Home For The Holidays? Join Us at the AFS Cinema for Holiday Classics

Nick & Nora Charles, doing what comes naturally at Christmas-time

We all have our favorite holiday classics. During the holiday season this year at AFS we are reaching way back into Hollywood’s Golden Age to present some of our favorites, some very well known, some less so, but all great.

Come celebrate the season with AFS, as we present our favorite classic holiday films from December 22nd to the 30th.

The great Barbara Stanwyck stars as a newspaper columnist whose public image is that of the perfect, affluent housewife but who meanwhile is a single workaholic who rarely leaves her typewriter and lives on takeout food. When a young soldier wins a contest to spend CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT with America’s Perfect Homemaker, she has to scramble to create the real-life illusion for an entire Christmas weekend. Does she succeed? Watch the movie! As always, Barbara Stanwyck is one of the great screen stars, and you’ll fall in love with her, just like… Oh I’ve said too much.


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The main thing is: STANWYCK

In the raucous classic comedy THE THIN MAN, we meet Nick and Nora Charles, a happily married (and generally soused) couple who spend the Christmas holidays in New York, where reformed detective Nick (William Powell) becomes reluctantly involved in a murder mystery and amateur sleuth Nora (Myrna Loy) enjoys every minute of it. Full of great dialogue, a truly ludicrous amount of alcohol consumption, and lots of pre-code filthy humor. Oh, and the world’s cutest dog, Asta. Top recommendation!

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The inclusion of the adorable dog is almost too much.


Speaking of altered consciousness, there’s something truly transporting about a classic ’50s Technicolor musical. WHITE CHRISTMAS certainly fits the bill there, with Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Danny Kaye and Vera-Ellen in a romance-filled, eye-popping, let’s-put-on-a-show classic featuring like a thousand great Irving Berlin songs.

If you can resist two hours of THIS, more power to you

And then there’s IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, such a perennial holiday classic that we can almost forget that it was a relative flop upon release, and is super dark. Remember that in 1946, mortality and the search for meaning in life weren’t exactly just abstractions. For millions of Americans, filmmaker Frank Capra, and star Jimmy Stewart included, coming back home after the ordeal of war was fraught with all kinds of conflicting emotions, and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, often chided as sentimental or corny, is in fact a pretty honest dramatic reckoning with many of these forces. It’s a great, great film, and we’re eager to share it anew. 
As a matter of fact, I am crying. So are you. That’s OK.


As always, we will be serving our full menu and seasonal cocktails to help get you in the holiday spirit. Bring friends. Hang out. Have fun. It’s a time for togetherness.

Check out the entire series and showtimes HERE.

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

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