Holiday Classics at The Lindsay
December 13 @ 12:15 pm – December 26 @ 10:00 pm
Season’s greetings! Is it ever too early to start spreading holiday cheer?
Get ready for two weeks of timeless stories about togetherness, generosity and keeping your tongue away from frozen poles.
The Lindsay will have many flavors of holiday classics on tap this year. Board The Polar Express, get into shenanigans with Ralphie Parker in A Christmas Story, hang out with Will Ferrell’s oversized Christmas helper in Elf or join the Griswolds for National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation!
Interested in revisiting Hollywood’s Golden Age? Look no further than the trifecta of It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas and We’re No Angels! Don’t forget to mark your calendars for Dec. 21, which is when we’ll have a sensory friendly Elf screening and Burgh Bus Christmas Vacation event. Tickets are on sale for every holiday classic screening at the links below. We hope to see you at the Theater during the most wonderful time of the year!
It’s a Wonderful Life
PG | 2h 10min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Director: Frank Capra
Stars: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore
How many of us can remember a holiday season without It’s a Wonderful Life? That’s a testament to the enduring universality of this beautiful drama about a businessman (Indiana, Pa., native James Stewart) seeing what the world would look like without him.
Almost 80 years later, It’s a Wonderful Life remains “a genuine American classic,” writes The Guardian. Even in 1946, critics like The Hollywood Reporter‘s Jack D. Grant realized that director Frank Capra had made a film in which “everyone who sees it will agree that it’s wonderful entertainment.”
“His direction of the individual characterizations delivered is also distinctively his, and the performances, from the starring roles of James Stewart and Donna Reed down to the smallest bit, are magnificent. When Capra is at his best, no one can top him.”
Elf
PG | 1h 37min | Comedy
Director: Jon Favreau
Stars: Will Ferrell, James Caan, Zooey Deschanel
Very little will get you in the holiday spirit faster than Elf. Director Jon Favreau’s 2003 comedy follows Buddy (Will Ferrell), a human raised among Santa’s elves who leaves the North Pole to find his father (James Caan) and remind jaded New Yorkers about the true meaning of Christmas.
Elf is an “irresistibly goofy Christmas comedy” that “takes bold pleasure in unabashed silliness,” raves Salon. As the New York Post playfully declares: “Yule love it.”
“Elf is a pleasantly old-fashioned, gee-whillikers Yuletide confection…Ferrell’s manic, overgrown-kid energy sweeps all before it, announcing him as a major leading-man talent who can charm as well as amuse.”The Lindsay will be holding a sensory-friendly Elf screening on Saturday, Dec. 21, at 10 a.m. We encourage those who are interested in attending this screening to purchase tickets in advance.
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
PG-13 | 1h 37min | Comedy
Director: Jeremiah S. Chechick
Stars: Chevy Chase, Bevery D’Angelo, Juliette Lewis
Who could have guessed that Clark Griswold’s (Chevy Chase) grand vision for the perfect Christmas was destined to go delightfully haywire? Well, just everybody going into National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation who had spent the 1980s laughing along with the Griswolds’ hapless antics.
Christmas Vacation “may be the only modern Christmas comedy which really stands up to repeat viewings,” declares Time Out. The third Vacation film finds “Chevy Chase and brood doing what they do best,” praises Variety.
“If it doesn’t make you at least giggle,” adds Empire, “then you clearly don’t understand the true meaning of the festive season—which is of course combustible toilets and electrified cats.”The Lindsay is collaborating with The Burgh Bus on a Dec. 21 Holiday Ride that will begin with a 6:30 p.m. Burgh Bus tour and culminate in a 7:30 p.m. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation screening. Don’t miss out!
We’re No Angels
NR | 1h 46min | Comedy, Caper
Director: Michael Curtiz
Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Peter Ustinov, Aldo Ray
SINGLE SCREENING on Sunday, Dec. 15, at 1 p.m.
The Pittsburgh Classic Movie Club returns to The Lindsay for a one-time showing of We’re No Angels, the 1955 screwball comedy about three escaped convicts who are unexpectedly moved to help a kind shopkeeper and his family.
We’re No Angels soars thanks to “Michael Curtiz’s directorial pacing and topflight performances from Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray and Peter Ustinov,” lauds Variety. This Broadway adaptation is an “assured, entertaining black comedy” that feels “both warm and sophisticated,” writes TV Guide.
Be sure you head over to The Lindsay early on Sunday, Dec. 15, for a special introduction from Pittsburgh Classic Movie Club President Wendy Whittick.
White Christmas
NR | 2h 5min | Musical, Comedy, Romance
Director: Michael Curtiz
Stars: Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Danny Kaye
LIMITED SCREENINGS: Sunday, Dec. 15, at 3:30 p.m. & Monday, Dec. 16 at 7 p.m.
Fathom Events is bringing White Christmas back to theaters for its 70th anniversary! This lavish musical stars Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen as two pairs of traveling performers who combine their talents to save a Vermont inn from closing.
“With wit, exuberance, and some show-stopping hits, White Christmas is a cracking musical,” raves BBC. This film is a “cosy crowd-pleaser” with “sumptuous production values,” commends Total Film. “This was the Mamma Mia! of its day, a nostalgic blast of popular Irving Berlin show-tunes gift-wrapped in new-fangled VistaVision.”
Pittsburgh Classic Movie Club Vice President Deann Davis will provide a special introduction prior to the Dec. 15 screening.
A Christmas Story
PG | 1h 33min | Comedy, Family
Director: Bob Clark
Stars: Peter Billingsley, Melinda Dillon, Darren McGavin
All that Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley) wants for Christmas is a Red Ryder Range 200 Shot BB gun. A Christmas Story warm-heartedly chronicles his many efforts to convince the many adults in his life—including Santa—to get him a gift that keeps on giving.
This 1983 holiday comedy contains “a treasure chest of familiar moments that almost every kid—even those who don’t celebrate Christmas—can relate to,” writes IGN. A Christmas Story is “family fare to savor” and simply “a joy to the world,” declares The Washington Post.”If you’re a Christmas holdout, a true believer who still hears reindeer on the roof, and even on an unseasonably warm Christmas Eve holds out hope of waking to a yard full of snow and branches coated like velvet antlers, then A Christmas Story is for you.”
The Polar Express
G | 1h 40min | Animated, Adventure
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Stars: Tom Hanks, Peter Scolari, Nona Gaye
All aboard The Polar Express! This adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg’s 1985 children’s book follows a young boy who on Christmas Eve is whisked away for a magical train ride to the North Pole. His unexpected adventure teaches him important lessons about friendship, bravery and the spirit of Christmas.
The Polar Express “is a runaway thrill” full of “rambunctious comedy…which buttresses the story’s sage wisdom,” writes The Hollywood Reporter. Director Robert Zemeckis’ technical marvel “has the quality of a lot of lasting children’s entertainment,” Roger Ebert wrote in his 2004 review.
“The Polar Express is a movie for more than one season; it will become a perennial, shared by the generations…The conductor tells Hero Boy he thinks he really should get on the train, and I have the same advice for you.”
