Around this time of the year, there鈥檚 no shortage of holiday-themed movies and television shows.
There are retellings of the Biblical story of the birth of Jesus, plenty of versions of Charles Dickens鈥� novella, A Christmas Carol, an array of made-for-television holiday romances and more.
Or, if you prefer something a little different, here are a few alternatives. These include radio, television and a motion picture, and were released from the 1940s to the 1980s. All of these can be found online without too much digging around.
Brazil (1985 motion picture)
Imagine Monty Python presenting George Orwell鈥檚 novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, set around Christmas.
Brazil is the story of Sam Lowry, a low-level bureaucrat trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams. The movie was directed by Terry Gilliam, a former member of the Monty Python comedy troupe.
The story is set during the Christmas season, and there are plenty of references to the day, as well as some characters dressed as Santa. However, it is not a typical holiday story as it addresses surveillance, inefficient bureaucracies, commercialism and the divide between dreams and reality.
Christmas Bonus (1944 radio drama)
Christmas Bonus was an episode of the American radio drama series, The Whistler. It first aired on Dec. 25, 1944.
An ex-convict is fired from his job at a department store on Christmas Eve after $10,000 had been stolen from the store in a series of thefts. There鈥檚 a lot in this story about redemption and second chances.
Nackles (1980 radio reading)
In his short story, Donald E. Westlake describes a domineering husband and father who tells his children there is a character called Nackles, who is Santa Claus鈥檚 evil counterpart. He uses this story to persuade his children to be on their best behaviour, for fear of receiving Nackles鈥� wrath.
The short story appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in January 1964. The radio reading was done on Mindwebs on Dec. 27, 1980.
The Big Little Jesus (1953 radio drama and television episode)
The Los Angeles police detectives from Dragnet are on a challenging holiday case. The statue of the baby Jesus has been taken from a church鈥檚 nativity scene. It is Christmas Eve and the detectives are trying to track down the missing statue.
The radio drama episode aired on Dec. 22, 1953, and the television episode was first broadcast Dec. 24, 1953.
It is based on an incident which had occurred earlier in San Francisco.
The Star (1985 television episode)
This episode of the 1980s version of The Twilight Zone aired Dec. 20, 1985.
Set in space, The Star is the story of a spaceship crew which discovers the remains of a planet. The civilization had been destroyed thousands of years earlier when its star went supernova.
The Christmas season plays prominently, but not obtrusively, in this story.
The story is based on Arthur C. Clarke鈥檚 1955 short story, The Star, and for the most part, it follows closely with the story. However, the short story ends on a rather bleak note. I prefer something less depressing. The Twilight Zone episode keeps the spirit of the story but adds a few lines of dialogue at the end. That dialogue brings in a level of hope 鈥� and hope is important at this time of year.
If a holiday story set in space isn鈥檛 for you, there鈥檚 another segment from the same Twilight Zone episode. This is called But Can She Type? and it鈥檚 the story of an undervalued and unappreciated secretary who finds herself in an alternate world where secretaries are treated with high regard.
These titles are by no means a definitive list, but they offer a place to start if one wants something a little different for holiday entertainment.
John Arendt is the editor of the Summerland Review.
