What happens when the biggest movie star in the world directs the smallest Christmas film on basic cable? A holiday miracle. Today on the show: The never-before-published, extremely bizarre story of the making of ‘Christmas in Connecticut’... the remake. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What is the significance of Christmas in Connecticut?
And directed by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger. A kind of shocking twist, if you ask me. I mean, why would the Terminator take on Christmas in Connecticut? So I did what any good Christmas fiend would do. I talked to a dozen people about something that happened 30 years ago for way too many hours to get the real story.
And I discovered in the process what I have come to regard as the greatest Christmas tale of all time.
I've told this story many times. I've never told it on the record. It's a big story. So if you've got the time, I will tell it to you.
That's Stan Brooks. In the early 1990s, he was an independent made-for-TV movie producer.
So I'm developing movies and a friend of mine goes and gets the job at TNC. And I make the very first movie for him.
TNT launched in 1988, at the start of the cable television revolution. Then as now, cable was expensive, but it was growing. The whole game was trying to raise awareness to get people to sign up. And with channels running 24-7, there was a lot of space to fill, which led to a boom in made-for-TV movies. Stan's first film on TNT was a big success, so he got another bite at the Apple.
And he calls me, he goes, what do you want to do next? So they said, in a million years, would you ever let me do a remake from the MGM library? Because that's what Ted owned. And he said, yes, just pick one.
Christmas movies always do well. And there was one Stan loved. Christmas in Connecticut.
And I had known the Barbara Stanwyck movie. And so I said, well, this could be a good one. It was right as Martha Stewart was exploding. I thought, well, what if this is Martha Stewart? What if she's on TV and has an empire and it's all fake? And so they loved that take. And so off we went to the races.
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Chapter 2: What makes It's a Wonderful Life a sacred text?
He wanted to prove that he could be a director.
And everyone was about to find out whether or not he could. Christmas in Connecticut, the remake, began filming about two months before Christmas in Los Angeles.
Because Arnold Schwarzenegger had never before directed a feature film, though let the record show he had directed an episode of the TV show Tales from the Crypt, the production arranged for things to film more or less in the order they happen in the film. There's a lot less to keep track of continuity-wise that way. But this also posed a problem.
One of the anxieties of adapting a great work of art is figuring out how to make it your own. The 1992 made-for-TV remake of Christmas in Connecticut does this immediately by introducing its male lead, a park ranger named Jefferson Jones, mid-workout routine in his mountain cabin.
If you're looking for signs that this is not your grandmother's Christmas in Connecticut, the sight of Chris Christopherson as Jefferson Jones sweating after busting out some chin-ups on a beam in his cabin is your first warning. A man on the television offers some brisk exposition while he cools down.
In the last hour, experts predict this should be the biggest storm to hit the Rockies in the last decade. More than four feet of snow is anticipated to blanket the area in the next 48 hours.
The phone rings. Another ranger is calling to tell Jones a kid has gotten lost in the blizzard. He has to go out and find him. This is the fabled action sequence Schwarzenegger had requested. They shot the blizzard on a soundstage. It's the moment Jefferson Jones becomes a hero, which is why he gets invited to be a guest of Elizabeth Blaine's for her Christmas special in Connecticut.
It's got to look epic. It's got to have that Arnold Schwarzenegger feeling. Unfortunately, Terminator, this is not. Here's Jim Wilberger, director of production.
There's a scene where Kristofferson suddenly has rescued the kid and you see him roll down this little hill of snow which was shot on stage. Trying to make more of it because there wasn't that much set for that little hill. Then suddenly you see all the people rush in to rescue. You know, I mean, this was just not good blocking. And that's just an experience.
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