Awesome Movie

Absolutely brilliant

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Michael Learned stars as a newly divorced woman who has left her Midwest life and moved to San Francisco. Her son, oddly, was left behind with her mother and the plan is to eventually have him move in with his mother....eventually. In the meantime, she gets involved with a local church choir and their performance of Handel's Messiah. While there are a few subplots here and there, for the most part the film shows the choir practicing with their somewhat intimidating choir director (John Houseman--playing pretty much his Professor Kingsfield character from "The Paper Chase"). The film has some very nice acting and offers a slice of life. However, none of it is terribly interesting or compelling and if you don't like hearing chorale music, the film might be a big tough to take--especially since the focus seems to be more on the performance than on connecting with the characters. Overall, I found it to be mildly diverting and assume that the average person would find this all a bit boring. Additionally, the ending is a bit vague, and I am sure this won't satisfy many viewers.

An all star cast with a mediocre script allows this film to sparkle around the holiday season. Michael Learned plays a divorced mother who relocates to San Francisco, California from Omaha, Nebraska where she chooses to start over. She is a qualified teacher but can't get a teaching job. She finds happiness and fulfillment as a choir member at a local church. The new choir master is wonderfully played by John Houseman. The minister is finely played by James Cromwell. This television movie has a feel good feeling overall despite the quality. I love the San Francisco shots in the background. Overall, it's not a bad film even with an uneven script. I don't know why Zoe (Llearned's character) moved to the city while leaving her son behind in Omaha.

My family and I sat down to watch A Christmas WITHOUT SNOW expecting a heartwarming holiday movie. It wasn't that at all. The kids dropped off to sleep quickly in a way reminiscent of the opening credits to QUINCY. It is a drama that is only incidentally a Christmas movie. This film is filled first frame to last with very unlikable people. Michael Learned's character Zoe is self-centered and personifies the Me Generation of that era. She has left her husband and moved to San Francisco, leaving her young son in the care of her Mom. When her mother calls Zoe and questions the choices she's making in life, Zoe simply hangs up on her. When we do meet her son later in the movie (after he runs away and takes the bus to Frisco to be with his Mom), we see he's as undisciplined and self-willed an apple as the tree he fell from. And neither mother or son seem interested in calling Grandma back in Omaha, who was frantic with fear over the boy's fate.At this point I expected the mother and son relationship to take center stage, but the boy is almost immediately consigned to the film's periphery.It may be unfair, but Learned's character was even more difficult for me to warm up to because she is imprinted on my mind as Olivia Walton (especially playing this role only a year after THE WALTONS ended). I was frustrated that she rudely rebuffed the stable but square Henry (who admittedly got too frisky too fast), and scandalized that later she flirted with a choir member's brother who's swinging demeanor and delivery reminded me of a serious version of the sleazy Larry from THREE'S COMPANY.The supporting cast is excellent and features several familiar faces. Ramon Bieri as Henry especially stands out in a role very different from the tough guys he always seemed to play on shows like GUNSMOKE. James Cromwell is also outstanding as the long-suffering pastor of a struggling parish. Remembering him primarily from comedic roles around this time (especially his side-splitting Stretch Cunningham on ALL IN THE FAMILY) it was a treat to see him playing it straight and doing so well in a dramatic role well over a decade before BABE made him a household name.John Houseman's performance as the cranky choirmaster Ephraim Adams didn't greatly impress me (he seems always to play a grouch over-enunciating the last word of every sentence), but it did make me appreciate more the performance and character of Ed Bogas as Seth Reuben. Looking at Bogas' IMDb page I see this was his only acting appearance in a movie (he's best known as a composer of music for everything from the x-rated Fritz the Cat film to the Garfield cartoon series). Seth's surprisingly impassioned explosion when Ephraim is possibly dying in the hospital indicates that there is a paternal bond between these two characters. In what may be a flight of fancy, I suspect it is implied in their character names. In the Book of Genesis, Adam's third son is named Seth and it is his line that carries on the godly seed. Later in Genesis, Reuben tries to usurp his father Jacob's position by sleeping with one of his concubines. In the film, the protégé Reuben does take his master's position, but only reluctantly and with trepidation, until he sees Ephraim's approving eyes upon him.The choir is comprised of a grab-bag of neurotics and uphill battlers. Muriel, a woman with many problems that seem harmless until they're not. Wendell is an angry black college kid, but with good reasons: He's mocked by street thugs for singing in the choir; a fellow choir member turns him into the police without bothering to get any facts and his supposedly loving grandmother who is supporting him through college comes in and interrogates him about why he's up and what is he drinking (just a cup of coffee). Grandma is so disengaged from his life that she doesn't even know the denomination of the church he belongs to. When she asks an older fellow, he randily replies, "The Church of Beautiful Women," while he fondles his 72-year-old girlfriend he picked up at choir practice.Among the neurotic and dysfunctional characters one must include the church itself. It is a mainline Protestant church that functions more as a working class country club, existing primarily for social functions. Where is the firm foundation and moral compass it should provide its members? There is hysterics and loss of faith when death strikes, suspicion and unforgiveness and immorality among its people. When Cromwell's character comes back to the church from the hospital where he realizes all he has are clichés and empty words of comfort to offer a grieving widow, I was reminded of Gunnar Bjornstrand's pastor in Bergman's WINTER LIGHT. Does this pastor possess genuine faith in Christ and the Gospel, or is he just professing it since it is his life's work? Christmas WITHOUT SNOW really is a Christmas movie without joy and without much hope when the end credits roll. Whether it is realistic and whether that is a virtue is debatable. I did enjoy watching it once, but I probably won't seek it out again.I watched this movie as one of many Christmas programs included on a three-disc DVD from St. Clair called The Christmas Collection that I found for five dollars in the bargain bin. It's a rough print with some bad splices, but appears complete and is watchable. (And the set comes with a few Christmas episodes of THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES and the JACK BENNY SHOW to bring back the good cheer and happy holiday feelings that may have been dampened by A Christmas WITHOUT SNOW.)

I just watched this movie again, must be my fourth viewing, and it really holds up. It just never fails to get to me emotionally.The story is simple, but it is the characters and their backgrounds that engage the viewer. There are no simple solutions to the problems presented, unlike the emotionally manipulative movies of today.A young widow grieves for her dead husband, someone suffers a stroke, a father and son resolve a tremendous difficulty with a very slow smile at each other and no words are spoken.Each story stands on its own. A microcosm of life. One does suffer, there is sometimes no magic solution, just a choir and an ambitious undertaking of "The Messiah" to get your mind off the same old, same old.Michael Learned, what has ever happened to her, a great performance. Also John Houseman being John Houseman, a delight. Not one jarring note from the large cast.An 8 out of 10. Catch this one if you can.