…The House Without A Christmas Tree.
If you can trust the box art for this particular DVD, then we’ve finally been gifted with the long-awaited release of a cherished holiday classic; as for me, I wasn’t familiar with the film…or if I once was, my memories of it didn’t stick with me for the long haul…but having now watched it, I can say that there’s probably a fair amount of truth in that advertising.
Addie (Lisa Lucas) is 10 years old and really, really, really wants a Christmas tree; unfortunately, her dad, James (Jason Robards), refuses to have one in his house. No, he’s not being a jerk…well, not intentionally, anyway. He’s still mourning the death of his wife, who died within weeks of Addie’s birth, and he readily associates the holidays with how much his wife loved that time of the year; unfortunately, he also associates his daughter with his wife, and it continues to haunt him that, once upon a time, he wished that she’d died instead of her mother. As such, the Christmas season is generally a pretty low-key affair around their house…to say the least. But when Addie wins a Christmas tree in a contest at school – through a method her father taught her, no less – and James still throws a fit over having a tree in his house, resulting in Addie running off in tears, one is forced to wonder if father and daughter will ever be able to reconcile.
Say, this sure sounds like a merry Christmas movie, doesn’t it? Well, don’t worry: it wouldn’t be a holiday classic if things didn’t eventually turn out all right…but, then, you probably already figured that.
Robards’ performance is appropriately gruff when he’s dealing with Addie while being just sad enough for us to realize that, yeah, that’s a major emotional rollercoaster the guy’s on, and who’s to say we wouldn’t react similarly in that situation? Mildred Natwick plays Addie’s grandmother (and James’s mom) in a manner that will no doubt strike a chord in many of us, the way she walks that tightrope between wanting to make her granddaughter happy without damaging the relationship with her own child. Lisa Lucas is…well, she’s a kid. She’s an average 10-year-old little girl. She was never destined to win an Emmy for her work, but she does well enough.
“The House Without A Christmas Tree” was made in 1972, and it shows, but that’s a good thing, actually; the reason it shows is that it was filmed on video tape, and the result is that it tends to feel less like a movie and more like a play. There really aren’t many different locales involved – the family’s house, the school, a store, and another nearby family’s house – and the brief outdoor shots could easily be left out if anyone wanted to make this into a stage play. You may also recall that 1972 was the year “The Waltons” premiered, so don’t be surprised when you tune in to find that A) the story takes place in the 1940s, B) the goings-on are, by and large, pretty mundane by today’s standards, and C) there’s as much heartbreak as there is happiness.
But, like I said, things turn out all right in the end, and that’s what counts.
