If given the choice of one Christmas to relive, set the Wayback Machine to December 25, 1933 and prepare to discover a holiday of laughter. Opening for Mae West, a Disney dye-transfer Technicolor Silly Symphony. The 3 Stooges, still under the wing of Ted Healy, shook their tootsies opposite Gable and Crawford in Dancing Lady. Dust for fingerprints: the Lubitsch Touch left an elegant set at the Oriental while the Marx Brothers at their most anarchic ran roughshod across the Chicago's giant 100-foot screen. For Scrooges out to put a scare into the kids, there's the most faithful, and fright-filled adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland featuring none other than W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty. Credit design magus William Cameron Menzies' for ministering the gnarled ambiance.
December 15, 2014