At first glance that steamy noirish poster might come off as a pretty deceptive piece of advertising for what looks like just another boy meets girl, post-war, studio Christmas film. But bubbling beneath the surface of “A Holiday Affair” are some pretty heavy themes that give this under-rated classic an unexpected emotional maturity and complexity.
Though only 22 years-old at the time, the heart-stoppingly gorgeous Janet Leigh is superb and mature beyond her years as Connie Ennis, a war widow and single mother who understands that her young son Timmy needs a father even though she’s unwilling to betray the memory of her dead husband by falling in love with someone else. This is what makes Carl (the always excellent Wendell Corey) a perfect suitor. Buttoned down, bland and safe, Carl’s a good man who will always love and take care of her and Timmy, but Connie doesn’t and will never fall in love with him.
Enter Steve Mason (Robert Mitchum) to really complicate things.
Steve’s a devil-may-care drifter working this job and that and in no hurry to save money for a sailboat when — in a pretty effective meet-cute — Connie gets him fired from his job as a toy department sales clerk just a few days from the holidays. A number of believable plot contrivances keep Steve and Connie in regular contact until a potential romance blooms that makes things stickier for Connie than she would like.
One of the reasons the love triangle works so well is due to Corey’s very sympathetic portrayal of Carl. In CinemaWorld, guys who look like Carl aren’t supposed to end up with gals who look like Connie, and from the moment the sleepy-eyed Mitchum enters the scene Carl becomes our underdog and, like Connie, we feel a little guilty rooting against him.
The plot might not surprise, but there are a number of individual scenes, all of them involving Mitchum, that do. Sharp, perceptive dialogue that roots around the human condition and comes up with some universal pearls of wisdom.
The film’s warm Christmas flavor and spirit arrives courtesy of an effective backlot standing in for a snowy Manhattan, young Timmy’s desperate need for an expensive train set and in the film’s most memorable scene, his encounter with the friendly president of big city department store.
For twenty years I’ve been waiting for the rediscoverers to rediscover this. So help me out here….
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