It has to be A Christmas Carol...with Alistair Sim....absolutely the best ever feel-good film imaginable.

My very close second has to be The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland....I just remember it from my childhood and it epitomises great feelings and happy things for me.

anything as long as its not 'the sound of Music'
Miracle on 34th Street.

jack frost is a good film

Oooooh - Miracle on 34th Street (the remake for me though!)

The original Miracle on 34th Street.Think about it each time I go to Macy's in New York.

Any Lassie film for me.

Grandma I can't watch Lassie, she makes me cry every time

Lassie Come Home has me blubbing 5 minutes into it

Miracle on 34th Street is on christmas day i will be watching that lol

White Christmas (or Holiday Inn as it is sometimes billed)

I have to confess to having a soft spot for Danny Kaye! No-one in my family likes him but I do

I like all the Dickens ones, especially Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol. But the original Miracle on 34th Street is my all time favourite!

aw, marvellous....yup, you cannot beat Charles Dickens...I am reading A Tale of Two Cities for the first time ever and it is so good.

Do you recommend A Tale of Two Cities, Lizzie? It's one I haven't read. I've recently read Nicholas Nickleby, and a book of Dickens' short ghost stories (The Signalman etc) but I've often wondered about which of his books to take up next.

Watched Miracle on 34th Street yesterday, black and white version

Fav is a ghostie story about a ghost train that goes throigh a station cant remember its name

It's called The Ghost Train and stars Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch and is set in Cornwall....absolutely brilliant, really spooky and fun little film - black and white...is that the one you were thinking of, Ros?

There are so many I could recommend, Katie, it is hard where to start. In 2004, they did a partworks series of magazines which had a facsimile hardback reproduction of the 1876 Dickens novels along with them...they were £5 each but had all the original artwork and stories from 1876 and I have the full set....I love "Our Mutual Friend", and one of my very favourites is "Little Dorrit".

I really would not know where to begin again....but I am only on page 50 of "A Tale of Two Cities" and I was crying earlier today...it is a really powerful story and wonderful....I thought it would be all about the French revolution and guillotines...but I am not far enough into it yet to know what it will be about other than that as usual the characters really live for you and you get so involved with them you can't help but be caught up in their world.

Do yourself a huge favour, Katie, and go to Amazon and buy yourself a 1p book - any by Charles Dickens, and you will not be disappointed.

P.S. you can't tell he is my favourite author, can you?! LOL

\Sounds like it

If remember right a guy with a lamp comes back up line waving a lamp

That's the one....singing "Rock of Ages" because the train has just gone off the bridge which was washed away....and he is meant to be a ghost!

Yes, Lizzie! I can tell you're a fan of Dickens, like myself. A Tale of Two Cities, and Hard Times are the only ones I haven't read, but I think I'll take up A Tale of Two Cities next. Did you know that BBC Radio 4's Afternoon Plays (all of this week) have been a serialistion of A Tale of Two Cities? Very well done they are too; and I've watched the BBC1 adaptation of Great Expectation the last two evenings which, although I'm enjoying, I can't help but be contrary and pedantic about the parts that have veered too far away from the book in places! I really ought to try to relax about 'new' interpretations, lol. ;-)

I so agree....I absolutely detest adaptations that do not match up to the book! It is so wrong...like the film of Great Expectations where at the end they tore down all the curtains and let the sunlight in....it didn't end like that in the book!!!

Tale of Two Cities I just finished the night before last....oh, how wonderful it is.....

It is a far far better thing I do than I have ever done before....it is a far far better rest I go to than I have ever known....

It just makes me cry to think of it.....I have been going around saying that now I am back at work because it is NOT far far better than being at home...LOL!!

I was sad that when I read a Tale of Two Cities, I already knew the story from the Dirk Bogarde fifties film adaptation of it, however, if you didn't know the ending it would come as one helluva shock to you!

I absolutely love Hard Times though, you have to read that...I was in tears and the characters in it are incredible.

I bought my son a book of George Orwell's essays which he asked for, for his Christmas, and there is one it in about Dickens and apparently George did not like Charlie!!! I can't believe it....as one of my other favourite books is "1984"

Thank you, Lizzie...You've whetted my appetite for both Hard Times and a Tale of Two Cities - watch out for my feedback to you on both! ;-)) We should have a reading group on YSP methinks....

Anyway, I was lucky enough to catch the Dirk Bogarde film on BBC2 yesterday afternoon - prior to that they'd shown the 1935 David Copperfield (with W C Fields!!) and (I think) a fifties version of Nicholas Nickleby - a bumper festival of Dickens. Bliss! A Tale of Two Cities made me cry at the end though; such a brave man...And how much he loved her... :-(((

I hope you're enjoying Orwell's essays; I've read a few and enjoyed, in particular, the one on Tolstoy (I had a passion for Russian Literature in my younger days) but I've yet to read the one on Dickens. Orwell can be quite scathing, can't he? But I love his frankness. The late (and great) Christopher Hitchens was an avid believer in Orwell's philosophy and vision, and wrote an excellent and indepth analysis of his works: "Orwell's Victory" - Hitchens' analysis of both Animal Farm and 1984 go much further than anything else I've read, and well worth a read if you're a fan! 1984 is definitely in my top ten pieces of literature.

My son is so into Orwell right now....he has just finished "Down and Out in Paris & London" which he is raving about and I read it many years ago and about to revisit it again, but I find time at a premium these days!!

How sad I missed those films as I was working yesterday and I love them all and have seen them before. My husband will be searching online for them, though, as my birthday is in March!

I have not read any of Orwell's essays, but I may do so after my son has read them....he is reading them just now and has firm views of his own, not necessarily agreeing with him....I agree he can be quite scathing!!

We must continue these conversations by email, KatieN....

I did some time ago suggest a poetry corner on YSP, but Kay didn't think it was a good idea, I wonder what Charlotte thinks? I am a huge fan of poetry....especially the lovely classics.

I haven't read much Russian literature but my father-in-law studied Russian literature at University and has a great collection and loves Dostoyevsky. My son has read some too...at this rate, he will be outstripping his mum in this department.

Although he did admit he was not taken with the Bronte sisters!! Not his thing, apparently! I loved them! Did you ever read any Mrs Gaskell? I often fancied trying them, but never got around to it.....right now I have started one of my christmas pressies from hubby, a book called TRAGEDY AT LAW by Cyril Hare - a murder mystery from the 1930s for the first time in reprinted format....very engaging if not quite at classic status!

Yes! We ought to switch to email, Lizzie. Or I did have a thought about setting up a forum where we could have our literature and poetry debates at length - what do you think? It's very simple to do.

It's a shame that your idea of a poetry corner didn't take off - I think it's a great idea! Last year, I studied 65 of Shakespeare's 154 Sonnets, and even managed to memorise some of them. This year I'd like to complete the remainder, but I'm afraid that the works of John Donne are calling to me, lol. I received a beautifully bound copy of his works for Christmas and I can't wait to read them.