5. GO (1999): Some may call this a PULP FICTION wannabe but I think this holiday tale of overlapping lives and crimes is better. An overworked supermarket clerk in LA. needs money to keep from being evicted. She tries to become a part-time Ecstasy pusher and suddenly IT'S A BLUNDERFUL LIFE. My favorite section has Jay Mohr and Scott Wolf as clueless gay TV actors working off a community service sentence by helping cops in a drug bust.

4. THE APARTMENT (1960): You wouldn't think that the story of a young woman in New York City who tries to kill herself on Christmas Eve because of the affair she's having with a married co-worker would be a holiday love story, but it is when handled by Billy Wilder. Jack Lemmon plays the corporate climber providing his place for the cheating execs to use with their playmates. He averts tragedy and discovers that the sweet elevator operator he has a crush on (Shirley MacLaine) is really his boss' mistress. By New Year's Day, he becomes a wise man and finds redemption when he realizes that purity of spirit is more important than virginity. Wilder sums up the message of the season in three words of dialogue from a good neighbor - "Be a mensch." Director/writer Cameron Crowe told me before an interview a couple of years ago that MacLaine's character in this film inspired the Kate Hudson character he created for ALMOST FAMOUS.

3. SUSAN SLEPT HERE (1954): This has been one of my all-time favorite holiday comedies ever since I used to see it a lot on the Channel 9 Million Dollar Movie when I was a kid in Southern California. Debbie
Reynolds stars as a teen terror. A middle-aged Hollywood musical comedy screenwriter is tired of writing fluff. He gets more drama that he ever dreamed of when he winds up with custody of a screaming,
kicking juvenile delinquent. Debbie was the first and only actress to use an Academy Award® as a nutcracker. It's rare but I found a copy of it at World of Video on Greenwich Street near St. Vincent's
Hospital.

2. MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944): Vincente Minnelli directed Judy Garland up the Hollywood diva ladder by proving her to be a sensitive actress and a musical dynamo. This colorful classic about small-town Americana was released during WWIl. It has an undercurrent of complex, dark emotions that are expressed through the youngest child, played by Margaret O'Brien. Her once-happy large family is told it's moving to New York City. Her small but safe world is rocked by grown-ups who don't take her as seriously as they take themselves. Waiting for Santa, she's filled with anger, confusion and fear for the future. When Garland tries to soothe her kid sister's heartbreak and her own by singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," it's even more poignant today in our post-9/11 America.

1. HOLIDAY INN (1942): Bing Crosby reprised the song 'White Christmas" in the movie BLUE SKIES and again in the 1954 musical with Rosemary Clooney named after the yuletide tune that he introduced in this picture. Crosby and Fred Astaire are two top Manhattan entertainers who are best buddies yet battle over babes. One buys a nightclub in Connecticut that's open just on holidays. For this movie, Irving Berlin also wrote songs for Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve that, oddly, are pretty much ignored today. The number for Lincoln's Day (remember that?) is politically incorrect but - oh, baby-dig Fred's firecracker tap dance for the 4th of July. The dance master was in his early 40s when he did it. Gimme an "Amen” on that and God Bless America!