Kids running amok at an airport, a legendary wartime truce, and the true story behind Scrooge. These Christmas movies are extra special to watch during the holiday season since they're all based on real events.
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00:00Kids running amok at an airport, a legendary wartime truce, and the true story behind
00:04Scrooge — these Christmas movies are extra special to watch during the holiday season,
00:09since they're all based on real events.
00:12The 2015 NBC TV movie Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors earned critical praise for its
00:17heartfelt narrative, which was drawn from stories about Parton's own childhood in eastern Tennessee.
00:22A sequel, Dolly Parton's Christmas of Many Colors Circle of Love, followed in 2016. That film,
00:27about her family facing various challenges at the holidays, netted an Emmy Award nomination
00:32for Outstanding Television Movie in 2017. In an interview with The Country Daily,
00:37Parton said that Christmas of Many Colors was drawn from various true stories taken
00:41from her life. Its central story, about Parton's father and siblings pooling their meager resources
00:46to buy their mother a wedding ring, helped to provide the film's title.
00:49She had a house full of kids and never had a wedding ring,
00:52so that kind of represents the circle of family and love.
00:56As executive producer of the movie, Parton was on set for much of the production,
01:00and found that some scenes drawn from her life were hard to watch. One in particular,
01:04which depicted her family facing the possibility of freezing to death after being snowed in,
01:08was a particularly emotional experience for her. She said,
01:12When we got to the part when Mama was praying and the tears were frozen on her little faces,
01:17when I was watching that, I just couldn't hardly bear it.
01:20The 2021 comedy 8-Bit Christmas is a warm-hearted tribute to not only the highs and lows of the
01:26holiday season, but also the mania generated by 1980s-era toys and video games, particularly the
01:31console that dominated the latter half of the decade. In an interview for the Gamer Looks at
01:3640 podcast, writer Kevin Jakubowski noted that his own childhood experiences inspired a great
01:41deal of the story. He explained,
01:42The story came from wanting a Nintendo, and all my friends really wanting it, in 87-88.
01:48Many other aspects of the story, including the town in which it takes place,
01:52were also assembled from Jakubowski's childhood. Jakubowski said,
01:55Everything in the book is heightened and exaggerated. All of those things
01:58are inspired by real life — and my childhood.
02:02Despite having Bridesmaids director Paul Feig behind the camera and a host of comedy pros
02:06in supporting roles, the comedy Unaccompanied Minors flopped during its brief December 2006
02:11theatrical run. The film follows a gaggle of kids who run roughshod through a Midwestern airport
02:17when their Christmas Eve flights are grounded. However, the closest the script comes to
02:20delivering on its premise is a string of unfortunately underfed sight gags. Unaccompanied
02:26Minors was loosely based on writer Susan Burton's in-the-event-of-an-emergency-put-your-sister-in-the-
02:31upright-position, a segment from a 2001 episode of the NPR magazine show This American Life.
02:36Unlike Unaccompanied Minors, Burton's piece is serious and frequently melancholy as she recalls
02:41a childhood spent on flights, shuttling between her divorced parents along with her younger sister.
02:46One such trip ends abruptly when Chicago's O'Hare Airport is snowed in,
02:51forcing Burton and other unaccompanied children into a sort of holding pen until the airlines
02:56could contact parents. The story is thoughtful and emotional in a way that the film can't begin
03:01to touch, unfortunately. 2017's The Man Who Invented Christmas explores the events of
03:0619th century author Charles Dickens' life that inspired him to write his enduring holiday novella
03:12A Christmas Carol. The film takes creative liberties in depicting the inspiration for the
03:16story. As NPR reviewer Mark Jenkins noted, Dickens, played by Dan Stevens,
03:20appears surrounded by the characters in his own story, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.
03:25However, The Man Who Invented Christmas also accurately depicts many of the biographical
03:29details of Dickens' life. His father, played in the film by Sir Jonathan Price,
03:33did go to debtor's prison when Dickens was 12 years old, and Dickens' career was in a
03:37tailspin prior to the publication of A Christmas Carol in 1843.
03:41Individuals from Dickens' own life also inspired some of the characters in his works,
03:45though the characters played by Christopher Plummer is just one of several suggested figures
03:50that inspired his creation of Ebenezer Scrooge. Additionally, Dickens actually
03:54self-published A Christmas Carol after falling out with his publishers. It was a costly move
03:58that ended up netting him a far smaller share of the profits than he would have otherwise gotten.
04:04CBS aired the made-for-TV feature The Man Who Saved Christmas in 2002,
04:08which gave Jason Alexander, still just a few years off Seinfeld, a rare shot at leading man status.
04:14Alexander played entrepreneur A.C. Gilbert, who created the Erector set in 1913. The film follows
04:20Gilbert's efforts to fight against the government's decision to encourage people to buy war bonds
04:24instead of Christmas gifts. Due to his successful lobbying, the Press of the Day dubbed Gilbert
04:29the Man Who Saved Christmas, thanks to his defense of gift-giving. Alexander pours on the
04:34charm as Gilbert and is very effective in a largely dramatic role, and the film does make
04:39note of many of Gilbert's accomplishments outside of toy-making. For instance, he was among the
04:43first business owners to provide benefits, such as medical insurance and Christmas bonuses,
04:47to his employees.
04:49Though it's been remade twice, the original 1974 version of Black Christmas remains a high point
04:54in the history of the slasher film. The Canadian production was in part inspired by an enduring
04:59urban legend known as The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs. The grisly story, in which a sitter
05:04receives terrifying phone calls, inspired several other horror films and was itself reportedly based
05:10on a real-life unsolved murder case from way back in 1950. However, the film's gruesome murder spree,
05:16carried out by an unseen assailant against the members of a college sorority, may have been
05:20influenced by several other real-life crimes. In an interview on the 2008 Blu-ray release of the
05:25film, screenwriter Roy Moore has alluded to a string of gruesome murders committed in Montreal
05:30and Calgary during the late 1960s by serial killer Wayne Clifford Bowden as a possible inspiration.
05:36Meanwhile, co-star Nick Mancuso told The Telegraph that the story drew upon a
05:401943 murder case in Montreal's Westmount neighborhood.
05:45Not all holiday movies are merry and bright. Case in point, 2017's Christmas Princess,
05:49which ventures down a few dark paths while telling the story of teenager Donnelly Marquez.
05:54In the film, Donnelly endures abuse at the hands of her drug-addicted mother and is subsequently
05:59moved through various foster homes. Thankfully, the film has a silver lining. Donnelly achieves
06:04her longstanding dream of becoming a princess in Pasadena, California's famous Tournament of Roses
06:09parade. The highs and lows of Donnelly's story are made even more moving by the fact that they
06:13are also true. As a 2015 story in The Los Angeles Times illustrated, she and her siblings were
06:18neglected by their birth mother, who eventually surrendered them at a police station. The trio
06:22was shuttled through various group homes before being adopted by Sarah and Ignacio Marquez.
06:28With her family situation now stabilized, Donnelly launched her campaign for the tournament's royal
06:33court. And as The Los Angeles Times article noted, Donnelly also took her story to Los Angeles group
06:38homes to show other young people that they could escape the cycle of neglect. She told the outlet,
06:42"'It doesn't matter where you come from, you can do anything as long as you set your mind to it.'"
06:47What happens when an ambitious congressional assistant tasked with closing a U.S. Air Force
06:52base in Guam meets the handsome nice-guy captain in charge? Sparks fly, of course,
06:56as the 2020 Netflix rom-com Operation Christmas drop details. But viewers also get a bit of
07:02history in addition to the heart-melting moments. The humanitarian missions carried out by the
07:06captain and his crew are not only real, but a longstanding holiday tradition in the Pacific
07:10region. Since 1952, real-life Air Force crews stationed on Guam have been airdropping food
07:16and other supplies to some of the 2,000 islands that make up the tiny Pacific Ocean region of
07:21Micronesia. The 400-pound boxes of essential items are dropped by parachute to the island's
07:26inhabitants, who often depend on the Christmas drop donations for food, medicine, and other
07:31necessities. And while Operation Christmas drop depicts a scenario in which the government plans
07:36to cancel the supply deliveries, the real Christmas drop remains active today.
07:41An extraordinary gift brings a chance at new love in 2018's Once Upon a Christmas Miracle.
07:47Amy Teegarden stars as a young woman whose desperate need for a liver transplant is
07:51answered by a complete stranger. His selfless act leads to a tentative connection that eventually
07:57blossoms into romance and marriage. Though the plot of Christmas Miracle sounds like the stuff
08:01of Hollywood rom-com fantasies, it's actually based on a real-life couple, Heather Kruger and
08:06Chris Dempsey. Kruger had autoimmune hepatitis, which by 2015 had so compromised her health
08:12that doctors advised her to seek out a liver donor. By chance, Dempsey overheard Kruger's
08:17cousin talking about her condition and decided to become her donor. The operation was a success,
08:22but even more remarkable was the bond that grew between the couple.
08:26You know, I just thought that this would be somebody I would want to get to know."
08:28Within months, they got engaged and eventually married. In addition to lending their real-life
08:33fairy tale to the Hallmark production, Kruger and Dempsey also appear briefly in the film
08:37as a couple dancing at a fundraising event to pay for medical expenses.
08:41The Miracle, mentioned in the title of 1977's Christmas Miracle in Caulfield, USA,
08:46refers to the rescue of miners trapped by a cave-in on Christmas Eve in 1951.
08:52However, that storyline actually only makes up a portion of the NBC made-for-TV movie.
08:57Small-town drama takes up much of the runtime, especially the miserly actions of the mine owner
09:02and his impact on a family that works for him, including son Kurt Russell and daughter Melissa
09:06Gilbert. Their scenes are well-acted, but don't grip the viewer in the same manner as the cave-in.
09:11The accident itself appears to be based on a mine accident that took place in West
09:15Frankfurt, Illinois, on December 21, 1951. An underground explosion of methane gas
09:21tore through the mine shortly before it was scheduled to close for the Christmas holiday,
09:25killing 119 mine workers. The disaster prompted the intervention of the federal government,
09:30which passed the Coal Mine Safety Act in 1952.
09:34The 2005 Oscar-nominated feature Joyeux Noël depicts a remarkable moment during World War I,
09:40when soldiers on opposing sides set aside their weapons to celebrate Christmas together.
09:45The informal Christmas truce of 1914 reportedly involved approximately 100,000 troops on the
09:50Western Front near Belgium on December 24. German soldiers began singing Christmas carols
09:56and invited their British and French counterparts to join them to celebrate the holiday.
10:00The troops exchanged gifts of tobacco and alcohol and even played soccer during the brief truce.
10:05The Christmas truce of 1914 was reportedly the last widespread pause in fighting during
10:10what was then known as the Great War, though there were attempts. The sheer amount of casualties on
10:15both sides made it harder to put aside grievances for a night, even on Christmas.