Tuesday, December 14, 2010

House Without a Christmas Tree

Last year I found a DVD at my local video store for a made for TV movie that I loved when I was in middle school. HOUSE WITHOUT A CHRISTMAS TREE came out in 1972, and even though it was set in the 1940s, I could relate to Addie, the young girl whose mother has died and is growing up with her dad, played by Jason Robards, and her grandmother, played by Mildred Natwick. They don't have a Christmas tree because her father is still grieving for her mother, and Addie brings a tree home and stirs up a lot of trouble.

The DVD isn't the best quality, but watching it again brought back a lot of memories. Check this little montage out to get a sense of it, and then if you like it, see if you can find the DVD:

2 comments:

pattinase (abbott) said...

Eleanor and Frank Perry made two of my favorite movies: THE SWIMMER and LAST SUMMER, both darker than this I'm sure. I miss Robards and Natwick.

Mark Murphy said...

Karen: I remember that show too, and I recall being impressed by Lisa Lucas, who played the girl. For the heck of it I just looked her up on the Internet. Turns out that (according to Wikipedia) she's now (of all things) a freelance journalist, having had stories in the New York Post, the New York Daily News and People.