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Heartwarming Christmas Classic
This is one film that I wish was still aired during the holiday season.

Mickey Rooney stars as Mike Halligan, a loveable, devoted grandfather to Scott Grimes who plays Robbie Westin. Robbie and Mike are extremely close and are looking forward to spending the holiday season together. When Mike suffers a fatal heart attack, Christmas joy suddenly turns to Christmas sorrow, devastating Mike's daughter (Robbie's mom), Robbie and the rest of the Westin family.

As Mike arrives in Heaven (a very short montage), he asks for a second chance at life, because he has promised Robbie that they would go to New York for Christmas. An angel gives Mike an assignment that allows him to return to Earth, but for only a short time. Robbie accepts and welcomes Mike's second chance at life and Mike and Robbie take off for New York without the rest of Robbie's family knowing it, which sends the family into a confused, astonished dash for New York in search of their son.

The real impact of the movie comes when Mike and Robbie arrive in New York. Annie Potts (Ghostbusters, Pretty in Pink, Designing Women) who plays Cindy Mills, a news reporter, sets out on assignment to find the true meaning of Christmas in New York, and is left empty-handed and wondering what has happened to Christmas. Mike and Robbie, in the triumphant conclusion, help her and many other New Yorkers re-discover the meaning of Christmas. The ending is quite a tear-jerker as Mike and Robbie are reunited with their family on Christmas Eve.

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear is a family film. It sends that warm feeling through you that causes you to appreciate your family and the memories that come with each Christmas. Although this movie is not aired on television anymore (obviously because of it's family values), I still recommend that you search for it in the dusty holiday corner of your local video store. It really brings the holidays right to you, and may become a holiday viewing tradition. ... Read more

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An Early Billy Crystal Curio!!
This is a great early romance movie featuring a lesser known Billy Crystal.It's worth a look especially for Crystal fans!! ... Read more

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Vampire as Rotten S.O.B. Extraordinary
I think I've seen just about every well-known [and several not-so-well-known ones, this one included] movie about the legendary bloodsucking Count Dracula or his cousins, but this one gives a slant to the old tired plot that doesn't get a lot of attention: vampire as Rotten S.O.B. Extraordinary. Even Bram Stoker in his novel gives the Count a moment of pity at the end of his tale-- a look of relief and peace as the stake is driven in into his heart at the very end. Ever since then we've seen tormented vampires who hate the evil that they must do to survive, their terrible lonliness and separation from the rest of humanity. Only the very old "Nosferatu", made in the 20's, created a real villian. And he was ugly to boot. The old Hammer films with Christopher Lee also created the vampire as a good-old-fashioned villian, but who had a dark attraction that he was able to make good use of. It was, all the same, the kind of attraction, the horrified fascination, for his victims like that of a deer caught in the headlights of a fast-moving train.

Here, in this treatment, we have a vampire who is so totally without any bit of good in him that he is truly Evil. He is a Fiend, blood dripping from his fangs [which we never see]. His vengeance is so horrible on the people who stand in his way that is it reminiscent of Jack the Ripper. It goes without saying that this vampire has enormous, even overpowering sex appeal, but it also is plain that his female tools or victims [usually both] are no important to him than lab rats. He is a serial killer more than the quasi-romantic image of the good man who happens to be a vampire; his killings are not the result of some awful childhood or catastrophic emotional event. He is a monster. Our sympathises are not with him, but with his victims.

Real monster movies are actually rather rare. This is one of them, and even though the posse of vampire killers are such flat and 2-D characters that it makes the vampire look complex by comparison, the film is worth watching for its different treatment of the vampire as villian. Richard Lynch, who is far from conventionally handsome, has a horrifying way of grabbing your attention and keeping it squarely on him. It's partly the fascination of the rabbit by the cobra, but also the unconscious fear of the power of sexual attraction. The novel "Dracula" fairly pants with sexual heat all through it, to an amzaing degree considering it's overwrought, even purplish Victorian prose. The Victorian age was famous for it's amnesiac denial of sexual drives, while the studied avoidance even vague sexual terms in polite conversation ["limb" vs. "leg"] drew attention to it...the 12-foot aligator in the living room. In this case, it's the 6-ft naked sexual aggression of a man-like beast. You'd like to ignore it, but you can't. This is the jet engine that drives the immense popularity of the vampire myth. This movie, unlike many of it's kind, lets you feel the power.

I wish this movie was available for purchase. It hardly airs on TV anymore. No true vampire/Dracula afficianado should count his or her education complete without seeing it. ... Read more

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I remember this!
I loved this movie as a kid! Of course, I was one of those lycanthropic kids who was dying to become a werewolf. Don't ask why, some people are just born that way. This ABC weekend special about a kid who suddenly discovers he's a werewolf, for about two minutes at a time whenever he starts itching, was so cool! So great to see it around again! ... Read more

Reviews (1)

An Early Billy Crystal Curio!!
This is a great early romance movie featuring a lesser known Billy Crystal.It's worth a look especially for Crystal fans!! ... Read more