When was the 1st "Hallmark Christmas Movie"? It seems like a recent phenomenon. Indeed, the Hallmark Channel has made the sappy, holiday-themed romance films a regular feature of its October, November and December programming since 2009.
But before there was a Hallmark Channel, there was the anthology TV series Hallmark Hall of Fame. And the 1st one of those goes back a lot further than that. It's not a sappy romance story. And it's not an original story, either. Unless you mean a variation on the original Christmas story.
December 24, 1951: Amahl and the Night Visitors is broadcast on NBC, live from Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York. It is the 1st program in the Hallmark Hall of Fame series, sponsored by the Hallmark greeting-card company.
It is an opera, the 1st ever composed specifically for television, by Gian Carlo Menotti. He was born in 1911, in Cadegliano-Viconago, in Lombardy near the Italian border with Switzerland. In the booklet for the original cast recording, Menotti wrote:
This is an opera for children because it tries to recapture my own childhood. You see, when I was a child I lived in Italy, and in Italy we have no Santa Claus. I suppose that Santa Claus is much too busy with American children to be able to handle Italian children as well. Our gifts were brought to us by the Three Kings, instead.
I actually never met the Three Kings -- it didn't matter how hard my little brother and I tried to keep awake at night to catch a glimpse of the Three Royal Visitors, we would always fall asleep just before they arrived. But I do remember hearing them. I remember the weird cadence of their song in the dark distance; I remember the brittle sound of the camel's hooves crushing the frozen snow; and I remember the mysterious tinkling of their silver bridles.
(In fact, Italy does have a version of Santa Claus, although he's closer to St. Nicholas, the original bishop form of the character, known as Father Christmas in Britain, Père Noël in France, and, in Italy, Babbo Natale.)
The lead character is Amahl, a boy who, like Tiny Tim in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, can walk only with a crutch. He compensates for his disability by telling tall tales. His mother does not believe him when he tells her there is an amazing star "as big as a window" outside over the roof of their house in Bethlehem.
After bedtime, there is a knock at the door and the mother tells Amahl to go see who it is. He is amazed when he sees three splendidly dressed kings, the Magi. (The Bible does not specifically call them kings. Nor does it specify the number of "wise men.") At first, the mother does not believe Amahl, but when she goes to the door to see for herself, she is stunned.
The Three Kings tell the mother and Amahl they are on a long journey, to give gifts to a wondrous Child, and they would like to rest at their house, to which the mother agrees, saying that all she can offer is "a cold fireplace and a bed of straw." The mother goes to fetch firewood, and Amahl seizes the opportunity to speak with the kings.
King Balthazar answers Amahl's questions about his life as a king, and asks what Amahl does. Amahl responds that he was once a shepherd, but his mother had to sell his sheep. Now, he and his mother will have to go begging.
Amahl then talks with King Kaspar, who is childlike, eccentric, and a bit deaf. Kaspar shows Amahl his box of magic stones, beads, and licorice, and offers Amahl some of the candy. The mother returns. He defends himself, saying "They kept asking me questions," when of course it has in fact been Amahl asking the kings questions. Amahl is told to go fetch the neighbors, so the kings may be fed and entertained properly.
After the neighbors have left and the kings are resting, the mother attempts to steal for her son some of the kings' gold that was meant for the Christ Child. She is thwarted by the kings' page. When Amahl wakes to find the page grabbing his mother, he attacks him. Seeing Amahl's defense of his mother and understanding the motives for the attempted theft, King Melchior says she may keep the gold, as the Holy Child will not need earthly power or wealth to build his kingdom.
The mother says she has waited all her life for such a king and asks the kings to take back the gold. She wishes to send a gift but has nothing to send. Amahl, too, has nothing to give the Child except his crutch. When he offers it to the kings, his leg is miraculously healed. With permission from his mother, he leaves with the kings to see the Child, and give his crutch in thanks for being healed.
Thomas Schippers conducted the orchestra. Chet Allen, then 12 years old, played Amahl. Rosemary Kuhlmann played the Mother, Andrew McKinley played King Kaspar, David Aiken played King Melchior, Leon Lishner played King Balthazar, and Francis Monachino played the page. Melissa Hayden, Glen Tetley and Nicholas Magallanes played "Dancing Shepherds."
Amahl and the Night Visitors was the 1st network television Christmas special to become an annual tradition. Until 1963, Amahl was nearly always presented with many of the same singers and production staff. From 1951 until 1966 it was presented every year on NBC on or around Christmas Eve. A 1978 production of Amahl also premiered on NBC, before it went to cable television in the early 1980s. A British film version was made in 1996.
Nicholas Magallanes and later Thomas Schippers died in 1977. Chet Allen became depressed over his failing career, and died by suicide in 1984. Leon Lishner died in 1995, Andrew McKinley in 1996, Francis Monachino in 2003, Melissa Hayden in 2006, Glen Tetley and later Gian Carlo Menotti in 2007, David Aiken in 2011, and Rosemary Kuhlmann was the last survivor of the cast, living until 2019.
Studio 8H has been the home of NBC's Saturday Night Live since 1975. Most of Menotti's work is forgotten. Arturo Toscanini, NBC's Italian-born main conductor, knew it when he heard the rehearsal for Amahl, telling him, "This is the best you've ever done."
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December 24, 1951 was a Monday. Baseball was out of season. No games were scheduled in the NBA or the NHL And the NFL Championship Game was played the previous day, with the Los Angeles Rams beating the Cleveland Browns, 24-17 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. So there were no scores on this historic day.
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