Only ‘Way’ to Go for Some Seasonal Good Tidings

What did you do Christmas Eve? I spent much of it with Bing and Barry.

You can have “Miracle on 34th Street,” “Holiday Inn,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “A Christmas Carol” (all versions) and every other Christmas goose that comes to mind. Remember, you heard it here. When it comes to antique movies on TV, Christmas Eve can’t get any better than writer-director Leo McCarey’s “Going My Way.”

It’s masterful, artistic, Oscar-winning corn, two hours and 15 minutes of shining sentimentality perfect for the occasion.

Affirmation came Saturday night with the appearance of “Going My Way” on that trove of elderly cinema, cable’s American Movie Classics. It had been so many years since I’d seen it, I’d forgotten its charms.

Not that the others don’t also have something to recommend them. The original, now-twice-remade “Miracle on 34th Street” has unforgettable Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle. Fred Astaire’s elegant footwork and Bing Crosby’s singing of “White Christmas” are almost enough to prop up snowbound “Holiday Inn.” Even though various incarnations of “It’s a Wonderful Life” celebrate what, to me, is a tragically wasted life, the story’s enduring popularity attests to its strength. And “A Christmas Carol,” especially the 1951 British movie version with Alastair Simm and TV’s 1984 version with George C. Scott, is indispensable on Christmas Eve.

At least that’s what I thought until my reunion with “Going My Way.”

It was released in 1944, and, like all movies, should be assessed in the context of its times. It stereotypes the aged as doddering, Catholic priests as tender-hearted, atheists as heartless. It inaccurately depicts an urban society that racially is nearly monolithic. And the World War II era in which it was made gets only an insufficient footnote.

More importantly, though, “Going My Way” is a movie that wears its enormous heart and humanity like a medallion, with Crosby (in his finest dramatic work outside of “The Country Girl”) as kindly, progressive Father O’Malley and wee Barry Fitzgerald (with his trademark Irish brogue) at his most huggable as kindly, old-fashioned Father Fitzgibbon. Crosby, Fitzgerald and McCarey won Academy Awards for “Going My Way,” which was named best picture.

“Going My Way” is soft-sell Yule, the only hints of Christmastime coming when Crosby croons “Silent Night” and when he later joins Met star Rise Stevens in a stirring rendition of “Ave Maria”--both being moments that can move even non-Christians to tears. Yet even without overtly referring to Christmas, its sermon of goodness and giving epitomizes the best of this holiday--preaching redemption of the wayward, love of mom, and generosity toward the underprivileged and elderly.

O’Malley, for example, is too kind to tell the much-older Fitzgibbon (although only 56, Fitzgerald was persuasively playing a man of at least 70) that he’s been sent to replace him as head of troubled St. Dominick’s, a parish in deep financial arrears largely because of Fitzgibbon’s own unrestrained benevolence. And when he finds out the truth, Fitzgibbon is too kind to become an impediment to the new man, even though disappointed at being supplanted by someone whose modern ways he questions. In fact, every major character in this movie is innately kind, except for the church’s wealthy landlord played by Gene Lockhart, and even he’s merely a benign fuddy-duddy who turns out to be educable.

“Going My Way” is a tightly enclosed universe in which a juvenile street gang can be turned around by a few stanzas from a crooning priest, such as Father O’Malley’s miraculous transformation of some local hoods into a sweet-singing boys choir. “They’re angels,” says Stevens. Botticelli angels. And their singing of “An Irish Lullaby,” as Father Fitzgibbon rejoins his 90-year-old mother in a lovely scene without dialogue, puts a jackhammer to your tear ducts. Somehow, McCarey makes this goo not merely palatable, but deliciously rewarding and deeply felt to your toes, as he mostly did with his 1945 sequel, “The Bells of St. Mary’s,” which returned Crosby as O’Malley and added Ingrid Bergman as a Sister Superior.

Simplistic, yes. But what’s significant is that you can hold on to the ideal of “Going My Way” without embracing every detail. At one point, Fitzgibbon pours himself and O’Malley some Irish whiskey to mark their new friendship, a shot of booze matched by a big belt of old-fashioned values. “Good stuff,” the old priest says. Very good stuff.

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A Fifth of Fantasy: It’s wise not to get too worked up about anything as subjective as awards. Yet the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. affirmed what planet it’s been living on by excluding some of TV’s best programs and performers from last week’s nominations for its annual Golden Globe awards.

That planet is Pluto.

Omit HBO’s “The Larry Sanders Show”--consistently the funniest, smartest, most inventive comedy program anywhere--from the musical or comedy series nominees? That is a laugh. Someone must have watched “The Larry Sanders Show” because its star, Garry Shandling, was nominated for best comedy actor. Snubbed, though, were his superb supporting actors, Rip Torn and Jeffrey Tambor.

As were the outstanding British mystery miniseries “Prime Suspect 3” and its scintillating star Helen Mirren, even though their presence on PBS for a third season was arguably the drama highlight of 1994 on U.S. television.

Miranda Richardson did get a gift nomination for her ho-hum supporting work in HBO’s “Fatherland.” Yet, otherwise, the British appear just too foreign for the Foreign Press Assn.