Yes I’m talking about frozen precipitation, as in “sleet & snow”.
One of my favourite films of all time is Northern Pursuit, a film made in the 30’s (I believe) starring Erroyl Flynn. He plays a Canadian mountie of German descent who has to pose as a traitor in order to infilitrate a Nazi spy ring.
The film is potrayed in various mountainous locations, and all the landmarks are covered by snow. Beautiful, white, meditative snow. It shimmers off the black-and-white film, and gives you this feeling that mixes both warm and chilly together.
Anyway, I just love films with snow. I mean Die Hard I was by far my favourite of the trilogy (plot-wise), but I’d rank it behind DH II just becoz the entire movie is shot in a blizzard.
Same goes for Detox, parts of Seven Years In Tibet and even The Day After Tommorow, which I only went to watch because of the snow (and I hated, but loved the snow!).
Also, there’s a 1930’s version of a Sherlock Holmes movie that also does some snowy effects.
So boys and girls, indulge me. How many other movies can you think of (please not Home Alone 2) that are covered in snow?
Actually, one of my favorite WWII action/suspense movies is The Heroes of Telemark. It’s as taut as the best heist movie, with the added benefit of the “heist” being a heroic deed. Oh, plus there’s Nazis. Anyway, it’s pretty much shrouded in snow from first to last.
Gremlins, the original. Not the sequel. There was also a Charles Bronson movie, where he is being hunted by Lee Marvin for a murder someone else committed. I can’t remember the name of the film. But, it takes place in Alaska in the winter.
It’s A Wonderful Life, and A Christmas Story have some nice scenes where it’s snowing.
The Dog Who Stopped The War
Empire Strikes Back
Fargo
Reindeer Games
One of my favorite guilty pleasure films is “Murder on the Orient Express”[ with Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot] Snow is the reason for their being immobilized, which gives HP the opportunity to “exercise the little grey cells”.
OK - I feel kind of stupid for saying this, but ‘White Christmas’. It’s not real snow, but it gets it’s own songs and it’s a plot point and it’s a great movie.
Goodnight now.
D.W. Griffith’s Way Down East (1920), in which fallen woman Lillian Gish, in true melodrama style, is cast out into the snow storm.
California rancher Robert Mitchum follows the Track of the Cat (1954) through a snow storm.
The Invisible Man (1933) is captured when he is tracked through a freshly fallen snow.
When Margaret O’Brien hears that her family is leaving St. Louis, she smashes the family of snow people she had created in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944).
An airborn party of refugees crashes into a mountain in Asia during a blizzard in Lost Horizon (1937), only to discover a hidden valley where time and war are unknown.
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) are snowbound together for the winter after the latter kidnap the former and cause an avalanche to block a mountain pass.
The Color Purple has an extraordinary amount of snow in it considering the story takes place in rural Georgia.
Probably the most intense scene with regard to winter weather is near the beginning when Celie gives birth. It’s so cold in the room that the baby comes out of her steaming visably (quite disturbing), then Pa comes busting in, and the blizzard swirls into the room. There are five or six other snow scenes too.