The Sun Also Rises

It’s a wonderful place to watch a sunset: Battery Park at the tip of Manhattan Island. With the days growing shorter and shorter, it disappeared behind Ellis Island around 4:30 p.m. this past Saturday. I wish I had dressed warmer for the occasion. There was a distinct chill in the air and a pesky wind blowing off New York Harbor. It was, though, fitting weather for the start of yet another Christmas season. Christmastime in the city: The Rockefeller Center tree is all lit up, the Rockettes are strutting their stuff a block away, and the belching street steampipes are working overtime.

It’s hard to believe that fifty-one years have passed since I saw Scrooge at Radio City Music Hall followed by the Christmas show, including the Rockettes of the day, who would now be in their seventies and eighties. My mother was one of many chaperones on the trip, which was an annual event in St. John’s grammar school.

I consider Scrooge the all-time greatest Christmas movie and most entertaining adaptation of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Father Maloney would disagree with me on this, for he advised his students at Cardinal Spellman High School to avoid all animated and musical versions—which Scrooge was—of the Dickens’ classic. The late film critic Roger Ebert appreciated star Albert Finney’s interpretation of Ebenezer Scrooge but dismissed the music therein as not worthy of anybody’s time. Are you kidding, Roger, the movie is chock full of charming, moving, and memorable tunes by Leslie Bricusse. Granted, “See the Phantoms,” as croaked out by Sir Alec Guinness, is not quite in the same league as “Sing a Christmas Carol.” Julie Andrews sung the latter in a 1972 Christmas special, and "I'll Begin Again" was performed by, among others, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Another Christmas classic is The Homecoming, Earl Hamner’s “Christmas Story,” which inspired The Waltons TV series. It absolutely captured a time—the Great Depression—and was a gritty, believable period piece. Guess what? A remake of The Homecoming has been made and aired in 2021. Richard Thomas, who played the original John-Boy, provides the narration. I haven’t seen it but have read reviews and saw stills from the movie. The original featured actors who looked the part. They weren’t Hollywood handsome in neatly pressed, spiffy clean, new-looking clothing. And why pray tell did the current version ditch one of the kids: Ben? I read about a scene where Grandpa, John-Boy, and Mary Ellen go out to cut down the family Christmas tree. In the original, Mary Ellen wanted to accompany John-Boy and Grandpa, but was sternly informed by Mama, played with earnest elan by Patricia Neal, that “Cutting down trees is men’s work. A girl’s place is in the kitchen.” You see, that would have been the mentality in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia in Depression-era America. Political correctness can’t even let period pieces stand on their own. I suppose some people would be triggered if Mary Ellen wasn’t permitted to boldly go wherever she wanted to go in 1933. This is 2021.

When The Homecoming, set in 1933, first aired on CBS in December 1971, thirty-eight years separated the two. Now, with the latest version, eighty-eight years separate the two. That’s a lot of water under the bridge. So much has changed since I watched The Homecoming debut in my grandmother’s and aunt’s living room all those years ago. They had a color television set, which my immediate family didn’t have upstairs from them. With all this passage of time, I guess I should take heart that the sun also rises.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)