Christmas at the movies: A look at yule heroes from Marley to Mr. Magoo Stepping out: (left to right) Bing Crosby, Marjorie Reynolds, Fred Astaire and Virginia Dale kick up their heels in "Holiday Inn." "t . Editor's note: Christmas, Ebenezer Scrooge said, is a poor excuse fojr picking a man's pocket once a year. However, Hollywood has always found it an excellent ex-cellent excuse to make cheery, sentimental sen-timental or sad or offbeat films about the year's biggest holiday. Here a few movies both venerable and modern that are a part of our Christmas Memories Past and Christmas Memories Yet to Come. by RICK BROUGH Record staff writer Away in a manger Of the many movies made about the yuletide, there are a handful of classics. A few are awful. But even the mediocre Christmas films are recycled faithfully every year on television. Yet of all the films run at Christmas, practically none deals with the actual birth of Christ there's a message here somewhere. I can't think of a single film that deals primarily with the Biblical story of Bethlehem. The nativity usually appears as an episode in the filmed stories of Christ's life. A typical example was the reverent depiction in Ben Hur, presented with a series of tableaux and a choir ooing in the background. At the other end of the spectrum, there is the irreverent Life of Brian, in which the Three Wise Men dispensing frankincense and myrrh visit the bewildered mother of the newly-born Brian. However, they rudely snatch the presents back, having discovered they have visited the wrong manger and the Christ Child is really three doors down. , In these presentations, Christ is not seen. As in the Christmas pageant once presented in "Doonesbury," he is usually a 50-watt light bulb. Director John Ford devoted a whole movie to the nativity story an allegorical Western. Three Godfathers is the tale of a trio of bandits played by John Wayne, Pedro Armendariz and Harry Carey Jr. who flee from the law into the desert. In the middle of a sandstorm, they find a wagon that has lost its way and an expectant mother (a young Mildred Natwick) about ' to give birth. She dies in childbirth, but the three bandits swear to get th child to civilization. Two of the outlaws die during the trek, but Wayne makes it, staggering into a bar on Christmas night with the babe. He is sent to prison, but his soul is redeemed. redeem-ed. The premise of the movie may be heavy-handed, but the direction is poignant and the acting is good. Wayne usually gave a good performance perfor-mance under Ford. And the movie touched on the theme that informs almost all Christmas movies. Namely, it is this: The yuletide is a special time of year. It makes room for the outcast, softens the malicious person and comforts the dispirited. Bah, humbug! The most famous story of all is, of course, A Christmas Carol. Countless actors have grumbled their way through the story of the miser Scrooge and his miraculous change of heart. It was even done as a TV cartoon with Mr. Magoo as Scrooge. The earliest version that is still popular is the 1938 feature by Metro-Goldwayn-Mayer, a routine treatment treat-ment that verges on being namby-. namby-. pamby. Reginald Owen played Scrooge as a bent over, snapping turtle. But Owen had a basically cheery personality per-sonality as an actor, which came to the fore as he was changed by the visitations of the spirits. One interesting note on the casting: Bob Cratchit and his wife were played by Gene and Kathleen Lockhart, husband and wife actors. And if you look closely at the Cratchit Crat-chit children, you can find their daughter, June years before she became known for "Lassie" and "Lost in Space." In 1970 came the movie Scrooge, which was unusual on several counts. First, it was a musical, with Leslie Bricusse writing a series of odd, usually forgettable songs, perhaps in the hope of duplicating the success of "Oliver." OK, somebody try making a musical but of "Bleak House." One song, "Thank You Very Much," became a standard, but most of the Bricusse songs were not the kind you hum as you leave the theater. At one point, even Marley's Ghost gets a talksinging number as he conducts Scrooge through the spirit world. Scrooge in the movie was played by a young man Albert Finney Fin-ney instead of a middle-aged-to-old actor. Instead of using a younger actor ac-tor to play the Scrooge of the past, Finney played the younger miser and was "aged" for the other scenes. Thus he can show you the frown playing around his young man's face that later will harden into in-to an iron scowl. ' ' Marley's Ghost, played by Alec Guinness, also went against tradition. tradi-tion. Instead of being a see-through ghost, he was a solid, if pale, spirit, floating in slow,. dance-like motions. The additions here to the Dickens story sometimes work and sometimes don't work. Maybe the best single line in any Scrooge story is from the Ghost of Christmas Present, Pre-sent, who in this film bellows, "Come here, you weird little man! " On the other hand, the movie could chop out the scene where ScroogeFinney descends to hell amd is bound in huge, heavy chains. The best Scrooge film is the 1951 British A Christinas Carol with Alastair Sim as an underplayed and glibly acerbic old miser. His portrayal por-trayal has the most versatility and shading. Sim was a wonderful actor of humor, so mixed in with his terror . and sorrow as Scrooge are some Wonderful comic "takes." Every time a spirit floats in, he gets a weary look on his face as if to say, "Give me a break, please! " In the last part of the movie, Sim's reformed Scrooge is a delight. He's so joyful, he's hysterical. "I must stand on my head," he says and does just that! Among other virtues: Michael Hordern is a great Marley's Ghost, an ethereal ham always shrieking and flapping his arms. And when new scenes are written into the story, they fit. Much of the new material is in keeping with Dickens' social criticism of the Industrial Age. For instance, young Scrooge meets an older merchant a representative of the new callous industrial class who makes Scrooge his protege pro-tege and corrupts the young Ebenezer. Later, the Ghost of Christmas Present forces Scrooge to look at two starving children. "The girl is Hunger, the boy is Want. Beware them both. But especially, beware this Boy," says the Spirit. Revolutions can start here, he seems to be saying. In "A Christmas Carol," a proud man changed when he was forced to recognize how empty his life was. It's a Wonderful Life is about the flip side a despairing man made to realize how rich his life is. Director Frank Capra created one of the best films of all time in his story of George Bailey (James Stewart) who dreams of beating the world, but step by step finds he is confined to his little town of Bedford Falls. Instead of traveling the world, he stays to run his family's dinky little loan company, the only business in town that counters the greedy banker, Potter (Lionel Barrymore) and gives a helping hand to people. He finances a college education for his little brother, who becomes a football star and war hero, and he marries a stay-at-home girl (Donna Reed). But the film suggests there's a dark side to the virtuous man in his repressed frustration of sacrifices made for others. When his absent-minded absent-minded uncle misplaces a mortgage payment, George is brought to the edge of financial ruin and all the rage and hopelessness of years comes pouring out. The only source of money he has is a life insurance policy. But before he can throw himself off a bridge, he is stopped by his guardian angel, Clarence played by Henry Travers, a little-known character actor, in a wonderfully endearing portrayal. Clarence shows George what his life would be if he had never been born. And Capra again makes a point about how close his wholesome small town resides to the abyss. In life without George, the town becomes a blighted red-light district called Pottersville. Without the nudge of George's influence, the citizens fall into alcoholism, repression, repres-sion, fear, bitterness, poverty and madness. The parable is a bit one-sided, granted. But "Wonderful Life" is passionate, humorous and utterly warm-hearted. Here comes Santa Claus There are a few movies built around Santa Claus. Santa Claus: the Movie (1985) is a film built over him. The North Pole scenes look like the biggest department-store window win-dow display in the world. The best Santa movie is still Miracle on 34th Street, in which the Santa at Macy's (Edmund Gwenn) insists he is the genuine article. Santa San-ta or not, he's a miracle-worker he brings faith to a Scrooge-like little girl (Natalie Wood), effects a public-relations public-relations truce between Macy's and Gimbel's and fights a ratty, manipulative store psychologist. The shrink plots to have Gwenn thrown in the booby hatch for saying he's really Santa. But in a rousing courtroom climax the judge is Gene Lockhart, the former Bob Cratchit Gwenn manages to prove his case Crooning Kringles Christmas wouldn't be Christmas, of course, without music and Bing Crosby. Every Christmas, some television network is bound to show White Christmas, the 1954 film with Crosby and Danny Kaye as two World War II buddies who become a popular song-and-dance team in civilian life. Along the way, they hook up with a sister act, played by Rosemary Clooney and Vera-EUen. The paper-thin plot has an aura of '50s sentiment for the military. The boys find their beloved ex-commanding ex-commanding officer (Dean Jagger) is running a neglected ski lodge in Vermont, so they plan a reunion of their GI buddies to give the place a boost. The story was time-killing, mainly, main-ly, until Bing could sing "White Christmas" or "Count Your Blessings" Bless-ings" the two best songs in the Irving Irv-ing Berlin score. People don't remember, however, that Crosby first sang "White Christmas" in an earlier, better film-Holiday Inn (1942). The premise is that Crosby and Fred Astaire operate a country inn that only opens on holidays. This is the excuse for a series of musical numbers set on Christmas, New Year's and Lincoln's Birthday. The most memorable skit was the firecracker dance done by Astaire as a tribute to the Fourth of July. I wish this film would be telecast more often. Today's audiences would enjoy it. Park City realtors would sit with mouths agape and say, "How the hell did they handle the overhead?" Blue, blue Christmas Christmas is often a sad occasion in movies. The classic musical Meet Me in St. Louis has a yuletide vignette that's worth more than some entire movies. The film is about a family facing the prospect of moving away from their beloved St. Louis home to New York. During their last December in the home, Judy Garland sings "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" to little sister Margaret O'Brien. ! Frank Capra's Meet John Doe (1941) mixed Christmas and'suicide, like "Wonderful Life." Barbara Stanwyck is a newspaper columnist who invents a letter from a man who promises to jump off a skyscraper on Christmas Eve to protest world injustice. When readers demand that the man be found, Stanwyck recruits Gary Cooper to play the part and he ends up leading a "little man" crusade against a fascist cabal of corporate heads. Perhaps the most saccharine Christmas movie is Six Weeks. In this case, two Moores is less, as Dudley Moore and Mary Tyler Moore star in a story about a young girl stricken with leukemia. She fulfills her dream of dancing in ' 'The Nutcracker," then immediately sickens and dies. Like falling off a yulelog There are even goofy Christmas movies. Much to my regret, I have not yet been able to see Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, a 1964 flick that reportedly includes a young Pia Zadora in the cast. I have, however, seen the Roy Rogers B-Western, Trail of Robin Hood. The plot honest to God! is that the villains rustle Christmas trees ! Get along, little conifer? At the climax, Roy recruits other Western movie stars to ship the herd of trees pack of trees? bunch? to market past the heavies shooting at them. As I recall, the lead villain falls off a log and dies. Halo, everybody What's the best neglected Christmas movie? My nomination is We're No Angels. Three convicts escape from Devil's Island Humphrey Bogart, Peter Ustinov and Aldo Ray. They plan to rob and murder a family that runs a little shop on the island, then grab a boat and flee. But they don't have the heart, because the family-led family-led by Leo G. Carroll is so pathetic. They're meek, they lose money on the shop and they're about to be evicted by their cruel cousin (Basil Rathbone). Despite themselves, the cons become super-salesman in the shop and act as yuletide caterers for the family. They marry off the daughter of the family to a handsome young sailor. And as for Rathbone well, he carries around a little box with his pet snake Adolf (never seen), who just loves to bite nasty people. AH this is done with wonderful black humor, especially from Bogart and Ustinov. And the scene with the three convicts caroling, like scruffy singing waiters', is . marvelous. At the end, their escape boat is ready, but they decide they don't like the outside world anyway, and they want to go back to Devil's Island. Like Scrooge and George Bailey, they've been changed by Christmas. As the cons walk off, three haloes blink on-ding, ding ding!-over their heads. And after a pause-ding! -another appears over Adolph's cage. And as Adolph himself might say Merry Christmas to all, and to all a ' good bite