"We Three Kings" is a TV movie set in 19th America. It's a story about the writing of the Christmas carol, "We Three Kings" in 1857, by John Henry Hopkins Jr. That is one of the first Christmas songs written in America. Hopkins was rector of an Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania at the time, and wrote the song for a Christmas pageant in New York City. This film is a fictional account of the carol, where and when Hopkins wrote it, and when it was first sung.
The story opens with a couple of middle-aged people at a black-tie gathering in a large home. Amy Fay is an accomplished concert pianist, and and has just finished playing a classical number. A woman compliments her and asks about her career. Her brother, Charles, says that she has played for Franz Liszt, at the White House, and for his Chicago Orchestra. It's not clear in this story, but in history, Charles Norman Fay was a businessman who led the effort to create the Chicago Orchestra in 1890. Anyway, when the woman then asks Amy what her most memorable performance was, Amy asks Charles if he remembers that first Christmas after their mother died. Then, they relate the story.
The movie from there goes back to 1857. The scene seems to be a rural setting near a town served by a railroad. Their father, Dr. Charles Fay, is the rector of a small church. His wife - their mother, had died several months ago, since the last Christmas. This is a close family that includes maternal grandparents, brothers, aunts and uncles, and cousins who are children of all ages. Uncle Henry (Bishop John Henry Hopkins) is coming to visit for the Christmas holidays.
Amy wants to play the piano for the church Christmas pageant, which her mother had always done in the past. Uncle Henry's humming of his newest song, by some other name, becomes a new carol for the event. Uncle Henry has scenes with various of the children when he talks about the first Christmas, and how its observance had come to be celebrated over the years in Christian churches. Among the men, there's much discussion about new and old church music and songs.
The story is okay, but this production is very, very amateurish. Of a cast of more than 30 people, only three have had more than this single film credit. The acting is mostly very wooden, and very deliberate as if done for stage. The whole feel of the film is quite stagey. It seems to be a family production - probably of a church group, with most cast members from just a few families.
The least wooden role is that of Uncle Henry, who is played by Amos Raber. But his role has another aspect of neophyte actors - overacting or over doing his part. The result is that he doesn't seem natural or at east.
Just 25 viewers had rated this film before me, and it has a very high average of 7.9 as of November 8, 2022. It's likely that people in the cast or friends were among those early ratings. I'd like to rate it higher, but it wouldn't be accurate because of the slow pace, and wooden or forced acting by most of the cast. The film makers made an effort to have real costumes and settings of the period. But, even the costumes give it a sanitized stage feel because the clothing is all very neat, and looking like new.
The film runs just 61 minutes, but it sure seems to be longer than that. Since the acting is almost uniformly wooded or over done, I suspect that there probably wasn't much coaching, practice or rehearsing. It really needed that. With some life and more natural and relaxed scenes, it would have been better and a more interesting film.
