Amahl and the Night Visitors: The First Hallmark Christmas Movie?

Over the last two decades, the phrase “Hallmark Christmas Movie” has come to represent a unique subgenre of holiday entertainment. To many non-fans, the term refers–disparagingly–to a Yuletide-set romcom where an attractive young woman (age 21-35 and involved with a guy who clearly isn’t right for her) encounters a handsome stranger or long-forgotten acquaintance whom she cannot stand but soon finds herself drawn to, usually in a small town with the sounds of secular carols in the background. Love it or loathe it, it’s a formula that has worked for Hallmark’s cable channel and other networks for a number of years. It’s also provided steady seasonal employment to a stable of actresses (Candace Cameron Bure, Lacey Chabert, Danica McKellar, Holly Robinson Peete) and actors (Dean Cain, Brennan Elliott, Tyler Hynes, Andrew Walker) ready to “meet cute.”

All that being said, there’s actually more to the greeting card company’s winter fare than just “Will she or won’t she pick the right man before December 25th?” suspense. Many series buffs believe the earliest Hallmark Christmas film was 2000’s The Christmas Secret, starring Richard Thomas as a family man and zoologist whose attempts to prove reindeer can actually fly leads to an encounter with none other than Santa himself (Beau Bridges). But the very first holiday-themed TV production to bear the Hallmark imprint actually goes back to Christmas Eve of 1951, when the anthology series Hallmark Television Playhouse–which changed its name two years later to the more familiar Hallmark Hall of Fame–presented the first opera written expressly for the nascent medium, Gian Carlo Menotti’s one-act Epiphany story Amahl and the Night Visitors.

The story of Amahl’s arrival on the small screen began with another medium, radio. In 1939 NBC hired Menotti to write an original operatic presentation, which would turn out to be “The Old Maid and the Thief.” Over the next decade the Italian-born composer would gain fame with such works as 1949’s “The Medium” and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Consul” the following year. No wonder, then, that NBC’s television arm would turn to him to create a Christmas-themed opera–one which they could air within a 60-minute time slot–for the 1951 holiday season and sponsor Hallmark’s new performing arts series. Problem was, as the Christmas Eve broadcast date drew ever closer, the notoriously procrastinating Menotti had no idea what to write.

It was only after a November visit to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art that he found his inspiration in Hieronymus Bosch’s late 15th-century painting “The Adoration of the Magi,” which reminded him of Christmastime in his native Italy and the annual visit of the Three Kings to bring gifts to children every January 6th. Working in collaboration with his friend and fellow composer Samuel Barber, Menotti finished Amahl and the Night Visitors with days to spare.

Set in first-century Judea, the opera centers around a crippled boy named Amahl who lives with his widowed mother in poverty (they were forced to sell their flock of sheep). After Amahl tells his mother about a brightly shining star he saw while outside, three lavishly dressed kings-Balthazar, Kaspar, and Melchior–arrive at their door seeking shelter for the night. The trio are being guided by the star and are on their way to Bethlehem to see a newborn child prophesied to one day be king over all mankind.

As the regal visitors sleep, the mother tries to steal some of the gold they carry as a present for the child, but is stopped. Amahl comes to her defense and the Magi, touched by his devotion, forgive her. When Amahl offers the only thing he has–his crutch–to give to the newborn babe, his leg is miraculously healed, and he joins the trio on their journey to Bethlehem.

It is a simple and heartfelt tale, with a whimsical score that includes “Oh, Mother, You Should Go Out and See!,” “From Far Away We Come,” “Dance of the Shepherds,” “All That Gold!,” and “I Walk, Mother.” The cast for the initial production included Chet Allen as Amahl, Rosemary Kuhlmann as his unnamed mother, and Leon Lishner, Andrew McKinley, and David Aiken as Balthazar, Kaspar, and Melchior, respectively. Performed live by the NBC Opera Theatre at Rockefeller Center’s Studio 8H (best known now as the home studio for Saturday Night Live), Amahl’s 1951 debut was seen by an estimated 5,000,000 viewers. Fun Fact: For decades this version was thought to be lost, until a kinescope copy was found and restored, and it now is part of the library of the Paley Center for Media.

The program’s success led to Amahl and the Night Visitors becoming an annual Christmas presentation–with new stagings and casts every few years–by NBC from 1951 to 1966. The oldest version available on home video is a black-and-white 1955 Alcoa Hour production. All of the main 1951 performers are back except for Allen, who is replaced in the title role by Bill McIver. The moving story of the Wise Men and the young boy who taught them a lesson in love has enchanted audiences at Christmastime for generations, and deserves to be rediscovered by today’s audience.