Luz en el alma

Hmmm, I wonder of Tennessee Williams saw this in 1945 and wrote SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER as a riff on this astonishing incestuous masochistic noir. Universal's 1944 "Christmas Holiday"is a startling dark film that is quite explicit in its adult themes of prostitution, self punishment, sexual manipulation, incest and some quite twisted emotional ideas. It even has scenes similar to that same 1959 Taylor Montgomery Hepburn drama. Cleverly, Universal cast music stars Gene Kelly as the handsome spoiled son with the demon mother (Gale Sondergaard) and cherubic Deanna Durbin as the adoring slavish young woman that Mother encourages he marries to keep his amoral unethical character in check. The idea that Mother enthusiastically endorses their marriage so she can control both of them by their sexual desire for each other is a rank idea as slimy as seen in the pre code shocker THE SILVER CORD. I personally found the film riveting and I very much liked the casting against type. For me it gave the film excellent surprise value. Kelly made a terrific seductive rat. Durbin's slide into willing prostitution to 'be with him' in a decadent lifestyle (while he was away) is a great downbeat storyline. Everything about "Christmas Holiday" is deceptive, right from the happy title to the handsome horror of Kelly's character. I will not spoil the story for you other than to say the whole film is a terrific ride, and with a ripe explicit tone, you will be seduced yourself. Plenty of flashback like SORRY WRONG NUMBER and equally as creepy. What a surprise! Hilariously, in Australia it was our Nationwide TV treat at 8.30pm on Christmas night! Haven't our TV programmers got a sly sense of humor.

Pairing sunny star Deanna Durbin with stormy director Robert Siodmak is like coupling Snow White with Orson Welles. So who's going to win out—Universal's top money earner or noir's artistic vision. It's a struggle between luminous halos, on one hand, and creepy shadows, on the other. Actually the odd pairing works pretty well, thanks to Durbin's genuine acting ability, Gene Kelly's subtle ambiguity, and an unusually suggestive script. Clearly, Durbin is looking to change her virginal type casting, while Kelly has yet (I believe) to settle into his premier dancing career.

But, it's really Kelly's Manette who steals the film, with both a startlingly sly performance and the script's unconventional suggestions of incest and homosexuality. For example, there's a rather emphatic reference to Manette's being his mother's "all", plus mom's (Sondergaard) consuming attachment throughout the film. There's also repeated reference to Manette's "weakness", just ambiguous enough to go beyond a gambling habit. Couple that with his shaded behavior in several scenes, especially in the "anything goes" gambling den. Needless to say, such forbidden themes could only be hinted at in 40's Hollywood.

Adding to the 40's exotica is Durbin playing what amounts to a barroom hooker. She may remain pure at heart—confirmed in the midnight mass scene—nonetheless, the role amounts to a risky departure for Universal's teen idol. Thus director Siodmak's challenge is to reaffirm Abigail's (Durbin) basic innocence no matter what else happens, which he does through selective cameo lighting, even though that conflicts with his noirish sensibility. Then too, Dean Haren's sweetly normal escort is there to reassure fans that underneath it all, Durbin remains Durbin.

And to think the studio entitled this odd excursion into the dark side, Christmas Holiday, of all things. I sympathize with unsuspecting fans plunking down money to see the usual Durbin fluff. Nevertheless, the movie remains a fascinating study in conflicting styles and ambiguous characterization.

"Christmas Holiday" (Universal, 1944), directed by Robert Siodmak, is an interesting drama with "film noir" elements, (based on the story by W. Somerset Maugham which changes the local from Paris to New Orleans), starring two performers long associated with musical-comedy, Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly (on loan from MGM), in their only film together. Deanna Durbin's long awaited dramatic role, with two songs thrown in for good measure, might have earned her an Academy Award nomination, but didn't. Due to its lack of television revivals during the last couple of decades, "Christmas Holiday" just remains only a memory to anyone who has any recollection of ever seeing it.

The story begins with Lieutenant Charlie Mason (Dean Harens) about to have Christmas leave from military service to return home and marry his fiancée, Mona, but he receives a letter written by her that reads that she has married someone else. When his plane lands in New Orleans due to a bad rainstorm, Mason, quite depressed, makes the acquaintance with Simon Fenimore (Richard Whorf), a reporter, who invites him to accompany him to a night club managed by Valerie De Merone (Gladys George). While there, Mason meets Jackie Lamont, a night club singer (Deanna Durbin), and after she finishes vocalizing, "Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year," Jackie has Mason accompany her to a church. During the Mass, she starts to break down and cry. Mason covers up by placing his coat over her. He then escorts this troubled girl to a diner where she tells him her story: (Flashbacks reveal Jackie to be Abigail Martin. She meets Robert Manette (Gene Kelly). They fall in love and are soon married. Their marriage is happy and blissful for six months until Abigail learns that her husband, a troubled gambler, has just murdered his bookmaker. Abigail goes through a series of unpleasant circumstances during her husband's trial, especially when Robert's domineering mother (Gale Sondergaard) gives her a hard slap across her face for not having been a stronger influence on him after her son is found guilty and sentenced to serve time in prison.) Forwarding to the present: Abigail finishes her revealing story to Mason. She later learns that Robert has escaped from prison and is out to get her, adding more to her troubles.

When I first saw "Christmas Holiday" in one of its very rare television presentations on a PBS channel in 1982, I was moved by it and Durbin's performance from start to finish, and have never forgotten it. Possibly watching this movie again after so many years, I would not have that same reaction I had the first time, but otherwise, it still brings a new kind of experience in seeing Durbin in a serious role, that shouldn't go unnoticed. Durbin sings two songs, "Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year," and her lovely rendition to Irving Berlin's "Always." I was even surprised to find Gene Kelly playing a role against type. Still new to movies (making his debut in 1942), his dramatic acting comes off somewhat awkward. I've seen Kelly act in other serious roles, some good, some not, but his character in this production is definitely unsympathetic. He even gets a chance to carry a gun and use it in a shoot out. No dancing for him here unless he's dodging bullets bouncing from the floor. As for Gale Sondergaard, she looks too young to be playing Kelly's mother, a role that would have been far better suited to the likes of Margaret Wycherly (best remembered for her gangster mother role in James Cagney's in "White Heat" (1949)), but Sondergaard doesn't disappoint with her domineering performance over her "Momma's boy."

Also seen in the supporting cast is Universal contract player, David Bruce playing Gerald Tyler. Bruce would soon be elevated to Durbin's co-star in her only Technicolor musical, CAN'T HELP SINGING (1944).

Yes,"Christmas Holiday" is a rare find indeed, a different kind of Christmas story, the one that doesn't get to be added in the package of other Christmas movies that air annually on television, including all versions to "A Christmas Carol" (1938), "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946) and/or "Miracle on 34th Street" (1947). While this movie has never been presented on classic cable channels like American Movie Classics, it's currently available (as of 2006) in the VHS format and can be purchased through Movies Unlimited. I recommend seeing it, at least once, if not for its dramatic content, but for its casting. (***)

This is a strange noir, made even more so by the odd casting of the usually wholesome Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly as a barely-disguised 'floozie' and an inveterate gambler and murderer respectively! Besides, the title is most ironic since, while it does revolve around just that occasion, the main narrative (which unfolds in flashback, a typical genre device, I might add) hardly evokes a feeling of good cheer – incidentally, this is possibly the only film set around this time of year to depict the Midnight mass traditionally held on Christmas Eve! Christmas HOLIDAY, then, was only director Siodmak's second noir: the result is somewhat pretentious for a movie from this vintage, yet this very quality has helped render it less dated than others of its ilk! I should point out that the late eminent British film critic Leslie Halliwell resented the script's approach to the source material – but, while this is unusually billed in the opening credits as "W. Somerset Maugham's Christmas HOLIDAY as written by Herman J. Mankieiwicz", the author himself was reportedly enthusiastic about the screen rendition!

For the record, I own 10 vehicles by the female lead (who actually initiated the project in an effort to change her child-star image!) but, more by accident than design, this is the first I have watched – and it appears that, not only was the film her personal favorite but also, in her opinion, the only worthy one she ever did! Incidentally, she would again dabble in the thriller genre with the more modest but still interestingly-cast LADY ON A TRAIN (1945), which I do have a copy of. By the way, the actress (who retired from the screen way back in 1948!) has just turned a venerable 90 years old in December! With respect to Kelly, this was his seventh picture (having debuted just 2 years previously) and, in his case, too, he would appear in only one other title in this vein i.e. BLACK HAND (1950), which I have also acquired some time back but have yet to catch up with. As for how the two fare within this seedy/gloomy environment, Kelly is quite good as a ne'er-do-well but Durbin (even though the studio bosses forced her into a couple of numbers – Frank Loesser's "Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year" and Irving Berlin's "Always", with the latter essentially turned into a motif throughout – to appease her established fan-base!) is surprisingly excellent.

Anyway, the plot involves Durbin and Kelly meeting at a concert (the 'Love/Death' theme from Richard Wagner's opera "Tristan And Isolde" – also effectively reprised here for the finale – which, for my money, has been immortalized in two Luis Bunuel films!) and immediately falling in love. When he takes her home to meet his mother (Gale Sondergaard in one of her best roles), the latter realizes the girl (who obviously is unaware of his character foibles) can help her make an honest man of her boy. However, events take a tragic turn as Kelly kills a man in a dispute over money, is caught, tried and condemned. Sondergaard, whose feelings for her son go far beyond motherly love(!), takes it out on Durbin for having failed her – which sends Durbin on her path to perdition (self-imposed, really, so as to be herself in a prison of her own making!)…which is how we first see her, offering solace at a New Orleans "joint" to a soldier who has his own beef against love (in fact, he was on his way home to take revenge upon the fiancée who had just jilted him!).

Other prominent characters are the proverbial madam-with-a-heart-of-gold played by Gladys George and Richard Whorf as the sleaziest figure of all, a muck-racking reporter who also operates as something of a pimp in the latter's establishment! The climax, then, sees Kelly escape from prison and (understandably) misconstruing Durbin's particular method of expiation: however, the Law is soon on his tracks, and he dies in a shoot-out with the Police – his dying words to his wife, finally appreciating the nature of her sacrifice, are "You can let go now, Abigail" (promptly reiterated by the young soldier, looking on).

I was lucky enough to catch a rare screening of this never-on-video film at the Cinematheque here in Hollywood last night. It was very beautiful, moving even, with lovely black-&-white cinematography by Woody Bredell. Other users' comments to the contrary, Gene Kelly's role is most definitely not insignificant - he's the villain, for crying out loud! His genuinely complex and subtle performance is a real standout in a film filled with wonderful work by all of the actors. Gale Sondergaard, also, is clearly well-cast, too, as Kelly's mother; she may have been a little young for the role in real life, but that certainly doesn't come across in her portrayal of the stifling, weak-willed, coddling mother of a killer. Deanna Durbin, though always more of a performer than an actor per se, is more than convincing as a world-weary singer in a whorehouse (not a night club; though it's never explicitly identified as a house of ill repute, only the most boneheaded viewer would take it for anything else). Her tearful breakdown in the church during Christmas Eve mass (an exquisitely rendered set piece, full of deep, soft shadows and luminous pools of communal light) is genuinely touching and heartfelt. And the film's final moments, if accepted unironically (as they were intended), are truly poetic and uplifting.