Duas Vidas se Encontram

Bright and engaging holiday-themed romantic comedy has single mom Janet Leigh wooed by two men over the holidays: devil-may-care Robert Mitchum (who really does have a sardonic demon in his eyes!) and staunch, dull Wendell Corey. Poor Corey really has a thankless role here, not only playing the third wheel but berated for it as well; still, he plays dishwater-dull to perfection and his voice of reason would surely give Leigh cause to second-guess her heart. Surprisingly quirky film isn't the least bit obvious or clichéd, and Janet's screen-relationship with Gordon Gebert, the likable youngster playing her son, is very well handled. *** from ****

Janet Leigh, playing a young war widow with a small child, meets Robert Mitchum in a department store - where he contributes to her losing her job. From then on he's on the chase to get Leigh away from her nice but boring boyfriend (played with a bit more life than usual by Wendell Corey).

Through this admittedly thin plot, there are lots of opportunities for Mitchum to be both charming and irritating, and long before the end you can see where Leigh is going to be by the end. But as a Christmas movie, with the atmosphere and the sheer class of Mitchum and Leigh, this really is a pearl and not to be missed.

This is very much a 'film of its time', but it was designed to be precisely that. It dealt with one of the major social issues of the immediate postwar years, the problems of the grieving young women whose husbands had been killed in the War. The main character in this film is just such a pretty young war widow, played by Janet Leigh. She keeps framed photos of her husband in uniform all round her apartment and beside her bed, and can't let him go. Her little boy Guy is turned into what she calls 'the man of the house'. She cannot come to terms with her loss or make a new life for herself, despite the fact that three or four years have gone by. America was full of women in her condition at this time, women who had been deeply in love with their husbands, lost them in combat, and were then expected to find a new man. Janet Leigh just can't do that. A boring and 'stable' admirer, played by Wendell Corey, has been patiently courting her for two years and keeps telling her that friendship is enough for a marriage and she doesn't need to love him. She is gradually bringing herself round to accept this kind of a future and even says yes to him at last, convincing herself that it will give her 'a quiet life' and a father for her boy (who does not like Corey and keeps insulting him). This film was given a misleading title, because there is no 'affair' and the 'holiday' refers merely to the fact that it is Christmas time. However, this is not, as some imagine, just 'a good Christmas film'. Christmas is merely the convenient background for the story. The story is really about Janet Leigh's struggle to come to terms with her loss. Through an amusing, if somewhat hectic, series of circumstances, Leigh meets Robert Mitchum. He is working in a New York City department store selling toy trains and she is a 'comparison shopper' working for a rival department store. She goes around buying things, taking them to her employer for study, and then returning them and getting a refund. Mitchum discovers this and is about to turn her in, but when he hears she is a war widow with a child, he takes pity on her and lets her go. This is spotted by the floorwalker, and Mitchum is instantly fired. Then a highly complex relationship develops, involving the boy, a train set, various misunderstandings and comic coincidences, and Fate, which obviously had it in mind all along, brings them closer and closer together. This gets up the nose of Corey, who takes it very badly indeed. Little Guy adores Mitchum, and the story is really very ingenious and amusing, as to how things go on from there. I can't reveal what happens in the end, but you could say Leigh is really on the spot and struggles between boring safety and passionate uncertainty. Mitchum proposes too, and which one will she, can she, choose? This film would have gone straight to the heart for many thousands, probably tens of thousands, of young American widows in her position at that time. As social history it is very important. The film is very sensitively done and must have been a big hit when it came out. It is entertaining to watch, has many amusing moments, and excellent performances.

This really is a nice, little Christmas movie that gets very little airplay. Still waiting for it to make it to DVD. No big musical numbers or production standards, just a simple story about a young widow (Janet Leigh) and her son and how their lives turn upside down once Christmas season when a rather aimless drifter (Robert Mitchum) enters the picture. Some very good supporting actors throughout. Skip the remake. It does play from time to time (Turner Classics), so if you get a chance, watch it...don't expect that much, just a warm little picture, like a nice hot cup of coffee on a cold winter night. With all the crap that has become annual Xmas "Classics"...this one is just patiently sitting on the shelves...waiting. It really deserves it.

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.