We’re feeling festive over here at American Pulps and decided to put together an American Pulps Christmas Movie list. Granted this isn’t a list of the best Christmas movies, there’s some that we love that aren’t on here. This is merely a list of movies that resemble our work so; Rudolph will not be represented.
Die Hard (1988)
First off this is a Christmas Movie. Whoever says it isn’t a Christmas Movie is an asshole, period. It covers all the Christmas movie bases: multiple Christmas songs in the soundtrack, there are Christmas decorations up in Nakatomi Plaza and it takes place during a fucking Christmas party. So now that we got that out of the way.
Die Hard is more than a Christmas movie, it’s a great movie. We always tell people that you can describe our work as a cross between Die Hard, Raging Bull and Weekend at Bernie’s.
For real, when we’re beating out scenes in our writing sessions the words “Like in Die Hard” are mentioned more than we should admit. We’ll write another article about how much of a perfect movie Die Hard is along with fun factoids about it later. Stay tuned.
It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)
If you want an example of Christmas Noir, look no further than Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. People often ask us what “Noir” is. I usually describe it as average people in shitty, dark, and extraordinary situations. And that’s It’s A Wonderful Life in a nutshell. You want dark? George was about to off himself if Clarence didn’t show him the light. And it was made in 1946 so it fits the timeframe.
For me, it’s not Christmas if I haven’t seen the scene at Nick’s bar:
Aside from the Noir esthetics that we get with this flick, it makes the list because Potterville is basically every location we write about in our stories. There’s bent people “in charge” answering to one greedy corrupt motherfucker pulling all the strings. Potterville’s got all kinds of nightlife and mayhem. That my friends, is a big part of the American Pulps style guide.
Scrooged (1988)
This one is on the Weekend at Bernie’s spectrum of our triad, but that doesn’t make it any less of a movie than the first two we listed.
First off, you want to talk Film Noir, look no further than Bob Mitchum one of the giants of Noir as Francis Xavier Cross’ boss. (The Night of the Hunter, another Christmas Noir starring Mitchum as The Preacher is amazing).
Frank Cross: Progamming… for cats?
Preston Rhinelander: Walk with me, Frank. Now I’m not saying build a whole show around animals. All I’m suggesting is that we occasionally throw in a little pet appeal. Some birds, a squirrel… Mice! Exactly. You remember Kojak and the lollipops? What about a cop that dangles string?
When I was a kid I thought Tom Waits played the Ghost of Christmas Past (it’s really David Johansen). So when I worked at a restaurant I was talking to the fry cook about how awesome Waits is and he said “Yeah, he’s a great actor.” And I retorted with “Oh yeah, Scrooged!” and looked like a dumbass.
Anyway, Waits is a great actor but he wasn’t in this one. However, Scrooged is my favorite version of Dickens’ Christmas Carol, and I love George C Scott as Ebenezer so that’s saying something.
Also, the satire of Christmas specials and movies (Night the Reindeer Died in particular) is definitely something we try to bring to the table in a lot of our work, which is another reason this Christmas classic has influenced American Pulps enough to be on this list.
29th Street (1991)
A lesser-known Christmas movie starring Anthony LaPaglia, Danny Aiello, Lainie Kazan, and a younger Paulie Walnuts Gualtieri (Tony Sirico) is best described as It’s A Wonderful Life meets Goodfellas, I would say it is a Christmas version of A Bronx Tale but 29th Street predates Bronx Tale by 2 years.
It’s based on a true story about the first New York State Lottery winner in 1976 and it really deserves more love. Aiello’s “I’m not a loser” scene is honestly very touching.
Home Alone (1990)
Chris Columbus has not only written and directed some of the best Christmas movies of the last 40 years (Gremlins is a great Christmas movie that did not make the list), but half of the American Pulps team (John) got to work for Chris a few years back. The other half (Matt) wanted to be Mikey from the Goonies as a child, a script he penned. Needless to say, we support whatever Chris Columbus does.
Anyway, Home Alone’s 1 and 2 are classic Christmas movies with Joe Pesci trying his hardest to refrain from swearing when his head gets roasted with a blowtorch and his gold tooth gets knocked out with a paint can. Daniel Stern plays the perfect buffoon. Uncle Frank is hilariously cheap and terrible.
Lastly, the movies that parody the Cagney / Bogart movie, Angels with Dirty Faces, Angels with Filthy Souls and in 2, Angels with Even Filthier Souls is on par with The Night the Reindeer Died satire. It’s funny, memorable, and right up our alley.
Batman Returns (1992)
Batman is one of the first Noir Comics out there. Batman and The Spirit really paved the way for Dawyn Cooke / Westlake’s Parker series and Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips’ Criminal and Fade Out. Which paved the way for American Pulps.
Anyway, Batman Returns takes place around Christmastime and this may be a hot take but I really like the Tim Burton / Michael Keaton movies better than the Nolan / Bale Batman flicks. This one doesn’t only have Michael Keaton; it’s also got Christopher Walken, Danny DeVito and Michelle Pfeiffer. You really can’t beat that lineup.
It also has one of my favorite Walken quotes, “Bruce Wayne, why are you dressed up like Batman?”
The Lemon Drop Kid (1951)
This movie is based off of a Damon Runyon book, which makes it perfect for this list right there. It stars Bob Hope as The Lemon Drop Kid a flim-flam man who screws a gangster named Moose Moran out of some dough. Moran gives Kid an ultimatum, pay up $10,000 by Christmas Eve or else he won’t see the New Year. So he employs New York City street corner Santa’s to raise funds in a scam.
Not only is it a fun movie, the song Silver Bells was written for it. When the song became popular on the radio before the movie premiered, Bob Hope had them re-shoot the whole sequence with the song. Here it is:
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
You can’t go wrong with a Griswold family movie (except of course the one with Ed Helms playing an adult Rusty Griswold in the 2015 Vacation that is very wrong indeed).
Cousin Eddie is a memorable character but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say Uncle Lewis (played by William Hickey) is my favorite part of the whole movie.
“You couldn’t hear a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerine plant.”
Also, Mae Questel, the voice of Betty Boop, plays his wife Aunt Bethany. Power couple.
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear (1984)
This one was made for TV and has that cheesiness that you can really only get away with if you’re making a Christmas movie or film about a kid and a dog.
It’s a Pagourgis family classic and it stars Mickey Rooney who is an ex-NYPD Detective living in Los Angeles with his daughter and her family. That stay is cut short when he has a heart attack, dies, and at the pearly gates gets recruited to try to track down an angel who’s going by the mortal name of Wiley Boggs in New York City. Boggs has been tasked with spreading Christmas cheer in New York, something he does every year but this year he just finds the bottom of a bottle and ends up in a psych ward.
Rooney comes back to life to some befuddled EMTs in LA and takes (the court of law would say kidnaps) his grandson to go on this mission to find Wiley Boggs who is currently drunk and not making New York any merrier.
Cheesedick? Yes. But it’s got that detective element and drunken department store Santas so it fits with this list.
Lady in the Lake (1947)
A film adaptation of a Raymond Chandler book of the same name. It’s a Christmas Film Noir that stars Robert Montgomery as Phillip Marlowe the hardboiled private eye best known for Humphrey Bogart’s work in The Big Sleep.
The novel took place during the summer but they wrote the movie to take place during Christmastime to juxtapose the dark parts of the story with cheerful Christmas themes. For example, the film’s opening credits are shown on a series of Christmas cards, which turn out to be concealing a gun.
And if you’re looking for a good Film Noir gif for some reason. Here:
Honorable Mentions:
Silent Night Deadly Night (1984) – The movie that was boycotted by Christmas Carolers outside the theaters in protests starts out with a kid visiting his dying grandfather who say’s he’s afraid of Santa Claus. Then, when the family is driving home a guy dressed as Santa who robbed a liquor store and shot the clerk is having car trouble. He flags down the family’s car, shoots the dad with his gun and then slits the mom’s throat with a switchblade.
When he gets older he goes around killing people he deems “naughty.” It’s a fun flick for the whole family.
However, I have to say my favorite scene of the SNDN series is from SNDN2 “Garbage day!”
The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017) – I watched this on Netflix for the first time this year not expecting much and I loved it. The movie is about Charles Dickens as he was writing the book A Christmas Carol, and I love how they show him writing, getting into a groove and then getting interrupted. As a writer, I really liked how they showed that whole process. It reminded me of getting texts while I’m writing.
Lethal Weapon (1987) – On the Die Hard scale of Christmas movies, this one is still a Christmas Movie. Although Christmas isn’t mentioned as much, and like Die Hard it takes place in Los Angeles, which also does not give it much of a Christmas feel. It’s still a classic movie and a huge influence on American Pulps.
Alright, that’s all for now. Merry Christmas ya filthy animals.
