
The Holly and the Ivy
George More O’Ferrall, 1952
Adapted from a West End play by Wynyard Browne, this life-enhancing movie engages as few others do with the spiritual, theological and mythological meaning of Christmas. At the same time, it preserves in amber the austere yet hopeful atmosphere of postwar Britain. Ralph Richardson, at his most mysteriously charismatic, plays a widowed country parson confronting familial and moral truths at his snow-clad Norfolk vicarage over Christmas 1948 and achieving some sort of reconciliation with his three children (Celia Johnson, Denholm Elliott, Margaret Leighton)
The Guardian
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