Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus (1991) TV Movie

The editorial was published in a September edition of The Sun, yet the movie shows it being published on Christmas eve.







Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus (1991) TV Movie
Cast: Richard Thomas, Edward Asner, Charles Bronson

100 Years of the Hollywood Western (1994) (TV)

TV REVIEWS : Tip of the Hat to 'The Hollywood Western'
November 25, 1994|KEVIN THOMAS


Jack Haley Jr.'s "100 Years of the Hollywood Western" manages to survey with some insight and admirable comprehensiveness a genre with more than 20,000 titles, spanning footage taken of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show a century ago to a spate of Westerns currently in production.

Sure-fire entertainment, it's deeper on research--the clips are terrific--than on thought. The special's hosts are Charles Bronson, James Coburn, James Garner, Gene Hackman, Robert Mitchum, Kurt Russell and Jane Seymour.

Haley points out that the "Old West" lasted only a few decades but captured the popular imagination enduringly with its endless possibilities for tales of high adventure. He and co-writers Aubrey Soloman and Phil Savenick touch many bases, and they constantly keep us aware of the movies' peerless capacity to turn sometimes sketchy history into potent myth; in doing so, they also manage a tip of the hat to the most famous Westerns.

What they might have made clearer is that the Western became America's morality play, and that the difference between John Wayne and Clint Eastwood is that, in the 1960s, Sergio Leone and the spaghetti Western injected an existential quality to Westerns, blurring the distinction between the good guys and the bad guys.

Once past a nod to pioneer Bronco Billy Anderson, William S. Hart, who brought realism to the Western, and Tom Mix, who brought glamour to it, Haley gives the silent era short shrift; surely, "Covered Wagon" and "The Iron Horse" rate at least mentions. (Serials--silent and talkie--aren't dealt with at all.)

There are apt discussions of the treatment of legendary historical figures, and there are entire sequences devoted to cliche expressions, lawmen, gunslingers, saloons, singing cowboys, Native Americans, frontier women and the eradication of the buffalo.

John Ford and John Wayne were so inextricably linked that Haley is able to deal with Ford's career in the context of the Wayne homage. Most other major directors of Westerns barely rate a mention, however, even though their films are glimpsed. You'll not hear the names of Budd Boetticher, Raoul Walsh, Michael Curtiz or Anthony Mann; perversely, Haley credits the direction of Mann's 1960 remake of "Cimarron" to his former father-in-law, Vincente Minnelli.

100 Years of the Hollywood Western (1994) (TV)
Hosts: Charles Bronson, James Coburn, James Garner, Gene Hackman, Robert Mitchum, Kurt Russell and Jane Seymour

America's All-Star Tribute to Elizabeth Taylor (1989) (TV)

The title doesn't say it all. This is to honor Ms. Taylor on being an honoree of a "Hope Award", as in Bob and Dolores Hope. This is from a huge unnamed concert hall in Palm Desert, California; expect to see many faces from the oldies. You know you're in for a good time when the first person to the podium is the stud that was Charles Bronson. This is a grand celebration, Black Tie all the way. Overall a great evening, super star power and Stevie sings a personalized version of "I Just Called To Say...".

America's All-Star Tribute to Elizabeth Taylor (1989) (TV)
Cast: Angela Lansbury, Beau Bridges, Bob Hope, Burt Bacharach, Carol Burnett, Charles Bronson, Cyd Charisse, Dudley Moore, Kenny Rogers, Mickey Rooney, Robert Stack, Roddy McDowall, Stevie Wonder