As we head into the final weekend before Christmas, we've already had airings of most of the first tier holiday classics: "A Charlie Brown Christmas," "It's a Wonderful Life" and "White Christmas."
Solidly in that first tier is 1946's "Miracle on 34th Street," which gets a few airings this weekend on AMC.
You can see it at 7 and 9:15 p.m. Saturday. It airs at 2 p.m. Saturday on Channel 6. On Sunday, it airs again at 7 and 9:15 on AMC, and at 8 p.m. Sunday on WGN-TV.
But there are plenty of gems running throughout the month that sometimes slip by without notice. They come from the 1940s, and some of them have an interesting edge that lift them above the usual treacly holiday fare.
A good start is 1949's "Holiday Affair," with war widow Janet Leigh fending off the advances of unemployed Robert Mitchum, as she's planning for a safe marriage to a lawyer played by Wendell Corey, who'll care for her and her 6-year-old son.
There's more than a hint of no-good from Mitchum, but she's clearly attracted to the guy she causes to be fired from his seasonal department store job. There's also an incredibly likable kid actor, Gordon Gebert.
You can see it tonight at 7 on TCM.
Made some four years earlier is "Christmas in Connecticut," with Barbara Stanwyck as a 1940s version of Martha Stewart, although in reality her Elizabeth Lane doesn't have an ounce of domestic knowledge. The story centers on her trying to play the domestic goddess for a war hero.
It airs at 9:15 a.m. and 11:30 p.m. Sunday on AMC.
Here's the trailer:
Monty Woolley stars in 1942's "The Man Who Came to Dinner," a witty comedy about an insufferable radio personality who is forced to recuperate over the Christmas holidays at the home of an Ohio family, after falling on icy steps. Bette Davis and Ann Sheridan also star.
He wears out his welcome pretty quickly.
TCM has it scheduled at 1 p.m. on Christmas Eve, and here's a clip:
The oddest in the lot is 1940s-era "Beyond Tomorrow," which opens on Christmas Eve as three business partners (single guys who all live in the same mansion) participate in a stunt that gets a young woman teacher and a singer from Texas to join them for dinner.
They strike up a friendship that continues beyond the grave.
The real star of this film is Maria Ouspenkaya as a Russian countess displaced by the Bolshevik Revolution who is their proud housekeeper.
You'll have to get up at 5 a.m. on Dec. 24 to see it on TCM. But you can actually watch the whole movie here:
Missing from any broadcast schedule that I can find is 1945's "The Cheaters," with former silent movie star Joseph Schildkraut playing a down-on-his-luck actor taken in by a rich family for the holidays.
Like "The Man Who Came to Dinner," this film features Billie Burke, best known for her portrayal of Glinda, the good witch in "The Wizard of Oz."
Sadly, it's not available this Christmas season. But here's a bit of it:
The finale for Jonathan Green: WTMJ-AM (620) veteran Jonathan Green hosts his final regular "Green House" from 3 to 6 p.m. today.
He'll do his last show on-location at the Oconomowoc Piggly Wiggly for the station's annual "Kids to Kids" fundraiser.
A live broadcast marking his 40-year broadcasting career is planned for Jan. 18 at the Mine Shaft in Hartford. You can find details on how to be in the audience at WTMJ's website.
The first cut for Regis and Kelly: WXSS-FM (103.7)'s Wes McKane and WKLH-FM (96.5)'s Dave Luczak have been asked to submit videos in the search for a "Men of Radio Co-host for a Day" by the "Live! with Regis and Kelly" show, a sign that they've made the first cut in the competition.
The list of 100 semi-finalists is scheduled to be made official on Monday's show at 9 a.m. on Channel 12. Winners will get to sit in on the show in January.
Two other other Milwaukee radio morning voices trying to sit in with Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa -- Kidd O'Shea of WMYX-FM (99.1) and Mike Wickett of WSSP-AM (1250) -- didn't get the nod.
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
