The People (1972)

I love the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. Regular patterns disintegrate, time slows.

As a child, my parents and their friends hosted open houses at Christmas. While the parents partied, the children gathered in the den to watch the films the networks showed at that time of year -- The Wizard of Oz, Lawrence of Arabia, A Christmas Carol (the one starring Alastair Sim as "Scrooge").

Nowadays we are free to construct our own schedules, and for my part I search the internet for the made-for-TV films I watched (or begged to watch) on school nights, in particular those presented by the American Broadcasting Company through their ABC Movie-of-the-Week series.

The film above is one that has stayed with me all these years -- The People.