Oh, the weather outside is frightful.
“That humidity slaps you in the face,” confirmed country music star Kellie Pickler.
But the fire is so delightful.
Delightful? Are daily high temperatures in the fiery 90s delightful?
And since we’ve no place to go...
Except to the hotel and to the set, because there’s not much time for tourism when you’re in town to shoot a feature film in 20 days.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
Snow? Of course, the “snow” is an illusion, created with blankets of lightweight white fabric and spray-on flakes of recycled damp paper, the consistency of spitballs.
But even an artificial snowfall in July is a remarkable sight, especially in a city all but melting like a dropped Popsicle under a blistering heat wave.
So credit movie magic, Hallmark sentiment, the miracle of the Yuletide season and the power of Elvis for bringing Christmas in July to Memphis. It's here, in Elvis' longtime hometown, that the Hallmark Channel is currently in production on "Christmas at Graceland," a movie romance set to be the crowning star atop the cable network's 2018 "Countdown to Christmas" tree.
Starring country singer and CMT talk-show host Pickler as a native Memphian turned Chicago finance executive whose return to her hometown for a bank deal inevitably leads to the rekindling of her passion for music and for her hunky ex-boyfriend and singing partner (Wes Brown), "Christmas at Graceland" is one of 22 (!!) new movies created for this year's 10th annual "Countdown to Christmas" marathon, which begins Oct. 27 and concludes New Year's Day.
A veritable avalanche of happily-ever-after holiday heart-tuggers for audiences eager to overindulge on the eggnog of "I love you," "Countdown to Christmas" is not just a tradition — like the Discovery Channel's "Shark Week," but with fewer kills if just as many teeth — but a ratings juggernaut for Hallmark: The cable channel attracts some 85 million viewers during its "countdown," even frequently beating the broadcast networks in the prime-time ratings. (Meanwhile, the network's sister channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, will produce an additional 14 original holiday movies for its own programming marathon, dubbed "Miracles of Christmas.")
According to Hallmark, the channel's most loyal viewer demographic for its Christmas movies consists of women ages 25-54. The titles affirm the gender emphasis: Some of Hallmark's other new movies this year include "A Shoe Addict's Christmas"; "Pride & Prejudice & Mistletoe," starring Hallmark stalwart Lacey Chabert; and "It's Christmas, Eve," with LeAnn Rimes as the titular Eve.