by Allan Fish
Christmas in July (USA 1940 67m) Note: this is the first of a number of Allan Fish reviews that have not previously been published at Wonders in the Dark. I plan to add two per week.
Grand to the last gulp
p Paul Jones d/w Preston Sturges ph Victor Milner ed Ellsworth Hoagland m Sigmund Krumgold art Hans Dreier, Earl Hedrick
Dick Powell (Jimmy MacDonald), Ellen Drew (Betty Casey), Ernest Truex (Mr Baxter), Raymond Walburn (Dr Maxford), William Demarest (Bildocker), Alexander Carr (Shindel), Franklin Pangborn (Don Hartmann), Al Bridge (Mr Hillbeiner), Jimmy Conlin (Arbuster), Torben Meyer (Schmidt), Rod Cameron (Dick), Adrian Morris (Tom), Julius Tannen (Zimmerman), Georgia Caine (Mrs MacDonald), Lucille Ward (Mrs Casey), Robert Warwick (juror),
When the writer of Mitchell Leisen’s Easy Living and Remember the Night was offered a chance to direct one of his own scripts it was a turning point in Hollywood history. Preston Sturges may have beaten Orson Welles to the writer-director’s chair, but the likes of Rowland Brown had been there before him. But who remembers Brown now? Both Sturges’ first two efforts have the feeling of sketches compared to his later masterpieces, like a master chef experimenting with a new dish. The Great McGinty is now more of interest as a precursor to The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, while Christmas in July seems an off the cuff frivolous piece. One could imagine Sturges sitting in the Paramount studio canteen, ordering a coffee, seeing a typical slogan and then proceeding to sketch out its outline on the back of a cigarette packet.
So enter Jimmy MacDonald and Betty Casey, lovebirds on a New York rooftop, arguing over their intentions to get an apartment, and even over whether a one room place is an apartment at all. Jimmy’s tetchy because he’s awaiting an announcement on the radio, an announcement from Maxford House coffee to see who wins the $25,000 first prize for writing their new slogan. Millions of others across the country are listening impatiently, but in Jimmy’s case it’s an obsession. He can’t stop entering contests, and his latest effort ‘If you can’t sleep at night, it ain’t the coffee, it’s the bunk!’ is hardly one to make Don Draper adjust his tie. His enthusiasm is kept on ice because the grand announcement is delayed; the twelve jurors are locked, eleven to one. And while Jimmy waits with the 2,947,582 other hopefuls, his anxiety leaves him open to pranks at his place of work. His colleagues send a telegram telling him he’s won the first prize. He proceeds to go out to the biggest department store and splash the works on gifts for his mother, neighbors and an engagement ring for Betty.
If it isn’t Sturges operating at his most profound, he’s still cooking on gas, and at barely an hour in length it’s not going to outstay its welcome. And he’s already mastered the sense of pandemonium that permeates his best work, like a dog chasing its own tail on aniseed. Take the scene where Jimmy gets up on the table at work to announce his premature good news, the extended shopping sequence (Drew walking out in a fur coat with the price tag still on it) and, best of all, the return home to his street (where arriving in a cab is headline news) followed by his friends like ducks round a bread handout. His repertory company was beginning to take shape, too. Fans will notice the likes of Jimmy Conlin, Bob Warwick and Torben Meyer amongst the jurors, and Bill Demarest is there to reach a full head of blowhard steam as the juror locking the vote through stubborn obstinacy (Hank Fonda would be proud). Then there’s that walking stroke waiting to happen Raymond Walburn as the owner, Ernest Truex as Jimmy’s boss, Julius Tannen as a Jewish neighbor, and Franklin Pangborn as a sweating radio announcer. In the lead, Dick Powell is winning as Jimmy, finally graduating from crooning juvenile to light comedian (he’d later transform again
into cynical noir icon). But the plum in this little pudding, as he so often was for Sturges, is the great Al Bridge as the jewelry counter boss who is initially suspicious, then eyes the prize check like he’s been handed the Star of India. It’s a film of such moments. Greater milestones were to come, but the genius is there to see. It’s bred in the bean.