Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

This is not to be confused with the 1994 film of the same title starring Carol Burnett. Too bad too. Would have made this article a hell of a lot more interesting.

This was a well made and beautiful story. It was just sad as all get-out for a long time.

It starts with a father burying his two daughters while the mother looks on. The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth Parson So-and-So showing up with an auxiliary back-up child. Everything points to this transpiration being too soon as the mother is still too stricken with grief.

But the dad is in between a rock and a hard place, feeling for the mother but also concerned for this new young lad.

This kid is perfection incarnate. Not a maschevious or malicious bone in his body. And he had to be irrevocably lovable for the sake of the story because mom was dead set against letting the kid into her heart. Damn it, movie! You’re killing me with feels!

For a long time mom is on this kid’s case for every little thing. Dad in the meantime is beside himself trying to keep the peace. Dad is UH-mazing by the way. He clearly knows how hard this is on mom and yet recognizes the kid’s need for love as well. He knows this relationship is the key to healing for all. So Dad never gets angry. He brings up good arguments in calm and patient ways. And plods along being a source of encouragement even if it means not faltering in the face of mom’s desperation to send away this darling little changeling that has invaded her home.

Then comes Christmas. Mom doesn’t even want to celebrate. Dad, of course, thinks it will be good for everyone and the kid would be sad if they didn’t. But mom argues that the kid was too young to remember Christmas with his parents and he wouldn’t know what he was missing. So dad reluctantly concedes to her wishes.

Later into the season though, mom finds the kid in the barn. He’s used her daughters’ toys to create a nativity scene and was singing a song he should not be able to remember. He doesn’t quite know the Nativity story nor the words to his song but it’s enough for the mother not to scold him as she has intended, but to take him gently in her arms and tell him the story he’d set out before himself and sing the song with him and OH MY GOD!. WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME, MOVIE!?!

I bought this vhs at a Piggly Wiggly for a nickel and it’s making Niagara Falls blast out of my face. I’m blubbering like a baby over here! Who’s even heard of this film!?! WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH ME!?!

This film probably cost 100 bucks to make. It has no business wielding the emotional power of SCHINDLER’S FREAKING LIST! But here we are.

Amateur filmmakers, listen to me very carefully. Make. Your. Movie. You might have fifty bucks in your pocket and your grandma’s Super 8 camcorder. Maybe no one will ever see it except your grandma. Make another movie! Eventually some weirdo is going to find it in a 5 and Dime store and it’s going to blow his mind. You did that!

This film comes from that series of films known as “Feature Films for Families”. Most I’ve seen have a pretty decent mix of humor and powerful lessons. Most are pretty lighthearted films with a little bit of drama. This one was a lot of drama with the most amazing payoff. I’m not sure I would categorize it as entertaining per sé, but it’s a beautiful film regardless.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go back to work and pretend I’ve been chopping onions. Stupid movie with excellent writing and acting making me have the feels at work!

Fun fact: mom is narrated through the story by Yvonne De Carlo aka Lily Munster!