Rob Nixon
This year, we’ll once again shine a light on unconventional Christmas movies that we feel are worth putting into your holiday viewing rotation. Follow along here.
Movie titles can have a way of announcing just what they are, and each genre has its own set of verbal conventions for cueing the audience in to the tone and style of what they’re about to see. Film noir titles like Out of the Past, Night and the City, Born to Kill, Dark Passage, Kiss Me Deadly — these speak of crime, paranoia, secrets, and an urban midnight darkness. So what can we expect from a movie called Christmas Holiday (1944), starring classic song-and-dance talents Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly? Surely this is a colorful, joyful musical about “the most wonderful time of the year.”
Um, no.
A closer look at the credits offer more solid clues; the director is Robert Siodmak, best known for the dark psychological thrillers Phantom Lady (1944), The Spiral Staircase (1945), and The Dark Mirror (1946), and the film noir masterworks The Killers (1946) and Criss Cross (1949). The plot is loosely based on a 1939 novel of the same name by W. Somerset Maugham, author of Of Human Bondage and The Razor’s Edge— titles that hardly speak of whimsy and seasonal good cheer. We’re obviously deep in noir territory here, and although not often discussed in the company of the best known of that nebulously defined genre, this is a surprisingly effective example of its style and themes. It’s also a worthy hour-and-a-half viewing for those who want something different for their alternative Christmas fare than saccharine rom-coms and murderous Santa gore-fests.
Herman J. Mankiewicz (Citizen Kane) wrote the adaptation, keeping Maugham’s flashback structure and the holiday setting but jettisoning the Paris location and most of the character details. A jilted soldier trying to make his way home for the holidays is grounded in New Orleans on a ferociously stormy Christmas Eve. He comes into contact with a nightclub singer/“hostess” (the time-honored stand-in for prostitution) who confesses her true story. Once a naive, lovestruck young wife, her world was upended by her husband’s conviction for murdering a bookie. Partially blaming herself for his downfall — reinforced by condemnation from her mother-in-law, with whom her unbalanced spouse has a creepy, almost incestuous relationship — she has entered a prison of her own making by taking the “degrading” job in the roadhouse. Little does she know that he has escaped and is looking for her with apparent deadly intentions.
Siodmak was one of several directors who left successful careers in the German film industry and made their way to America, bringing their dark, expressionistic sensibility to Hollywood films, particularly in the postwar period. He imbues Christmas Holiday with the off-kilter visual compositions, ambiguous emotional turmoil, deep vein of fatalism and paranoia, and moody lighting that define the film noir style. Case in point: The ominously solemn, extended Midnight Mass sequence shatters any expectations of celebration and joy associated with the occasion. Instead, he shoots the soldier (Dean Harens) and the hostess (Deanna Durbin) almost entirely in shadow. (The faces of several characters appear in complete blackness throughout the film, rendering their emotions and motivations invisible.) Compare that to the flashback scene where she first meets her future husband (Gene Kelly) at a concert, a brighter, more exuberant sequence, even as deep shadows across half their faces and the sad sweep of the music (Wagner’s “Liebstod,” aka “love’s death”) prefigure difficulties to come.
As for those two leads, the story might have been better suited for actors like John Garfield and Priscilla Lane, but Universal purchased the property for Durbin, its adolescent, operatic money-maker of the 1930s, to launch her mature dramatic career. As for Kelly, even in his early musicals he played a heel, albeit a likable one, so this isn’t too much of a stretch. He doesn’t get to showcase any of his musical talents, but Durbin warbles a couple tunes, including Irving Berlin’s old saw about eternal love, “Always,” used ironically throughout the film.
One intriguing aspect here is the number of scenes showing anonymous crowds seated attentively before a “stage” area: soldiers awaiting presentation of their officer commissions, the cathedral congregation facing the altar, the concert and nightclub audiences, and the packed courtroom in front of an exaggeratedly high judge’s bench. It’s as if Mankiewicz and Siodmak wanted to bring a sense of dread and gloom to traditionally spirited communal gatherings.
Once the flashback takes over most of the story, we may forget the initial Christmas setting. But the final shot, hinting at redemption and a new beginning, finds Durbin staring teary-eyed out the window. The clouds part, opening out to a starry sky, notably a single very bright one she reacts to with wonder. Yes, quite likely that star, as we realize the story is ending on Christmas Day.
“Christmas Holiday” is not streaming anywhere, damnit, but you can find it on DVD and maybe even on YouTube.
