Holiday Affair (1949)

Holiday Affair is an extremely delightful example of a classic romantic comedy. With how romantic comedies have such a bad reputation today, it is easy to forget how many delightful romantic comedies were made during the 1930's and 40's with seemingly effortless charm. Setting this film around my favorite time of year, only adds to the charm of Holiday Affair.

Connie Ennis (Janet Leigh) is a war widow with a young son named Timmy (played by Gordon Gelbert), who makes her living as a comparative shopper. Connie goes to buy a toy train for her job. When she brings it home Timmy thinks it is a Christmas present for him, and is disappointed when she goes to return it. When she does return it, a clerk named Steve (played by Robert Mitchum) has figured out what Connie's job is. He is supposed to turn her in but when he finds out that she is a war widow with a kid he decides not to. This ends up getting him fired. To make it up to him Connie takes him out for dinner. This ends up making her boyfriend, Carl Davis (played by Wendell Correy) jealous. When Steve takes her home he meets Timmy. Learning that Timmy wants a toy train like her mother returned, he buys him one for Christmas. As by Christmas Connie is engaged to Carl, this makes the situation awkward for everybody involved.

This was one of only five films directed by Don Hartman. The other four were It Had to be You, Every Girl Should be Married, Mr. Imperium and It's a Big Country: An American Anthology. He was more prolific as a writer. Some of his writing credits include Road to Singapore, Road to Zanzibar, Road to Morocco, The Gay Deception and My Favorite Blonde.

Robert Mitchum was an odd choice for the lead in a lighthearted romantic comedy like this. He was mostly associated with tough guy roles. An advertisement in Box Office Barometer stated "Here's a new kind of warm romantic role for Mitchum and a new kind of thrill for you". To add to this he had been arrested the previous year for possessing marijuana. However Howard Hughes, who owned RKO refused to drop Mitchum's contract. Janet Leigh was surprised to learn that Mitchum despite his rough image, was an extremely dedicated actor. He did play some practical jokes while working but none of them where mean spirited and he was certainly giving his all to his work.

This film was a box office failure when first released, but fortunately has gained a dedicated following today that is well deserved.         

 No word describes this movie better than delightful. Every scene of the film is just so enjoyable to watch. The movie is full of great dialogue and the chemistry between the whole cast is absolutely perfect. The climax is a prefect example of classic screwball comedy. Most of all though this movie just moves at a fast breezy pace, and never loses an audience's interest.

An issue of Showman's trade review talked about an interesting promotion for the film. Here Charles E. Lewis wrote "Santa Claus stayed around Ashbury Park and Morristown, N.J., for an extra week to ballyhoo 'Holiday Affair' the New Year's Eve attraction at Reade's Asbury Mayfair and Morristown Community theaters. St. Nick walked around the streets bearing this sign: 'I'm staying around until New Year's Eve to see 'Holiday Affair'.' Active in persuading the jolly old gentleman to hang around were Ashbury City Manager Guy Hevina and Morristown City Manager Ralph Lanterman." 

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Usedhttp://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/78191/Holiday-Affair/articles.html
http://mediahistoryproject.org/

Star in the Night (1945)

In the 1930's and 40's Warner Brothers was known for making some of the most hard boiled and cynical films. Rarely did they delve themselves into the sentimentality MGM, so often did. Even the studio's cartoons were rarely sentimental. However their was another idea the studio was known for promoting as well. They were working man films made for the average Joe. This later plays a huge part in A Star in the Night, making the short film feel like a Warner Brothers picture while it unabashedly goes into sentimentality. Despite this the sentimentality is extremely effective and heartwarming, making this a must watch for the Christmas season.

Nick (J. Carroll Naish) runs an inn. Everyday he sees people act selfishly and has lost his faith in humanity and therefore Christmas. A hitchhiker (Donald Woods) tries to convince him that deep down people are good and Christmas is therefore an important time. One day a woman (Lynn Baggret) and her husband (Anthony Caruso) come to the inn. They have no place to stay and the woman is with child.

At the time this film was made Jack Warner and Don Siegel were arguing. Jack Warner as a sign for the two to declare peace gave Siegel the opportunity to direct to short subjects. Don Siegel suggested this film, excepting Warner to reject it. However Warner accepted the idea and Star in the Night was made.

Though his name may not be much remembered today, J. Carroll Naish (the star of this short movie) will probably be recognized by fans of movies of this era. He was in hundreds of  movies in very small parts. He appeared in such movies as What Price Glory, Elmer the Great, Front Page Woman, Captain Blood, Lives of a Bengal Lancer, Sahara, House of Frankenstein and so many more. In Star in the Night he proves that he could easily hold his own as the lead in a movie. He is fantastic here and a pure delight to watch. He not the only great thing about this short. Saul Elkins' script is fantastic. It is touching and lovely without ever feeling forced. Everything just flows naturally. Life's problems are not just glanced over instead, they are treated as still being harsh. What this movie does show is a basic goodness lying under all our cynical exteriors, and that a bit of optimism and faith can help us make life seem a little bit better. For anyone who has a soft spot for Christmas sentimentality this film is a must watch. However even the greatest cynic may find their heart melting.


This short movie won an earned an Oscar for best live action short subject and I say it is well earned.

-Michael J. Ruhland  

Resources Used
http://jbkaufman.com/movie-of-the-month/star-night-1945

Toyland Premiere (1934)

With Disney gaining the rights to the character luckily many people today now know about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character that was not that well know not that long ago. Many also know the basic history of his early years. He was created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks and starred in various silent cartoon shorts. These shorts were very popular on their release. At this time producer Charles Mintz was hiring away Walt's crew behind his back. Mintz then told Walt that he would either make these shorts on a much smaller budget or he would not be able to work with the character anymore. This was because despite creating him, Walt never owned the rights to Oswald. Walt refused and he would co-create a brand new character again with Ub Iwerks called Mickey Mouse. This is were however the history most Disney fans hear seems to end, but Oswald's cartoon career continued for a while afterwards. At first Charles Mintz made a few cartoons with Oswald using the crew that Walt had been using. However soon Mintz would lose the rights to make Oswald when Universal (the studio distributing these shorts) would start its on cartoon studio and put Walter Lantz in charge of the character.

By 1934 when this Christmas cartoon was released, Lantz was making two different series of animated shorts. These were the Oswald shorts and the "Car-Tune" shorts. The difference between this two series was pretty much the same as the difference between Disney's Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. The Oswald shorts would star Oswald and the Car-Tune shorts would feature miscellaneous characters. Toyland Premiere was a tiny bit of an exception. This cartoon would feature Oswald in it, however Oswald does play a smaller role here and the real star of the film is Santa Claus.

Santa is the star attraction of the Toyland parade. After the parade is over Oswald invites Santa to a party at his department store. Also attending the party are various Hollywood stars including Al Jolson (in blackface), Shirley Temple, Bing Crosby, Boris Karloff, Johnny Weissmuller and Laurel and Hardy. Oddly enough Laurel and Hardy are made the cartoon's villains, as they try to steal a chocolate cake made for the party. This ends up causing a food fight that Santa enjoys very much.


This is a very charming cartoon and a delight to watch. The animation while not up to Disney standards is quite good. This is animation above the usual standard of Lantz cartoons at this time. The early scenes at the North Pole may remind Disney fans of the 1932 Disney Silly Symphony, Santa's Workshop. I have no proof as to if they were inspired by that film, this is just an observation. The whole cartoon also moves a brisk pace and has a nice Christmasy feeling to it.

Cartoon buffs may be interested to know Santa Claus in this cartoon is voiced by Tex Avery. Before he became a director and revolutionized the Warner Brothers cartoons, Tex was an animator at Lantz studio, and with his boisterous laugh it was only naturally for him to voice Santa. This by the way was not the last time he would voice Santa, he would return to voicing the character for a brief gag in a 1943 cartoon he himself directed called Who Killed Who.

-Michael J. Ruhland. 

Bachelor Mother (1939)

Note: Posts on this Christmas movie blog not around Christmas time will be very rare. This however is an exception.

Since romantic comedies today have such an understandably bad reputation, it is easy to forget that in the 1930's and 40's extremely entertaining romantic comedies often flowed out of Hollywood on a seeming regular basis. These films were full of a seeming effortless type of charm that populated so many movies of that era. Bachelor Mother was one of those movies.

Earlier in the year this film came out Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers made a movie together called The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle. After completion of that movie it was decided that the popular duo would go separate ways career wise and each would make movies without the other. This is Ginger Rodgers' first film after that. After reading the screenplay Rodgers worried that her character would not be considered likable. However producer, Pandro Berman told her this would not happen and she agreed to do the film. However she still remained worried about this. Her costar would be David Niven, who at this time was not the star he would later become, and in fact this was only his fourth film role. The director for the film would be Garson Kanin, who though the next year would direct My Favorite Wife is better remembered as a writer (he would later write The More the Merrier, A Double Life and Adam's Rib). Kanin's career was also get started around this time.

The story begins one Christmas season when Polly (Played by Ginger Rodgers) gets fired from her job in a department store. She finds a small baby boy (played by Elbert Coplen Jr.) in the street and brings it into the orphanage. The people working at the orphanage think that Polly is his mother. They convince her boss David (played by David Niven) to give her the job back so she can take care of the baby. David does that and gives Polly the baby as a Christmas gift. David goes often to help her with the baby and ends up falling in love with Polly.

This movie was based off a story by Felix Jackson. That story had been filmed once before in Germany as a 1935 movie called Kleine Mutti (which translates to Little Mother). The story would be made into another movie later in 1956 called Bundle of Joy.

This is a movie of irrespirable charm. The charisma between Ginger Rodgers and David Niven is fantastic and you believe ever second of film they spend together. The jokes are really funny, and consist of that classic fast paced clever dialogue that populated so many Hollywood movies of this era. More than anything though this movie just has great energy and is a lot of fun. For all classic movie fans this is a must watch. I am definitely not the only person to love this film. It was a huge box office hit and critics loved it as well.

A Donald Duck toy ends up playing a surprisingly big role in this movie. This is because at this time RKO (the studio which this film was made for) was currently distributing all of Walt Disney's film output including the Donald Duck shorts, making this a bit of self promotion. There is a great gag at the end of the end credits were Donald Duck is credited as playing himself.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/1088/Bachelor-Mother/articles.html