It's a black-and-white movie Christmas, with snow falling as joyful families mingle on city sidewalks while window-shopping -- buying food, presents, decorations and fresh-cut trees for festivities that are only two days away.
For Americans, this scene represents the ghost of Christmas past, long before suburban malls, big-box scrums and Amazon.com. And as "The Bishop's Wife" opens, an angel -- a graceful Cary Grant -- enters this 1947 tableau, smiling at carolers and children and helping the needy and lost.
"Christmas is always in danger in Christmas movies -- we'd have no reason to make such movies otherwise," wrote critic Titus Techera, executive director of the American Cinema Foundation. In this classic movie, "we have a remarkable concentration of problems in one household: A man's faith, his family, community and church … are all tied together."
It isn't unusual to find miracles, tight-knit communities, glowing churches and parables about human choices, temptation, sin and redemption in old Christmas films, said Techera, contacted by Zoom while visiting Bucharest.
That's why Techera -- a native of Romania, before his work brought him to America -- has written four online essays about the lessons learned from watching '40s movies that were remade in the '90s. The other films in this Acton Institute series are "The Shop Around the Corner," "Miracle on 34th Street" and "Christmas in Connecticut."
There's a reason many modern Americans keep watching these movies, he said. Some yearn for a time before most Americans became so isolated, separated by jobs far from extended families, sprawling suburban neighborhoods and all the paradoxes built into digital networks that were supposed to keep people connected.
"What we see in these movies is a time when Christmas was a far less commercial celebration and there was quite a bit of continuity with traditions from the past. … For many, the church was part of that," he said. "Christmas was a family thing. It was a community thing. … Commerce was more subservient to ordinary life. Commerce had not taken over all of life, including Christmas."
At the heart of "The Bishop's Wife" is an Episcopal leader wrestling with pride and the burdens of his job, while his wife worries about their family. This bishop urgently wants to finish building a cathedral and he needs the help of a rich woman who is hiding pain and guilt, while demanding that the cathedral be built on her terms.
The angel offers all of them choices -- but allows them to make their own decisions. The angel wrestles with temptations of his own.
"This is the Christian core of the story: The angel comes to remind everyone of what Christmas really means and why it's tied up with gifts," noted Techera, in his essay. "This is because the Christian God is love. …
"God wants the needy protected. So, there is room for pride, but of a special kind: the pride in helping where we can those who need us. They have a claim on us in Christ, but we have reason to feel proud since we accomplish a good thing, sometimes a difficult one."
The repentant bishop delivers a Christmas sermon, written by the angel, that ends with: "All the stockings are filled, all that is, except one. … The stocking for the child born in a manger. It's his birthday we're celebrating. Don't let us ever forget that. Let us ask ourselves what He would wish for most. And then, let each put in his share -- loving kindness, warm hearts and a stretched out hand of tolerance. All the shinning gifts that make peace on earth."
Modern remakes of these films, noted Techera, tend to omit the big questions that loomed over the older versions, which -- even when they didn't include direct references to faith -- often served as near-biblical parables about hope, gratitude, charity, forgiveness and the ties that bind families and communities.
"There was also a sense that Christmas was worth waiting for," he said. Today, "the holidays" last for a month or longer and end, rather than begin, on December 25th. At that point "many people seem exhausted, and they no longer even know what Christmas is supposed to be about. …
"People no longer fast and pray to prepare for Christmas. They just shop."