When snow covers the ground and the days get shorter, you know it’s time to celebrate the winter holidays and spread cheer and good will. Even celebrities can’t resist the action, lending their talent and likeness to all manners of Christmas merriment. Popular personalities of stage, screen and song deliver messages of joy in the form of holiday specials (dramatic retellings of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol and hokey musicals), specially-themed television episodes, festive Christmas albums.

Sometimes celebrities assist retailers in promoting their products with the spirit of the season in mind. From luxury items like hi-fi stereos and liquor to the seemingly banal cellophane tape and fizzy antacid. Any commonly used product can be deemed gift-worthy when you put a celebrity in a Santa hat!

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Being a big fan of horror films and organ music, I present my film suggestions for your Halloween viewing pleasure.

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My introduction to Dudley Moore was with the 1978 film “Foul Play”. The film starred Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn in a well-written homage to Hitchcock and featured a dwarf, an albino, a kung-fu fighting Burgess Meredith (The Penguin in Batman), and a papal assassination. But the hero of the film, at least to this pubescent boy, was Dudley Moore as Stanley Tibbets. Stanley is a hairy-chested, disco dancing ladies man – sans the lady. Seeking protection from a killer albino, sweet, innocent Gloria Mundy (Goldie Hawn) bumps into Stanley at a night club. Stanley misunderstands her request and takes her to his “beaver trap” apartment, regaling her with disco music, a mirrored ceiling over his bed, a blow-up doll, and other related paraphernalia.

His scene stealing role in “Foul Play” led to even more success in the early ’80s HBO staples “10″ and “Arthur.” Following his tremendous success in films were several bombs. He ultimately suffered and succumbed to a horrible disease. But let’s turn back to a simpler time – when alcoholism was comedy gold.

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Film noir was used to describe a particular type of Hollywood crime movies that was made popular in the 1940s and 1950s. It usually centered around murders, damsels in distress and private investigators and set in a heavy black and white contrast – creating the famous visual style with long shadows and very little light. The term Film noir (dark film) was actually first used in 1946 when a French critic applied to it to describe the movies in America at that time. A guy that goes under the mysterious name Doctor Macro has scanned and retouched a huge bunch of posters and photographs of celebrities of the time and is presenting them in high resolution downloads on his website – so for more ‘femme fatales’ and mysterious men in hats, head over there straight away.

Christian from the Netherlands, graphic designer by day and movie buff by night sends me this link to a website of his which features stills from hundreds of movies back from the silent movie era up until today. For anyone who is interested in movies or graphic design here is your chance to admire the great work of of talented title designers. Not only have Christian captured stills from the titles, but also the end title and trailer if available. Apparently, the movies featured are all movies that Christian has seen so I am sure that the collection will grow quite quickly. Above are a few of my favorites, which are yours? Head over to The Movie Stills Collection to browse the entire archive.