"Christmas for a Dollar" is a good family Christmas film set during the Great Depression. It was filmed in Utah. The IMDb film page with writers credits lists Gale Sears and Bon Sowards, as based on their book. The DVD case has it a little different, saying the film is "Inspired by a true story."
Gale Sears wrote the 2009 novel of the same title, and Ben Sowards illustrated it. It's a story about the Kamp family that lived in Bakersfield, California. It takes place in 1931, the year after William Kamp's wife died at age 37. In the film, William has five children. The oldest daughter and son, Verna and Warren, help with the chores, the cooking and raising the three younger children. But, Norman, who has polio, and Ruthie with their pet dog, have the biggest roles.
It's a good family film for the Christmas holidays. As some others have noted, it has a little touch of the Waltons in the 1971 TV Film, "The Homecoming: A Christmas Story." The film setting is much more rural than the Bakersfield of 1930 that had a population over 26,000. Here the Kamp children are all in the same one-room schoolhouse.
The movie has a very noticeable continuity gap at the end. Mrs. Rathbone has brought her horse over for Norman to ride, and says she will see them all later in church. The family is outside their home as Verna leads the horse around the yard with Norman riding it. There's no sign of snow on the ground or buildings all around. The next scene opens with trees, a wooden fence, the ground and the church in the background all covered with a couple inches of snow.
This is a slower moving film, but one about a family enduring hard times, caring for others and sharing, and getting along.
