Introduction
Welcome to my corner! This week, I'm sharing my thoughts on the film A Holiday Affair. It plays on the TCM television channel during the Christmas season. It played on December 14 and will also be played on December 19 at two different times. Enjoy!
Holiday Affair
Holiday Affair is a 1949 American Christmas romantic comedy film produced and directed by Don Hartman and starring Robert Mitchum, Janet Leigh and Wendell Corey, with Gordon Gerbert. The screenplay by Isobel Lennart is based on John D. Weaver's story Christmas Gift, which was also the film's working title. The film allowed Mitchum to briefly depart from his typical roles in film noir, Western films and war films, and his casting was intended to help rehabilitate his image following a notorious marijuana bust.
A made-for-television remake, also titled Holiday Affair, was released in 1996.
Plot: Charming seasonal clerk Steve Mason (Robert Mitchum) catches beautiful Connie Ennis (Janet Leigh) in a fraudulent shopping scheme during the busy Christmas rush. But when he discovers that Ennis is a war widow and single mother, Mason takes pity on her and can't bring himself to turn her in. His supervisor takes notice and fires him on the spot. Mason befriends Connie and her young son, Timmy (Gordon Gerbert) and may complicate her plans to marry boring nice guy Carl Davis (Wendell Corey).
Acting: Robert Mitchum played Steve Mason. I quite liked him in this good guy role, one that he wasn't particularly known for. His face doesn't scream good guy, but he pulled it off nonetheless. His four most notable titles are Out of the Past, Cape Fear [1962], The Longest Day and The Night Hunter. Holiday Affair is my favorite. I also like Cape Fear [1962].
Janet Leigh played Connie Ennis. Her four most notable titles are Psycho, The Manchurian Candidate, Touch of Evil and The Fog. I really haven't seen that many of Leigh's movies yet, so Holiday Affair is my favorite so far.
Wendell Corey played Carl Davies. His four most notable titles are Rear Window, Women of the Prehistoric Planet, Agent for H.A.R.M. and The Search. Other than Holiday Affair, my favorite is Rear Window.
Gordon Gerbert played Timmy Ennis. He was only eight years old during filming of Holiday Affair. His acting was very good for someone so young. Plus, he's super cute! His four most notable titles are The Narrow Margin, Holiday Affair, The Flame and the Arrow and The Ford Television Theatre television series.
Technical aspects: The film recorded a loss of $300,000.
The film was intended to soften Robert Mitchum's screen persona after his prison sentence in 1949.
The train set that Connie buys cost $79.50 in 1949, which is equivalent to nearly $1,000 in 2022.
Janet Leigh was only 14 years older than Gordon Gerbert who played her son.
This film did not do well at the box office, resulting in a loss of $300,000 (over $3.7M in 2022) for RKO according to studio records.
Crowley's was a real department store chain in Detroit and the suburbs of Detroit. The store was founded in 1909 by the Crowley family. Early on, it was know as Crowley Milner. The first store was a large multi-story building in downtown Detroit where they were rivals to the other large department store in Detroit, J. L. Hudson. Crowley's and Hudson's always spent lavishly on the holiday to decorate their stores and put on Thanksgiving and Christmas parades. But, stores grew a great deal until the 1970s, when Crowley's closed its downtown store for good. The suburban locations did well, and the family elected to sell the company in 1985. The Crowley's name remained in the Detroit area, going through ups and downs, until the 1990s.
During filming, Janet Leigh was 22 years old, and Robert Mitchum was 32. Wendell Corey was 35.
The address of the rooming house where Steve Mason is living at the end of the film, given as #137 Christopher Street, is the address for the entrance for the Port Authority Trans-Hudson rapid transit system serving Newark, Harrison, Hoboken and Jersey City in metropolitan northern New Jersey, as well as lower and midtown Manhattan. The address, which has been there since 1912, may have been chose by the producers since it is no an actual residential address.
From TCM: Like It's a Wonderful Life (1946), another Christmas favorite released through RKO Studios, Holiday Affair (1945) was a box-office failure that went on the become a hit through repeated television airings. Though Holiday Affair has hardly achieved cult status of the other film, it continues to charm audiences with its tale of a war widow (Janet Leigh) torn between her button-down fiancé (Wendell Corey) and a free spirit (Robert Mitchum).
Mitchum may have seemed odd casting at the time for a whimsical family story. The tabloids were still abuzz with his 1948 arrest and prison sentence for possession of marijuana. But RKO's owner, aviation tycoon Howard Hughes, had faith in him and refused to drop him from contract. In fact, just before filming started on Holiday Affair, RKO paid $400,000 to acquire sole ownership of Mitchum's contract from independent producer David O. Selznick, who had shared the contract with RKO.
Like many who worked with Mitchum, co-star Janet Leigh was quick to discover that his devil-may-care image masked a dedicated actor who put a lot more into his craft than most people suspected. Mitchum loved to play practical jokes on her, but they always had a purpose. During a tense dinner scene, he and co-star Wendell Corey each slipped a hand onto her knee under the table. She started fidgeting in response, which turned out to be the perfect reaction for the scene. Later, when she and Mitchum shared their first kiss, he really kiss her, again just getting the right reaction for the scene.
Leigh wasn't as happy about her relationship with Hughes, who had arranged to borrow her from MGM for a series of pictures starting with Holiday Affair. But that didn't prevent a very strange encounter, when he summoned her for a private meeting toward the end of production. Hughes presented her with a private eye's report on her activities, claiming her current new boyfriend, Arthur Loew, Jr. had ordered the investigation out of jealousy. Leigh saw through the ruse at once—all of the people she was linked to in the report were members of Loew's family. Clearly Hughes had ordered the investigation himself. She informed him that their future meetings would be strictly business if he wanted her to keep making films at RKO.
Final Thoughts: Holiday Affair was a cute little Christmas movie. I quite enjoyed it. I particularly liked the little boy actor, Gordon Gerbert. He was so cute and a really good actor for being so young. He was probably my favorite part of the whole film. I can see myself watching this holiday classic every year.
Where to watch it: According to Google, Holiday Affair is not currently available on any streaming service. But, you can purchase or rent a digital copy for a few dollars. I've also donated a DVD copy of the film to the Emil M. Larson Public Library in Clark for you all to enjoy if you choose to.
That's it for this week! What were your thoughts? Feel free to share them with us! You can call us, email us, visit us at the office, leave us a comment or message on Facebook, or even mail us something. Keep the comments, suggestions, questions, submissions, etc. coming our way! We'd love to hear from you!
