Belinda Montgomery | Through the Shattered Lens

(Hi there! So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR. Seriously, I currently have 193 things recorded! I’ve decided that, on January 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not. So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR! Will I make it? Keep checking this site to find out! I recorded Snowed-Inn Christmas off of Lifetime on December 16th!)

Oh, Christmas movies on Lifetime!

Seriously, Lifetime totally changes during the Christmas season. For one month, everything that we normally associate with Lifetime disappears. Gone are all of the films about being stalked by my doctor or betrayed by my lover or deceived by my house guest. Suddenly, Eric Roberts is no longer plotting to kill Haylie Duff. No one’s daughter is getting abducted and sold into slavery. The houses remain grand and the clothes are still often to die for but, otherwise, Lifetime changes during Christmas. Suddenly, it’s safe to fall in love with that handsome stranger. The internet is no longer the root of all evil. Instead, it’s now become a place where a harried single mother can find a handsome single father and hire him to play Santa Claus at a department store. Lifetime changes for Christmas and we all love it.

Of course, there’s never anything surprising about Lifetime Christmas movies. They pretty much all follow the same plot and that’s one reason why we love them. The holidays can be stressful, especially when you can’t go on twitter without being implored to “take it to the streets.” Lifetime films (and Hallmark films) provide an escape from all that. They’re a trip into a much more innocent past.

Take Snowed-Inn Christmas for, example. That’s not a typo. While this film does deal with people being snowed in, it also largely takes place in an inn. The inn is located in Santa Claus, Indiana. It’s owned by Carol (Belinda Montgomery) and Chris (John B. Lowe). Yes, they both wear red. Yes, Chris has a white beard and an infectious laugh. Did you expect any less?

Evil developers want to tear down the inn. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from watching Christmas Lifetime films, it’s that land developers never have the holiday spirit. They always want to kick people out of their homes right before Christmas. They always want to build a ski resort or a luxury condo or something.

The only thing that can save the inn is if proof is found that the inn is a historical landmark. Fortunately, two online journalists, Jenna (Bethany Joy Lenz) and Kevin (Andrew Walker), are staying at the inn. Kevin is the type of guy who eats a slice of pizza for breakfast. Jenna uses an electric toothbrush. That’s really all of the character development that they get but that’s okay. Walker is handsome. Lenz is pretty. Both of them can deliver potentially silly lines with sincerity. They’re likable and that’s all a film like this really requires.

Anyway, at the start of the film, neither Jenna nor Kevin have the Christmas spirit. They’re not in love with each other, either. How much you want to bet that will change as they work to save the inn from being bulldozed? How much do you want to bet that their burgeoning relationship will be encourages by Carol and Chris, both of whom always have a twinkle in their eye regardless of how close their inn is to being destroyed.

Online, some critics have pointed out that Snowed-Inn Christmas is basically a remake of The Flight Before Christmas. That may be true but who cares? All of these Lifetime Christmas films are essentially remakes of each other. That’s why we love them. Snowed-Inn Christmas delivers exactly what it needs to deliver. It’s a silly but sweet little movie.

Welcome to the Old West. Hannibal Heyes (Pete Duel) and Kid Curry (Ben Murphy) are two of the most wanted outlaws in the country, two cousins who may have robbed trains but who also never shot anyone. After being promised a pardon if they can stay out of trouble for a year, Heyes and Curry have been living under the names Joshua Smith and Thaddeus Jones.

During a trip to San Francisco to visit his old friend, a con artist named Silky O’Sullivan (Walter Brennan), Heyes is told that Kid Curry is currently on trial in Colorado. When Heyes goes to the trial, he discovers that the accused (Robert Morse) is an imposter and that the real Kid Curry is watching the trial from the back of the courtroom. It turns out that the man of trial is just an attention seeker , someone who is so desperate for fame that he is willing to be hanged to get it. At first, Curry thinks this is a great thing. After the imposter hangs, everyone will believe that Curry is dead and they’ll stop searching for him. Heyes, however, disagrees, especially after the imposter starts to implicated Heyes in crimes that he didn’t commit.

Obviously inspired by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Alias Smith and Jones was one of the last of the classic TV westerns. Though I originally assumed that it was the show’s pilot, The Day They Hanged Kid Curry was actually the first episode of the second season. With commercials, it ran 90 minutes. Because of its extended running time, The Day They Hanged Kid Curry was not included in Alias Smith and Jones‘s standard rerun package. Instead, it was edited to remove the show’s usual opening credits and it was then sold as a motion picture, despite the fact that it is very obviously a television show.

As long as no one is expecting anything more than an extended television episode, The Day They Hanged Kid Curry is okay. I have never been a big Alias Smith and Jones fan but this episode’s plotline, with Robert Morse confessing to crimes he didn’t commit just so he can have a taste of fame before he dies, feels prescient of today’s culture. For classic western fans, the main reason to watch will be the chance to see a parade of familiar faces: Slim Pickens, Henry Jones, Paul Fix, and Vaughn Taylor all have roles. Most important is familiar Western character actor and four-time Oscar winner, Walter Brennan, as Silky O’Sullivan. This was one of Brennan’s final performance and the wily old veteran never loses his dignity, even when he’s pretending to be Kid Curry’s grandmother.

As for Alias Smith and Jones, it was a modest success until Pete Duel shot himself halfway through the second season. Rather than retire the character of Hannibal Heyes, the show’s producers replaced Pete Duel with another actor, Roger Davis. One day after Duel’s suicide, Davis being fitted for costumes. This move was not popular with the show’s fanbase and Alias Smith and Jones was canceled a year later, though it lived on for years in reruns.