935), the sort-of Jack London classic-- I can’t even write about something with a dog without tearing up -- make you feel cold just watching. Don't even mention  Dr.Zhivago (1965, Metro Goldwyn Mayer).  Now, I am picturing a boy walking away from the camera in the snow --what was that film?  Oh, yes, All Mine to Give (1957, RKO Radio Pictures), a film that I saw in elementary school, shown to us by a sadistic administrator, because it is one of the saddest movie ever made and every child in the audience was in tears.  This will not lift your spirits.

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Oh, I know, there are the Christmas movies, but once Christmas is past and you’re stuck with that long stretch of gray, cold days, they won’t do.  That’s why I don’t mention The Bishop’s Wife (1947, The Samuel Goldwyn Company), which I didn’t list as a Christmas favorite because it’s not.  I don’t know why I can’t warm up to this film.  I mean, it has Cary Grant, and Loretta Young and it does have this nice skating scene, but I guess I don’t like Cary as an angel.  I seem to remember a comedy with Claudette Colbert where 

she is in some alpine resort pursued by Melvyn Douglas and Robert Young.  I Met Him in Paris (1937, Paramount Pictures) is probably not so well-known today and sometimes there’s a reason for this.  A film with this cast is not hard to watch, but it’s not sparkling enough to break you out of the winter doldrums. 

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Another smallish comedy with Mary Astor and Melvyn Douglas (hey, was he in everything?), And So They Were Married (1936 Columbia Pictures Corporation) takes place in an actual ski lodge during holiday season.  Perfect setting, but too little outside action because it’s all about the kids trying to prevent the second marriage of their parents.  Not nearly funny enough for our purposes.   I hesitate to mention Sonja Henie, but if you want a winter resort setting and an upbeat mood, Sun Valley Serenade (1941) has good music from
Glenn Miller and his orchestra and Henie, John Payne, Milton Berle, Lynn Bari, The Nicholas Brothers, and not much plot.

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Let’s face it, we’re stuck with the dreary and depressing winter grayness that can drive you insane.  On the other hand, even the most majestic, snow-globe perfection of a grand hotel in the Rockies can drive you insane.  Of course, I’m thinking of Jack Nicholson in The Shining (1980 Warner Brothers).  Directed by Stanley Kubrick, adapted from the Stephen King novel, the story takes place in a hotel in Colorado that is closed for the winter. Nicholson is hired to live there as caretaker, alone, except for his wife and son, and the ghosts of former residents.  As the isolation takes effect, Nicholson’s character becomes dangerously unhinged, and wife and son become desperate to defend themselves.  The title refers to a kind of psychic vision that the boy possesses that adds to his terror, and ours.  But through Kubrick’s direction of the camera, the elegant art deco hotel with its beautifully appointed lounges and countless bedrooms becomes a frightening maze of empty corridors where we are afraid for the camera to turn the corner.  Even the beauty of the snowbound scene outside is menacing, a white prison with no way out. So if you watch this masterpiece of terror where the silent snow is a palpable enemy, you will be able to look out your window at the familiar street below and sip a cup of hot coffee, and think, this is not so bad. Unless you see REDRUM written in the snow.

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As long as we're extending the 'classic' umbrella to cover a movie about the snow/madness nexus from 1980, let's dare to go as far as 1995 for one that covers similar territory.  Where The Shining's white vastness undermines the sanity of the characters, Reckless (Playhouse International Pictures, 1995) is a film that truly feels like it was filmed in a snow globe, as if a group of people have reality distorted by being trapped in a smaller-than-life set.  Starring Mia Farrow as an unrelentingly-optimistic victim of fate (for example, her husband tells her he has taken out a contract on her life) who never gives up her childlike excitement about colored lights and tinsel, and the always-perfect Mary-Louise Parker, with a strong performance by Scott Glenn and a fine supporting cast. This is a small gem compared to the more ambitious The Shining, but it will leave you feeling less chilled.

As my late boss used to say, what are your thoughts? (Click on"comments" at the bottom.)