Home For Christmas (1990/VCI DVD)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: C-     Telefilm: C

 

 

Mickey Rooney plays a lonely man with emotional and mental issues and nowhere to go in Peter McCubbin’s Home For Christmas (1990), an attempt to make another holiday classic that never quite works, though the unknowns try.  This was produced in Canada and is passable, can be too melodramatic and never adds up.  However, I give Rooney credit for a decent performance.

 

However, this is a TV movie that wants to be emotionally magical, but that never works out.  Elmer (Rooney) knows a few homeless people and suddenly, he meets two children who eventually get him involved (or re-involved) with others which lead to the obvious as he has pain from the past of a lost love.  We have seen it all before, but at least the makers tried to make this work and fans of holiday programming might want to see it.

 

The 1.33 X 1 image is soft throughout, from a second-generation source that seems like an older analog film-to-video transfer versus an NTSC analog shoot.  I cannot tell which, it is so soft.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono fares better with some good recording for its age, but don’t expect much more.  The only extras are previews for other VCI holiday releases.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo