Christmas 1936 - Part 3 - The Movies

Next up for Christmas 1936, we hit the neighborhood movie theater to see if there's any holiday themed material playing.

There actually don't seem to have been any honest-to-goodness Christmas movies released in 1936. For reference, "Scrooge" with Seymour Hicks was released in 1935 and MGM's "A Christmas Carol" wouldn't come out until 1938.

There was one of those is-it-really-a-Christmas-movie? type films, though. You know, the kind that takes place on or around Christmas, but people debate over whether it's a Christmas movie, "Die Hard" (1988) being the poster child these days.

Our 1936 movie is "Three Godfathers," Peter B. Kyne's story which has been filmed a number of times (most famously in 1948 as "3 Godfathers" with John Ford directing John Wayne). It concerns three bandits who come across a baby in the desert and bring him to the town of New Jerusalem. It takes place around Christmas, so I say it's a Christmas movie!

Here's a trailer (with Spanish subtitles):

A pretty good flick, even if Chester Morris is no John Wayne!

Another popular movie from 1936 had a Christmas scene of note. This would be "Stowaway," a Shirley Temple vehicle in which everyone's favorite moppet sings "That's What I Want for Christmas."

Here's a clip of the scene, colorized and out-of-sync, but still fun:

I like that song, even though it never really went anywhere.

There were a couple of recordings of the song from around that time, but neither was released in 1936.

There was Gray Gordon and his Tic-Toc Rhythm Orchestra from 1938:

The lyrics are a bit different from the ones that Shirley sang and then it turns into a safe driving PSA!

Gray Gordon's band's Tic-Toc Rhythm is very reminiscent of the more successful Shep Fields and his Rippling Rhythm Orchestra, but they have fun 1930s sound.

And here's Dick Robertson from 1939 with different different lyrics:

Despite the billing on the label, Dick Robertson wasn't really a bandleader, but a prolific studio singer. He cut a number of snappy Christmas songs for Decca in the 1930s.

But even if there weren't any overly Christmas-y movies in theaters in 1936, there were a couple of cartoons!

There was "The Pups' Christmas," a Happy Harmonies entry from Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising released by MGM:

It's cute, but this other entry, "Christmas Comes But Once a Year" from the Fleischer studio is brilliant:

I love Grampy! This one is his only cartoon without Betty Boop and his only color one!

He really did save Christmas!