(Open Thread) Noir Side Street — “Christmas Holiday”

Incoming Day. Photo by Emanuele Toscano.

Today’s film is 1944’s “Christmas Holiday,” starring Deanna Durbin (Jackie Lamont/Abigail Manette), Gene Kelly (Robert Manette), Dean Harens (Lt. Charley Mason), Richard Whorf (Simon Fenimore), Gale Sondergaard (Mrs. Manette), and Gladys George (Valerie De Merode). Directed by Robert Siodmak; cinematography by Woody Bredell. Produced by Felix Jackson for Universal Pictures; distributed by Universal Pictures. Music by Hans J. Salter, with a song each from Frank Loesser and Irving Berlin. Screenplay by Herman J. Mankiewicz; adapted from the novel Christmas Holiday, by W. Somerset Maugham.

Run-time is around 90 minutes; the film had a big budget for a noir: a whopping $2 million! Released July 31, 1944.

When I started doing these noir posts, one of my goals was to read any source material on which the film was based; but, alas, many of the books or short stories are long out of print, so that idea fell by the wayside. Wish I’d known about the W. Somerset Maugham novel which was the basis for the movie, but I only downloaded it a few hours ago (and I still had to re-watch the film and write this article, so… yeah. Won’t be able to read it in time. Sorry about that…) Having read just a brief synopsis, though, it’s clear the movie made a hash of the novel’s premise. More’s the pity…

First, if you’d like to watch the film, you can do so here:

The story begins with a graduation ceremony for a military class or unit on Christmas Eve. (Is that even a thing? Maybe it was back during WWII?) Afterwards, Charley Mason (one of the newly-minted lieutenants in the class) is talking with his buddies. Everyone’s getting ready to go on a 10-day leave before they’re deployed, and Charley says he’s going back home to San Francisco to marry his long-time sweetheart the day after Christmas. But about as soon as he says this, he receives a telegram–which you can probably guess who it’s from and what it says.

Yeah, the story is extremely predictable…

When one of his lieutenant pals tries to convince him to go with him to New York for leave, Charley insists he’s still going home, adding darkly, “They’re not going to get away with this.”

Oh, hey! This seems to be shaping up to be a really interesting film! A scorned man vowing vengeance on the woman who done him wrong? I’m so in! (Too bad that’s not the movie we’re watching…)

Charley may be intent on getting even with his ex-fiance, but Fate has other plans for him. The plane he’s taking back to San Francisco encounters nasty weather and has to make an emergency landing in New Orleans. The passengers are put up for the night at a hotel in town. Charley finds himself at loose ends, with nothing to do and no one to spend time with on Christmas Eve. He ends up in the hotel’s bar, hoping for a sandwich and some coffee. Simon Fenimore, sometime journalist and tout for a local club, joins Charley in a drink. (It’s surprising they both fit!) Charley would much rather engage in a pity party, but Fenimore says he knows someone who can maybe use her connections to get him on his way to San Francisco. So Charley agrees to go with Fenimore to the Maison Lafitte to see Valerie De Merode, the greatest fixer south of Chicago.

We’re about eleven minutes into the film before we see either of the top-billed stars of the movie. In this case, it’s Deanna Durbin, as a singer at the Maison Lafitte. It’s 25 minutes in when we finally see Gene Kelly as the infamous Robert Manette.

Which begs the question: if Charley is merely a sympathetic ear to listen to Abigail’s tale of woe, why did we spend over 10 minutes developing his backstory? When the amount of time in a film is as limited as it is, every second of screentime is precious; that’s especially true for noir films, which typically have a much shorter runtime than A-list pictures. We literally could’ve dispensed with his backstory and how he unexpectedly ended up in New Orleans in a couple of lines of dialogue. (Charley plays a major role in the novel, but is a minor character here. I wonder if the role hadn’t been bigger in the original script and got pared down to little more than Greek Chorus status in a later draft?)

Which brings us to a major shortcoming of the film: one of point of view and why (in this case) it robs the movie of an important element which is vital for noir–suspense. There’s really no suspense or mystery (outside of the motive) why Robert murders the bookmaker; it’s never in question that he murdered the bookie. (As for motive, it’s a safe assumption that Robert, an inveterate gambler, was into the bookie for a big wad of dough, but that’s never really discussed.) Moreover, since action is also necessary for noir, it seems an odd thing that we don’t see anything of the murder; we just have Abigail talking about it. We hardly see Robert in anything other than flashback and Abigail has already told us at the very beginning of her narrative that he murdered someone and is in prison for life. So there’s no suspense about anything that happens in her voiceover narrative. Where’s the sense of impending doom hanging over Abigail or Robert? We know what his fate is before her story even begins. For flashback to be effective, it has to reveal some twist of Fate that led to a character’s ultimate destruction, and no such revelation occurs here.

The other issue that robs us of suspense is that the flashback begins with the story in media res, an hour or so after Robert has killed Terry Jordan, the bookie. Once Abigail gets to the part where Robert’s convicted and sent to prison for the murder, we return to the present and the Lt’s hotel room, where he’s offered her a place to sleep for the night. But on Christmas morning, her story continues, only this time she speaks of how she met and fell in love with Robert. Honestly, there was no reason telling the flashback in a non-linear fashion, particulary since it ended up killing what little hope for suspense we ever had. It would’ve been far stronger had we watched Abigail fall for a man and then slowly realize he isn’t the charming goof she thinks he is but instead is a lying, cheating psychopathic creep capable of murder.

It’s all very chaste, compared to the novel. Which is still another issue with the film: in the novel, Charley is gifted a trip to Paris by his father, who thinks his boy needs a little real-life experience of the demimonde, to rub elbows with the common man and their problems. But in the film, everyone’s been cleaned up and made relatively respectable, so Abigail’s tale of woe isn’t nearly as mired in the muck of life as Lydia’s (the down-on-her-luck Russian prostitute of the book). Abigail’s devotion to Robert seems odd, misplaced, and incomprehensible because we see her past with him in a non-linear way. (We also see the glaring red flags which should’ve warned her off ever getting in too deep with him.) And since Charley is nothing more than a sympathetic ear, he learns no lesson here; the one who does is Abigail, who’s finally freed from the chains of her past. (And, in another weak bit of storytelling, her chains were self-imposed, as well as fairly light.)

While there might be extremely subtle hints that Maison Lafitte is a front for prostitution, gambling, and potentially even worse goings on, none of that’s obvious. (And, heck, I may be reading far more into the situation than is there; given the goings-on in the novel.) However, Jackie/Abigail isn’t involved in any of the potentially worse diversions the club may have on offer. (We see her turn down a patron to join him for some one-on-one time together–all through her declining of his calling card. Further, she later stresses her absolute devotion to her husband; so even if criminal activity like prostitution is going on there, “Jackie” isn’t part of it.)

The acting is okay, but a little stiff and generic from all three of the major characters–Durbin and Kelly were never known for being strong actors, and it shows here, especially for Kelly, who seems to flounder if he can’t do a song or dance to get through a scene. Dean Harens (Charley) simply isn’t given enough to do once he meets up with Abigail, though he is good as “wronged guy” once he receives that Dear John telegram.

The rights to the novel were purchased with the intention of creating a vehicle for Durbin to transition her from lightweight musical-comedy actress into more serious fare; however, Hays Code dictates wouldn’t allow the studio to let the characters of the novel out onto the screen, which is why the demimonde is watered down to slightly tarnished rather than gritty and dark.

This is as much Christmas atmosphere as you’ll get in “Christmas Holiday”

Even Christmas gets short-shrift here. In a film with Christmas in the title, you expect the holiday to be integral to the story, but it isn’t. The film could just as easily taken place at any other time of year, as Christmas plays no vital part in the narrative; it’s all tangential. It doesn’t even have anything to do with the hopeful resolution to the final act.

The film ends up missing the mark for noir, or even earning the lable of “crime story,” since the murder is more of a macguffin than a necessary plot point. Basically its a melodrama.

I rate this a 3 out of 5 unfiltered cigarette puffs. It could’ve and should’ve been far better than it was, but it isn’t awful…

Next week I’ll gift you with a treat for the New Year: one of my favorite gothic noir pictures, “Repeat Performance.” You can watch it for free on YouTube (though last time I checked, there wasn’t a crisp, clean copy of it. But if you don’t mind watching a grainy print, you can catch it.)

About the opinions in this article…

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