Trilogy

"A Christmas Memory" is one of the three stories in this telefilm.

This achingly sweet, tender, and sad story is based on Truman Capote's lonely childhood and his friendship with an elderly female cousin (who is unnamed in this story). This story unfolds during the Great Depression years of the 1930s when the two friends plot and plan for Christmas and the making of fruitcakes. They live in a rural house with two other female relatives but stay pretty much to themselves.

Counting pennies and nickels and dimes, they scrape together the money to buy the many exotic ingredients and then send the cakes off to friends, casual acquaintances, and even President Roosevelt.

Two eccentric figures, they push a dead baby carriage (they call it a buggy) around the countryside gathering pecans for their cakes and harvesting a Christmas tree. They are accompanied by Queenie the dog. But this is their last Christmas together.

The boy is sent off to military school and the friend and Queenie are left behind. The dog dies and the friend slowly drifts into dementia, her letters to the boy becoming rarer and harder to read.

Simple and sweet.

Geraldine Page turns in a magnificent performance as the old soul who's never been to a movie or eaten a meal in a restaurant. Her whole life is the boy. She is unforgettable in this film.

I can hardly begin to sing the praises of EVERYONE involved in this production!!! From Director Frank Perry, Writer Lynn Perry(Franks wife), All of the actors involved, Geraldine Page being the star and rest unknowns, are truly magnificent!!! Page, as usual, shows why she was believed to be the greatest actress of the last half of the twentieth century. In my opinion, she was the greatest actress in terms of consistently turning in remarkable performances throughout her entire career. A REVELATION SHE WAS!!!

That being said, this beautiful, quiet, honest, allegory about a boy learning about devotion, pure love, and joy in the simpler things.(This is set during the depression). Based largely on his own life, Truman Capote fashions a remembrance of love for this grandmotherly type woman who teaches him life's unconventional plan. Joy, acceptance, and never losing your dream is told in such a subtle, realistic way. Oh my, I can't forget the third member in this story, Queenie. Queenie is Miss Sooks pet dog and whoever trained her did a masterful job. Even she will steal your heart! What Mr. Capote was conveying was the coming of age of a boy who learned and idolized his friends (Miss Sook and Queenie) and ultimately life's lesson in loss, meaning nothing stays the same, even though we are comfortable with our circumstances. the end is breathtakingly true.

Over the past 6 decades American television has given the world some fine programs, but nothing as superlative as "A Christmas Memory." It was originally filmed in 1966 but I'm guessing it was included in this "Trilogy" with two other Capote short story adaptations to round out the program. This was indeed TV's finest hour, or rather, TV's finest 50 minutes. It deserves to be seen not only at Christmas, but any time you need an emotional lift. It's a timeless, sentimental masterpiece.

Truman Capote's short story, "A Christmas Memory", based on his childhood in Alabama where he grew up in a household full of older women, is also the superlative short story. His elderly cousin Sook, portrayed in this adaptation by the absolutely perfect Geraldine Page, was his closest friend and confidante. Their yearly Christmas tradition (baking fruitcakes and sending them to acquaintances, as well as making each other Christmas gifts) encompasses nearly the whole of this wonderful teleplay. Capote's story comes through virtually intact, which makes all the difference; he also serves as narrator, giving the show the feel that it all actually happened in exactly this way. Donnie Melvin, who plays Capote as a child, has none of the sugary-sweet cuteness rampant in some child actors. His is a perfectly natural performance, unaffected and poignant.

The depiction of the South in the Depression is portrayed not as a detriment, but as an asset to the story. Despite the hardships, these two have genuine feeling for each other which transcends the bleakness of the rural economy. The family's market basket is an ornate baby carriage that was Capote's as a baby, kept under the porch of the ramshackle old house they live in, and is a potent sign of better times that have come and gone. Page doggedly pushes the carriage all over the countryside to gather the ingredients for the fruitcakes; stealing through barbed wire to gather a windfall pecan crop from a neighbor's forbidden orchard; hauling all the fruitcake ingredients home from the general store; and finally, making a trek to the notorious cafe whose owner, Ha-Ha Jones, sells bootleg whiskey. This is the final ingredient for the fruitcakes, and causes one of the funniest yet heartwarming scenes in the film.

In short, this is the best thing to come out of televisionland, and should not be missed. It's a classic that should be shown every Christmas.

The second short story is "Miriam." This was Capote's first published story and brought him instant success. It deals with a nasty little girl and her nanny.

The final story, "Among the Paths to Eden," won Maureen Stapleton the "Outstanding Single Performance By an Actress in a Leading Role in a Drama" Emmy in 1967-68 for her role in this teleplay. This is the story of a single woman in New York who took care of her recently-deceased father. Now all alone and lonely, she has taken up talking to widowers in the local cemeteries, as they decorate their late wife's grave, hoping to meet the right man. Stapleton is great as always, but the story itself is a little strange and rather difficult to watch. As a story it works, but when played live it loses a great deal.

This trio of Truman Capote stories features an odd mixture of emotions: pity, nostalgia, and fear. It's a little odd that this has become known as a holiday staple, but that's only because of the final vignette: "A Christmas Story" starring Geraldine Page. She plays Truman Capote's cooky cousin. This autobiographical story shows young Tru's childhood as he enjoys the winter with her and his aunts. Every Christmas, she bakes dozens of fruitcakes and then hand-delivers them throughout the neighborhood. It's sweet, but as many nostalgic stories are, there's a touch of sadness in it.

In the first story, Mildred Natwick takes the lead as a lonely old woman who wishes for company. She finds it in a chance meeting with a disturbed little girl, Susan Dunfee, who has the same name as her. Their interactions are upsetting and eerie, but I was happy to watch it and support Mildred's meaty role after her comeback in Barefoot in the Park.

The middle vignette features Maureen Stapleton as she visits a cemetery with the express intention of finding a husband - how sick is that? She picks out a lonely widower, Martin Balsam, and ingratiates herself while he's putting flowers on his wife's grave. He's very polite (perhaps because he's afraid of her mental state and wants to placate her) and she keeps trying to create a romance between them, thinking that lonely men who visit cemeteries must want the companion of a wife.

Now that I've spelled it all out for you, you'll be in a good position to decide whether you want to rent it or not. There's some good acting, but the stories, like most of Capote's work, are a little unsettling.

There is little I can add to the already wonderful comments, except to point out to individuals that there is another Geraldine Page portrayal of "Sook". The little known Thanksgiving Visitor, lies forgotten in ABC's film vault. This film, producted in 1967, was just as carefully produced & narrated by Truman Capote, as the previous year's "A Christmas Memory"(1966). I certainly wish public awareness & demand could convince ABC to commit both of these to DVD/Video.What great holiday viewing fare would both of these be!!