Un mariage compliqué

I've only seen this a couple of times on television as it's one of those forgotten Christmas classics that didn't get that much airplay over the years. It's not a traditional sentimental Christmas film but it's setting is during the Christmas season. Robert Mitchum stars as a department store sales clerk who falls for a WWII war widow who is the mother of a boy and engaged to be married. Janet Leigh co-stars with Wendell Corey as her fiancé. Harry Morgan is among the supporting cast. Janet Leigh had made almost a dozen films since her screen debut a couple two years before A Holiday Affair was made but this was only her second film in a lead actress role. The whole cast is great in this adaptation of a story called Christmas Gift by magazine writer John D. Weaver. Don Hartman only directed five films in his career including this but was a busy guy in Hollywood as a screenwriter, producer, director and composer. Veteran cinematographer Milton Krasner whose career extended from the 30's into the 70's photographs this film. His excellent work included The Farmer's Daughter, Sweet Bird of Youth, The Seven Year Itch, Bus Stop and The Sterile Cukoo. Harry Marker whose film career began in the silents and went into the sixties is the film's editor. It's a good story with a good script and I would give it an 8.0 out of 10.

A Christmas story about a woman, recently widowed, her young son and, two men who have fallen in love with her and the boy. Robert Mitchum and Wendell Corey are excellent. Also, look for veteran actor Harry Morgan who plays a police lieutenant. I had the pleasure of meeting Wendell Corey when he visited the Marine Corp. hospital in Phi Bai, Vietnam in 1967. He was a caring and personable man and I will always remember his kindness.

World War II widow Janet Leigh supports herself and her son Gordon Gebbert with a job as a comparison shopper who runs afoul of salesman Robert Mitchum. Mitch is a rather footloose character who's got a temporary job at the Christmas buying season in New York so he can earn enough money to buy a ticket back to California where he wants to spend time building boats and living carefree.

Of course Leigh's interested, but not enough to give up the stability for herself and her son that lawyer Wendell Corey could provide and he's most interested in matrimony. So will she take Mitchum or Corey?

A Holiday Affair is one of those gazillions of films about war widows and their romances that Hollywood made for about 10 years after V-J Day. Janet Leigh is certainly a bright addition to the rolls, in her youth she had a nice innocent charm to her which in fact got her the film.

She was loaned out to RKO and Howard Hughes for a three picture deal and A Holiday Affair was the one Hughes interfered the least with. Her other two films in the package were Two Tickets to Broadway and Jet Pilot. Of course the reason she was at RKO was because Howard Hughes had his hormones in overdrive over her. She had a couple of dates with him and she was less than impressed, but Hughes took a while to get the message she wasn't interested.

She did enjoy working with both Mitchum and Corey. According to Lee Server's book on Mitchum, the set was a relaxed and happy one, but that Mitchum and Corey were full of all kinds of practical jokes. Never a dull moment.

Mitchum had some good chemistry with Leigh and with young Gordon Gebbert. Best scene in the film was at a police station where Mitchum is arrested on Christmas Day and Leigh and Corey go to straighten out a mistake. There's a droll performance by Harry Morgan as the patient police sergeant who's always up for a new story.

A Holiday Affair is a nice unpretentious little film about Christmas in New York and hopefully people will catch it TCM in December.

Christmas is six months away from now, but I felt to comment on this film now. Holiday Affair is one of the best holiday films out there. Janet Leigh and Robert Mitchum are perfect as the widow and unemployed store clerk, plus the boy who plays Leigh's son performance in the picture is excellent. This film shows the true spirit of Christmas during the holidays. A film not to pass up during any time of the year especially on Christmas.

'Holiday Affair' is a truly wonderful film centered around a woman who's husband died in WWII living alone with her son, played by Janet Leigh (the woman that is) and a dreaming drifter played by Robert Mitchum. They meet and after a few shakes and bruises along the way, on both sides, in the end get and stay together. A then 20-year old Janet Leigh plays her insecure, scared and mourning Connie Ennis with a subtlety and a maturity beyond her years. And film-noir icon rough, tough and brooding Robert Mitchum pulls the role of the lucid and warmhearted drifter off as effortlessly as he did his Jeff Bailey in 'Out of the Past'. The man was a genius. The story as well is told with such maturity and wit for those days, when one considers all the sleek and easy traps of sentimentality and mushiness one could have fallen into in making these kinds of films. 'It's a Wonderful Life' has not been as fortunate. Another reason why this film has aged so infinitely well, is the well-drawn, 3-dimensional characters. As opposed to, again, 'It's a Wonderful Life', where some of the characters almost fade into caricature. Here we see REAL people as it were. Real people with real problems. Especially in Leigh's character, such as getting over the loss someone dear to us and how to move on and not be scared after that. But also in Wendell Corey's character. A man in love who knows she's not in love with him and who tries to hang on at any cost. But he's not depicted as a jealous, malevolent, crazed Iago-type character who does everything and anything to prevent her and Mitchum from coming together, nor does he play an overly-good, almost idioticly noble character who "just wants her to be happy" and who therefore gives her up. No, he plays a reasonable, slightly torn up man who sees the end is nigh for him and her, who's willing to fight but when he sees the battle is lost gives up graciously, a predicament which the otherwise somewhat wooden Corey conveys onto the screen wonderfully well. This, plus the little boy who for a child-actor performs amazingly well and the fantastic, almost over the top (but not really) ending, might make this into the best Christmas-movie ever made. Yes, EVER made! Leave not this film unseen! 10/10.