I didn't realize
that I was walking straight into a Christmas holiday movie. Two months early.
But Christmas celebrations get earlier every year. In Bangkok, the malls are
already putting up Christmas decorations, I hear. Of course, they skip Thanksgiving
over here. This is as Christmas as Santa on your rooftop shouting out "Ho
ho ho. Have you been a good boy this year?", to which sadly I have to shout
back, "Yes, Santa" . This is as warm as freshly baked cookies and as sweet
as an apple crumble. I felt stuck in a glue factory of sentiment. And it
felt good. A lovely Christmas tale of charity and redemption. It was a good
year for Christmas sentiment. This lost out to its much better-known downtown
cousin Miracle on 34th Street for an Oscar award for Best Story. And oddly,
the film was initially offered to Capra to direct, but he already had a Christmas
film in mind. This one actually did better at the box office. Watching all
three back to back on Christmas Eve would dry you out of tears for the rest
of the year.
Not a big cast, but a few well-known character
actors mixed in with a bunch of unknowns. This was produced by Allied Artists
Productions which sounds impressive, but this was actually a newly formed
arm of Monogram. For films above its typical low budget status. Still made
for less than most films and nearly all shot on one set. The war is over and
the boys are coming home (but if you have seen The Best Years of Our Lives),
it is not all peaches and cream. Jobs are scarce and so is housing. Jim (Don
DeFore) has been kicked out of his living space in order to tear down the
building and put up a new one by the second wealthiest man in the world Michael
O'Connor (Charles Ruggles) who is a human spreadsheet of assets and debits.
Winter is approaching, but Jim goes to stay on a park bench. A plump elderly
man with his dog passes by and invites Jim to get out of the cold and stay
at his house. Plenty of room. No, this doesn't turn into a horror film. That
month is over.
Oddly, this man McKeever takes him into
this enormous house through a loose board in the fence and down a hole. Weird,
but the house is warm. Then soon after a young woman, Trudy (Gale Storm) is
heard moving about and they accost her. Oh, I have nowhere to go and am hungry.
Naturally, they invite her to stay. Being very cute helped. The punchline
of course is that McKeever has no right to live there. He changes homes with
the season. When the owners go south for the winter, he moves in. Trudy is
in truth the daughter of O'Connor but doesn't tell anyone, more folks join
them and before you know it, you have a Christmas movie of good will to all.
McKeever is played by a favorite character actor of mine, Victor Moore. Moore
can get more out of a shrug, grunt and grimace than any other actor. A strong
believer in the acting philosophy of less is more. Or Moore. Directed by Roy
Del Ruth and it also has Ann Harding, Grant Mitchell, Edward Brophy, Charles
Lane and Alan Hale Jr. in the cast. An early Merry Christmas! Oddly enough,
this film was released in April of 1947, also a little early for Christmas.
