Christmas 1945 - Part 3 - The Movies

So, there was good holiday entertainment at home with radio and records in 1946, but what put people in the holiday spirit when they ventured out of the house to the local movie theater?

Well, the big Christmas-themed movie of the year was Warner Bothers' "Christmas in Connecticut" starring Barbara Stanwyck and Dennis Morgan, with great support from Sydney Greenstreet and S.Z. Sakall.

It tapped into the new "returning war hero" vibe and was a huge hit. The curious thing, though? It was released in August!

Here's the trailer:

It's a lot of fun and worth a watch when the holidays roll around. After you're done with all the version of "A Christmas Carol," of course!

Dennis Morgan being a singer, "Christmas in Connecticut" included an origial song for him, "The Wish That I Wish Tonight." Dennis wasn't a recording artist, however, so he didn't have a record of the song, but here's a nice version by Ray Noble:

Not sure if Trudy Erwin's name was misspelled on the label of if she was trying out an alternate spelling!

Although it's not a Christmas picture per se, the big holiday release of the year was "The Bells of St. Mary's," which was released in December and does have a Christmas scene and does have a sort of Scroogey character (played by Henry Travers, best (only) known to modern audiences from "It's a Wonderful Life").

Here's a trailer:

This was, of course, a follow-up to the previous year's smash "Going My Way" with Bing Crosby's "Father O'Malley" and producer/director/writer Leo McCarey returning.

Bing and Leo had won Academy awards for "Going My Way" and interestingly Bing's new co-star, Ingrid Bergman, won the same year for "Gaslight!"

Bing was the biggest star on the planet at the time, so this was also a smash.

"Swinging on a Star" from "Going My Way" was a huge hit song as well, so Bing was given a similar song for "Bells of St. Mary's":

I don't think there were any new Christmas-themed cartoons for movie-goers in 1945, but here's some newsreel footage they would have seen:

Fun especially to see the stars in the parade!

This one has more of a British feel:

So, some good stuff for holiday-minded movie-goers!