CHRISTMAS IN JULY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 110, 1 August 1941, Page 20

CHRISTMAS IN JULY

(Paramount)

| TRACKED this film down at a double-feature theatre | which specialises in blood-and-thunder melodramas and other films not considered nearly

good enough for the A-grade hogses. To see it I had to sit through an ep!sode of a serial about a quixotic gentleman in a green mask whom we encountered in dire distress in the midst of a chemical explosion, and had to leave soon afterward in even worse straits in a blazing, crashing aeroplane; this being followed by a lurid "quickie" about a pyromaniac. But Christmas in July was worth this ordeal by fire.

What led me to this theatre was the fact (not mentioned in the advertisements), that Christmas in July was written and directed by Preston Sturges, who recently performed the same good offices for The Lady Eve, about which I waxed so enthusiastic two issues back. And in its slightly different way, Christmas in July is just as notable as The Lady Eve. The farce is quieter, and the people in it are not the rich and those who prey upon them, but the poor, ordinary people of a big city (it happens to be New York, but it might be almost anywhere), who work hard but spend much of their time dreaming about what they would do if they sud-

denly acquired a lot of money-in this case by winning a prize in a slogan contest (with us it would perhaps be an art union or a lucky ticket in Tatts). There is a touch of Chaplinesque pathos as well as a great deal of natural comedy in the situation of a struggling young clerk (Dick Powell), and his sweetheart (Ellen Drew), who are led to believe, by a thoughtless practical joke, that they have won a 25,000 dollar prize for a coffee slogan. In a not too improbable way, they do actually collect the cheque in all good faith. For them, and for all the other dwellers in their Manhattan street on whom they shower presents, it means Christmas in July. It also means sudden recognition of the lad’s talents by his employer, with promotion and an office to himself. The hoax is, of course, found out, after a lot of the prize money has been spent, and the happy pair descend with a bump from their seventh heaven. All’s well, however, for it then turns out that the lad’s slogan has indeed been placed first. This is the only major improbability, and I don’t in the least hold it against Preston Sturges. To such a story there just had to be a happy ending. More important ean his plot, however, is Sturges’s handling of character. He has turned Dick Powell from a vacuous crooner into a convincing young actor, who doesn’t sing a note, and he has made Ellen Drew into just the kind of girl just such a lad as Powell would have for a sweetheart. Indeed, all the people in this story behave like human beings-and without exception, they are fundamentally likable people. The practical jokers are sorry for what they’ve done, the boss doesn’t fire the lad when the hoax is discovered, and the young couple aren’t spoiled by sudden wealth. Preston Sturges may be idealising human nature, but we can do with a bit more of that even on the screen. We can most certainly do with a whole lot more of Mr, Sturges, | oo: