For the last decade and a half or so, Hallmark's reputation in the TV world has primarily rested on the endless stream of movies The Hallmark Channel pumps out. These movies, mostly romcoms and mostly set at Christmas (though they do make movies set at other holidays and other times of the year) all seem to have the same plot. Despite the critical disdain, it's working for the company, as audiences can't seem to get enough of them. It does mark a sharp change from what the company was known for for the first six decades of widespread television, namely the Hallmark Hall of Fame.
Stretching back all the way to 1951, the series would produce around four or five movies a season, usually starring renowned actors and made with strong production values. It would not be unusual for an entry or two to dominate a given year's Emmys for TV Movie. While from the 1980s on, most entries would be full-length movies, there were a number of one-hour specials in the decades before. Ironically, for what the company's TV production branch would transform into, and for a franchise that began with the broadcast premiere of the opera Amahl & the Night Visitors, it largely stayed away from Christmas stories. However, in 1977 and 1978, new Christmas specials were released under the Hall of Fame banner: Have I Got a Christmas For You in 1977 and Stubby Pringle's Christmas in 1978. Other than each being an hour long, having strong casts, and being produced by brothers Gilbert and Joseph Cates, they have almost nothing in common.
Have I Got a Christmas for You has an original teleplay but is loosely based on real events, namely the practice of Jews taking the place of Christians working essential jobs on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Milton Berle is first among equals in the surprisingly stacked cast, playing a businessman and member of the council at the local temple when fellow councilmember Jack Carter proposes the job takeover. The other members are enthusiastic about it, but Berle, who also narrates, sees only doom around the corner. Still, there wouldn't be a special if the idea didn't go ahead.
Among the other cast members are Herb Edelman, a quintessential "Hey, it's that guy!" actor during the 70s who is best known today for playing Dorothy's ex-husband on The Golden Girls as the local rabbi, Harold Gould, who at the time was best known for co-starring on Rhoda but is best known today for playing Rose's longtime boyfriend on The Golden Girls as another member of the council who gets thrust into being the DJ at a rock station after an argument with his college-aged son, who was supposed to take the job, and Sheree North, a "Hey, it's that gal!" actress of the era who is best known today for playing Blanche's sister on The Golden Girls as a retired nurse who agrees to work a shift in the pediatric ward at the local hospital.
Among cast members who would not eventually show up on The Golden Girls are Adrienne Barbeau (then playing proto-Dorothy's daughter on Maude) and Alex Cord as a married couple whose marriage is on the rocks who agree to take over an Irish bar, even though neither of them knows the first thing about running a bar and restaurant, Jayne Meadows as another member of the council, who seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of every Jew in town and what jobs they can take over, her real-life husband Steve Allen as a pianist, Jim Backus as a bar patron, George Takei as a doctor, Barry Pearl (who would show up the next summer as one of the T-Birds in Grease) as Gould's son, and 8-year-old Kim Fields, in one of her first TV jobs, as a patient North tends to. Whoever was the casting director on this deserves applause.
Where it falters, however, is in the script. Even at only an hour, it's pretty slow-moving, and the special is almost halfway over before we finally start seeing the various jobs on Christmas Eve. It's also pretty predictable. With Barbeau and Cord reconcile? Will Gould and Pearl reconcile? Will North come to realize that returning to nursing will help fill the hole left after her husband died? Will even Berle admit the whole thing was a success? You should be able to easily figure out the answers long before the closing credits.
Much better was the 1978 offering, Stubby Pringle's Christmas. This one was a western, adapted from a short story by Jack Schaefer. Young ranch hand Stubby (Beau Bridges) is excited about going to the night's Christmas Eve dance, even though he'll have to ride 20 miles one way to the schoolhouse in the nearest town in rural Wyoming (sources say it takes place in 1910, though I don't recall the year ever being mentioned). Last year, he met a pretty girl there and got a kiss, and this year, he plans to give her gifts (chocolate and dress material) and get her name. However, on his way there, he feels obligated to stop and help a homesteader (Julie Harris) with a sick husband and two young kids, chop wood, and ends up spending far more time then he had planned ensuring the struggling family has a merry Christmas.
Like Have I Got a Christmas for You, this one is well-cast. Bridges, who was nearly 40 when this was made, is a bit long in the tooth to be playing a young ranch hand (in the original short story, Stubby is 19), but looks young enough and is a good enough actor to convince you he's at least a decade younger than he was. Veteran actors Edward Binns and Strother Martin play Bridges's fellow ranch hands, Oscar winner Kim Hunter makes the most of her small part as Bridges's boss, and western vet Chill Wills, who died two days before this premiered, played the schoolhouse's custodian.
Unlike Christmas For You, though, this one does not feel overlong, and indeed, does not wear out its welcome. There is a couple moments that seem to be in there to fill time (Bridges meeting his boss's daughter, a moment that seems like it's going to lead somewhere but doesn't, and a moment that would make more sense if Bridges was only a couple years older than the actress, not a couple decades older), but otherwise it's quiet and charming all the way though.
As I said at the beginning, it is hard to fault Hallmark for going all in on its Christmas movie formula. However, I do wish that, on occasion, they'd return to making a project like Stubby Pringle's Christmas, or even Have I Got a Christmas for You. Even though the latter is flawed, it is different and a bit daring, which Hallmark Hall of Fame used to represent. Maybe it will again someday in the future.
Next time: Ronald Reagan's favorite singer tries a network-style variety special on basic (Christian) cable
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