Christmas Holiday (1944)

I would consider this among Deanna Durbins' more disappointing films. As I watched it, I seriously wondered if the film was originally just the portion with Gene Kelly and the other plot involving the soldier was done as an afterthought. In hindsight, this was a mistake and the soldier's story really wasn't necessary to this clumsy movie.When the film begins, a Lieutenant serving in WWII gets a dear John letter from his sweetie. Naturally he's hurt and angry...and this occurs just before he goes on leave. However, during the leave, he is diverted to New Orleans and is stuck there...and he meets Abigail (Durbin). She then tells him about her experience with love...and it consists of a series of flashbacks with her then husband (Gene Kelly)...a man who is a total scum-bag. The ending of the film, is very abrupt and you wonder what the studio was thinking.Overall, a disappointing and slightly confusing film...one that made you wonder, as Durbin was one of the studio's biggest assets and deserved a better picture than this.

A young Army lieutenant receives a "Dear John" telegram on Christmas Eve and as he heads West to confront his unfaithful fiancée, bad weather grounds his plane in New Orleans where he meets a chanteuse with an even sorrier tale of amour fou...An all-consuming love becomes a degrading, destructive force that only death can still in Robert Siodmak's offbeat, masochistic film noir. Universal's singing sensation Deanna Durbin is cast against type as a roadhouse canary who's world-weary veneer cracks on Christmas Eve during midnight Mass and in a series of flashbacks she tells the jilted serviceman (Dean Harens) how she went from utter bliss to the depths of despair after falling madly in love with a sociopathic ne'er-do-well (future musical star Gene Kelly) who involves her in murder. Durbin drew the line at playing a "lady of the evening" but hints of prostitution, homosexuality, and incest lurk just below the surface of Herman J. Mankiewicz' convoluted screenplay (loosely based on Somerset Maugham's novel) and the director's shadowy sensibilities make the inherent darkness stand out in bas relief thanks to atmospheric mise-en-scène and cinematographer Woody Bredell. Despite an implied happy ending, the unsavory saga is decidedly downbeat and the out-of-their-element leads actually deliver with the help of an excellent supporting cast that includes a sinister, understated Gale Sondergaard as Kelly's over-protective mom, Richard Whorf as a drunken brothel shill -er, reporter- and Gladys George as the brandy-laced madam -er, clip joint owner- where Deanna torches nightly. This wartime anti-romance is practically a perverse reverse negative of Vincente Minnelli's THE CLOCK (1945) (starring the musical Judy Garland in a rare dramatic role) and was a hit at the time of its release before inexplicably disappearing for decades. It would play well today as a perfect antidote to typical Yuletide fare like IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and A Christmas CAROL. Ditto 1961's BLAST OF SILENCE.

We really enjoyed this movie. Cinematography was very good with nice use of shadow and light. Perhaps the best bit was that we never knew where the story was going. It all flowed nicely, but lead us to some strange places like the Midnight Mass scene and the Concert scenes. Dr K really enjoyed the use of Wagner in the score and the night-club songs were good too. The role of the Mother was performed well. She was creepy. Oddly though, before getting married they lived in a mansion and some six months(?) after in a smallish although stylish apartment. Hearing that the mother had taken a job tending house in NY after the trial and conviction was pushing credibility. This was a engrossing movie. We just wanted to know more at every step. Perhaps the mark of a really good movie.

Robert Siodmak's career is huge .I wonder whether there's one user who has seen all of his output.It includes German,French and American movies.1944 saw three of his movies: a classic "Phantom Lady" ,an exotic extravaganza best forgotten "Cobra Woman" ,then the overlooked "Christmas Holiday"."Christmas Holiday " is a deceptive movie.Its very structure is weird beyond comment: it was not that much common to begin a film with many scenes revolving around a character that is not really the hero of the story (Gene Kelly appears long after the cast and credits);more stunning ,the two flashbacks are not in chronological order:the first one actually takes place in the middle of the second one.Even more amazing is the Christmas mass: to attend a service after spending the first part of the night in a club is downright disturbing.Anyway ,it's in that scene in the church that Siodmak turns in some of his finest signatures:creating an atmosphere was always his forte ,witness "the spiral staircase " or the French "Pièges" (remade as "lured" by Sirk) .After a complete "Kyrie Eleison" sung in Greek,there's this incredible moment when Deanna Durbin begins to cry as she hears the "Mea Culpa Mea Culpa Mea Maxima Culpa" sentences (which echo to the "guilty ,guilty,guilty" when the jury brings a guilty verdict and when the mother slaps her daughter-in -law in the face.) That mother is over possessive ,like so many Hitchcock mothers ("Notorious" "Strangers on the train" etc) and Gale Sondergaard as Mrs Monette almost outshines the two stars.(In Wyler's "the letter"another Somerset Maugham adaptation, ,she almost stole the show from Bette Davis).And the editing of the flashbacks makes sense: the first one begins after something horrible happened ,something the husband and his mom do not want the wife to know,because she is an intruder in their house.The title itself is a misnomer.People who are expecting a nice Christmas tale will be disappointed.People who are looking for something different will be satisfied.Siodmak's last French movie was called "Pièges" (= Traps).