Christmas starlets

They save them up every year. All the Christmas B-movies that have ever been made are piled onto TV screens (plus iPads, computers, smart phones, - anything that can be gazed at) for the entire month of December, that is, until December 24.  Mostly they are rom-coms and mostly you never heard of them unless you saw them all last year.  Tucked in amongst them are It's a Wonderful Life" (which I understand was  not an instant classic); "Miracle on 34th Street" (the first one); "Meet Me In St. Louis" ("Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas"); and "White Christmas" (but not the first, original "Holiday Inn").  So far, no vampire elves or blood-sucking Santas.

I think it must be in every starlet's contract that she must do one Xmas rom-com during her apprentice years, but then I have seen a few who are post-apprentice, so maybe it's punishment, too.  The plots are pretty predictable and I do feel sorry for the lesser starlets who have to play the mean sister or the nasty soon-to-be-ex fiancee and sometimes the nosy neighbour. The guys are sort of cute and inter-changeable but you can't tell, really, because they are given such horrible lines to say.  You look in vain for a Topher Grace or a Josh Duhamel. I fear these boys have ended up being studio carpenters or drivers. Spome of them have very bad hair, so you see.

And yet they are in demand.  So are the scripts.  I subscribe to InkTip, an online market tip sheet for screen writers.  All year round there are calls for Christmas stories, preferably family-based, no horror.  I myself have written one, which I can't sell, so it's not that easy, despite appearances.

Years ago I was visiting friends in Bermuda, sitting at dinner when one of the other guests had a call from Los Angeles.  He came back and reported to us that his ex-wife in LA was very ill and he was going to go and see her soon.  No terrific rush, though, because her other ex-husbands were also going to  go.  Say no more!  That' was the inspiration for my Christmas screenplay "Christmas with Gloria".  I mean, the kind of woman who could command that kind of devotion in ex-husbands has to be very special.  My heroine is not sick; she is just celebrating Christmas and her present and past loves show up to share it with her.  She has to be totally charming.  Her story takes place last Christmas and this one, or maybe this Christmas and next year. 

nyway, it's a mature rom-com and the heroine, necessarily, is not terribly young, not with a few exes in her past.  There's a hope for faded starlets yet, if anyone ever decides to produce it, and I live in hope, too.  We all do.