Jones Programming Partners, Michael Filerman Productions, NBC Productions,
Jessica Tandy, Stephanie Zimbalist, Lisa Jakub, Christopher Gartin, Tandy Cronyn
Grace (Jessica Tandy) moves in with her daughter Meg (Tandy Cronyn) where she’s supposed to relax and live out her remaining years. But that’s not Grace’s way. She scours the town looking for a job anywhere, but the schools require you to have a child in the school, the hospitals require too much manual lifting. No one wants to hire her, but when she stumbles upon the magic of public access cable, she puts up her own money to do a show called “The Story Lady” where she reads stories to children over the air. Surprisingly it catches on big time and grabs the attention of the network who offers her a job on the network reading stories. But big business is very different, as Grace finds out, where they totally change the show to suit the sponsors. Grace meets a divorced TV executive and her daughter, and comes to know them very well as she tries to bring some happiness to them as best she can.
This is a bit of a dirty trick, but this made for TV movie is so charming and sweet, that I have a to give it 4 stars. But there is no such thing as The Christmas Story Lady. This is a re-release on DVD of The Story Lady from 1991 with a box that has Christmas Trees photoshopped into the picture, and the word “Christmas” added into the title. But there is no new movie, no sequel, just the original movie with a faked cover. Now Granny does get into a little trouble on Christmas Eve, so that is the excuse for the “Christmas” in the title I guess. Let’s get that out of the way right away, as there is NOTHING Christmas about this movie. Still, it is a wonderful story, and very worthwhile, so since the channel’s are offering this as a Christmas story, and showing it this season, I want to at least offer it up here as something very worthy of your attention. This is a complicated story, and Jessica Tandy was a wonderful actress, and though this is a TV Movie, it is very, very good. This was made just a few years before Ms. Tandy passed away, but is an excellent example of her work that hardly anyone knows about. Granny Goodheart is a real character! So Christmas or no Christmas, this is a very valuable film, and one that is very worth watching!!! Another bit of Trivia, the part of Grace’s daughter is played by her youngest daughter with actor Hume Cronyn, and named for both of them, Tandy Cronyn. She has a rather small part, but it’s great to see mom and daughter together in this film.
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