A Reel Retro Review: HOLIDAY AFFAIR (1949)

With no new films to review for the foreseeable future, Reel Speak will randomly review a classic film from the TCM library every week. Not just for the sake of filling time, but to hopefully introduce some overlooked and perhaps forgotten screen gems from the past to those of us who may be unfamiliar or unawares of their existence. In the spirit of the season, Reel Speak continues the holiday series…

 

Much like the food and drink that comes with it, holiday movies provide a comfort; a comfort that is often shared with someone, or more than one someone, snuggled by our side with the Christmas lights glowing. Finding that special someone in the first place can be a challenge, and that is the basis of Don Hartman’s 1949 comedy, HOLIDAY AFFAIR. 

 

Steve (Robert Mitchum), is a drifter and department store worker who suspects Connie (Janet Leigh), of comparative shopping for a rival store. They begin a courtship, which angers Connie’s potential fiancée Carl (Wendell Corey), and confuses her young son Timmy (Gordon Gebert). 

 

Based on the story Christmas Gift by John D. Weaver, HOLIDAY AFFAIR is a love triangle set during the Christmas shopping season. Connie is caught comparison-shopping by way of a toy train set, which Steve eventually buys for her son Timmy. This throws confusion into young Timmy’s life, who doesn’t know which potential suitor to his mom he should show loyalty to. It becomes a battle of gentlemen, with Steve and Carl skillfully and gently trying outsmart the other. 

 

Director Don Hartman lets a theme of gift-giving drive the story. Who we give gifts to, and why, is a question that the characters mull over for most of the film. While the love triangle dances around each other, they debate just what every gift given to them really means. It’s food for thought and adds depth to the triangle, which isn’t very complicated on paper. Hartman does a fine job in setting up things early; Connie’s status as a war-widow hangs over the film as she is still in mourning, and the giddy optimism that America was defined by in this era still saturates the movie. 

 

Acting is a treat. Robert Mitchum, in a rare break from his Old West and war films, turns on the charm and is a delight. Janet Leigh, years before she would appear in Hitchcock’s PSYCHO (1960), lights up the screen. Harry Morgan, years before TV’S M.A.S.H., comes in a police officer who has to sort through the love triangle. The show is stolen by Gordon Gebert as young Timmy, who gets a lot of lines and screen-time and has just as much work to do as the adults. 

 

The very end of HOLIDAY AFFAIR comes as no surprise to anyone who has seen a holiday film with a touch of romantic-comedy, but that’s okay as the trip to get there is so much fun. In the overcrowded library of holiday films, this is one overlooked feel-good story to share with a dear one. 

 

BOTTOM LINE: See it 

 

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Reel Facts: Wendell Corey would serve as the President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1961 to 1963. His most memorable film role would come in 1954 in Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW, playing Lt. Doyle.