Author Archive: Retro

From the Why We Fight series. A look at the participation of black soldiers in WWII. Dir. Frank Capra.

The daughter of a wealthy businessman becomes lost in the city while traveling to a new school, and is taken in by a pair of downontheirluck performers.

In the days when Herod was king in Judea, there lived in the city of David, which Is Bethlehem, a rich young man who, wearying of the emptiness of life, passed his nights and days in idleness and vain carousing. And it came to pass one evening after that he had drunken deep, he left his companions at their feast and came forth upon the streets, meaning to go to his home. Now in those days, Bethlehem was filled with wickedness of divers sorts, and robbers prowled about the streets by night. One of these coming upon the young man, called his companions, and they set on him, and beat him, and after they had stripped him of his wealth, dragged him without the walls of the city, and left him. It chanced that shepherds, passing with their flocks, had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, and nursed him, [...]

Christmas has arrived. As a little girl and her parents enter the room, the little girl finds all kinds of toys under the Christmas Tree. She immediately throws her old doll aside and starts playing with her new dolls. But that night she has a dream. Or isn’t it a dream…

A narrator sings the opening stanzas of the classic poem while we see the house at rest. Santa lands on the roof, comes down the chimney, and opens his bag. The toys march out and decorate the tree, with the toy soldiers shooting balls from their cannon, a toy airplane stringing a garland like skywriting, and the toy firemen applying snow. A blimp delivers the star to the top. Meanwhile, Santa fills the stockings. His laughter awakens the children, who sneak out. The toys rush to their places, and Santa escapes up the chimney just in time. The closing verse is sung.

Customers and clerks frolic in a general store. Roscoe walks out of the freezer wearing a fur coat, then does some clever cleaver tossing. In Buster’s film debut he buys a pail of molasses.

In a drugstore Al and Roscoe are rivals for Alice. Roscoe slings melons and operates the gas pump. Buster delivers a wedding gown for Alice, begins modeling it, is mistaken for Alice and is kidnapped by Al.