Beret McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness

podcast. Watching a holiday movie is a great way to get into the spirit of the

season and has become an annual tradition for many families. But what exactly makes a Christmas

movie a Christmas movie? What are some of the Best Ones So Classic?

Here to answer these questions and take us on a tour of the highlights of the holiday movie

Cannon is Jeremy Arnold, a film historian and the author of Christmas in the Movies, 35 classics to celebrate the season.

Today on the show, we talk about what defines a Christmas movie, why we enjoy them so much,

and why so many classics in the genre were released during the 1940s.

Jeremy offers his take on the best version of a Christmas Carol, whether Holiday Inn or White

Christmas is a better movie, why he thinks Die Hard is in fact a Christmas movie,

what accounts for the staying power of elf, and much more.

At the end of the show, Jeremy offers several suggestions for lesser known Christmas movies to check out

when you're tired of watching a Christmas story for the 50th time.

After the show.

Thanks for having a All right, Jeremy Arnold. Welcome to the show.

Thanks so much for having me, Brett. So you are a film historian, a commentator, an author.

You've done a lot of work with Turner Classic Movies, TCM.

I'm curious, what led to your interest in film?

Well I guess I would have to give credit to my father for that.

At a very young age he introduced me to classic movies of the 30s and 40s. He had been born in the 30s and grew up in Brooklyn and his favorite movies were always Warner Brothers movies of the 1940s.

So at a very young age I was becoming very familiar with, you know, Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwick, James Cagney.

Those are the earliest classic film stars that I was aware of and I still love that period more than any other

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