A Wronged Gee Righted-Preston Sturges’ Christmas In July

 

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

Christmas In July, starring Dick Powell, Eleanor Drew,

Recently I wrote in a review of another of Preston Sturges’ films, the dark comedy Unfaithfully Yours that those readers familiar with my music, book and film reviews in this space know that when I come across musicians, authors and movies that I go crazy over I tend to go out and grab every available other piece of material done by them. So in a short period of time, for example, you would get maybe ten reviews running of the legendary hard-boiled detection writer Dashiell Hammett’s work (and maybe more for older work as some previously unknown work like some of Hammett’s very early writing see the light of day whether they should have or not). Right now I am “hot” on the trail of the “king” of the 1930s and 1940s romantic screwball comedy writers and directors Preston Sturges after having viewed his classic Sullivan’s Travels with Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake (she of that then 1940s fashionable tuff of hair hanging over the right eye) and now several other offerings. The film under review, a short early writer-director fluff film Christmas In July, not anywhere in the same league as the formerly mentioned McCrea-Lake film, had a rather wooden performance by lead actor Dick Powell and not enough subtle and witty dialogue to, well, fill a coffee cup (although there were plenty of Three Stooges slapstick type antics but they subtracted rather than added to this effort).   

That cup of coffee reference as was the concert hall reference in Unfaithfully Yours no accidental remark since this film centers on the ups and downs of a budding advertising man, Jimmy, played by a young and not very sophisticated Dick Powell (unlike his stellar role as Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet, the film adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s crime detection classic Farewell, My Lovely). He, and millions of other contestants, have entered Maxford House Coffee’s (get it) contest to see who can come up with a catchy slogan to promote that brand of coffee for a then Great Depression-era huge sum of twenty-five thousand big ones. Jimmy figured his chances were pretty good although his fiancé, his girlfriend, the practical girl-next door sort, threw plenty of cold water on his chances. She of the “just let us get married and have a parcel of kids and pets” sort while Jimmy soared with stars-in-his-eyes ambition. Just wanted to get a chance at the big time in this wicked old world stacked, stacked big time, against little nine to five cold-water flat tenement guys like him.

Then magic hit-he won the big prize, or like in many Sturges’ vehicles, thought he won the prize but as he will find out later his fellow workers at his workplace had played a rather cruel joke on him. They had sent him a telegram via Western Union stating he has won the grand prize, that 25K, large K and he fell for it. So did his boss who offered him a big executive job. Yeah Jimmy fell for it but Jimmy was a heart of gold guy (to go with that heart of gold girlfriend) and staked his whole tenement-etched neighborhood to gifts to show the kind of fellow his was down deep. Of course such largesse meant shelling out plenty of dough and when the gag got discovered Jimmy was back on cheap street, back on the mean New York no dream streets. Tough break, so sorry.

But wait a minute this is a Preston Sturges vehicle and down below the surface is a tale about hard-working people getting ahead in this wicked old world, about big cloud dreams, and about America being different, that last best hope of democracy that Lincoln was always going on and on about. So in the end Jimmy hit twice-no three times. He got out from under that big stretch at Ossining that he was going to be doing for taking that big 25K check under false pretenses. He got to keep that up from under advertising job that got him out of the office pool-with a big help from Betty giving her man her all in front of his boss-what a gal. And as if to prove the talent pool just keeps expanding in tidal wave America-Jimmy did really win that 25K. Yeah, Sturges, pure Preston Sturges at his feel-good best.