Two More Neglected Christmas Classics

We’re No Angels (the original with Humphrey Bogart, not the remake with Sean Penn) is an off-beat Christmas story about three escaped convicts who end up solving the problems of a middle-class French family with the help of a pet viper.

“The Holly and the Ivy” isn’t available on DVD yet but I have hopes, maybe by next Christmas. It occasionally turns up on Turner Classic Movies. It is a quietly powerful story about an English clergyman (Sir Ralph Richardson) who gets together with his adult children for the holidays, leading to some accusations and reconciliation as he realizes that he has been more thoughtful and sensitive to his parishioners than he has been to his family.