Christmas Holiday

Plot synopsis:
Lt. Charles Mason has a few days' leave before being sent overseas. His plans to marry his fiancee in San Francisco are shattered when he receives a telegram announcing her marriage to another man. He decides to make the trip anyway so he can confront her. But the plane is forced to land in New Orleans on Christmas Eve due to stormy weather. The airline finds rooms for the passengers at a nearby hotel but cannot guarantee that the plane can take off the next day. Mason unsuccessfully tries to find other transportation. He goes to the hotel bar for a drink and meets an inebriated reporter, Simon Fenimore. After hearing of Mason's dilemma, Simon suggests that they visit a nightclub where the owner, Valerie Le Merode, knows a lot of people and might be able to find him a ride.While Valerie and Simon talk, Mason listens to the girl singer, Jackie Lamont. Valerie regrets that she can do nothing to help Mason and suggests that he buy Jackie a drink. She asks Mason to take her to the midnight mass at a nearby cathedral. He agrees but the sanctuary is so crowded that he is forced to stand.During the service he is aware that Jackie is crying. Her sobs become audible, annoying those around them. Mason tries to comfort her and eventually she regains control. When the mass is over, she suggests they go to an all-night diner where she tells Mason her story.Her real name is Abigail Mannette, Mrs. Robert Mannette. Her husband is serving a life sentence for murder. She took the nightclub job so she could be near him, changing her name to avoid recognition. The Manettes were an old New Orleans family and lived in a beautiful home in the Garden District. Abigail met Robert at a concert. They were instantly attracted to one another. She had no family left and Robert only had his widowed mother, with whom he lived. It wasn't long before they fell in love. Robert seemed to have trouble keeping a job and admitted that he was a gambler. But he promised to give that up if Abigail would marry him. He took her to meet his mother. Mrs. Manette sent Robert out of the room so she and Abigail could talk. She wanted to make sure Abigail was the right sort of girl for her son. Shortly afterward, Abigail and Robert were married.They were very happy for a few months. Then Robert began staying out late. Abigail feared he was back with his gambling crowd. He began snapping at her when she tried to find out what was going on. Then one day he didn't come home until dawn. He had blood on his suit and his mother tried to wash it out. Later Abigail saw her burning the suit. The police came looking for him but he wasn't home. Mrs. Manette sewed a large bundle of cash in the hem of her bedroom curtains. Abigail saw her and removed the money, so that when the police came with a search warrant, they found nothing. Robert was arrested and charged with the robbery and murder of his bookie. Abigail remained loyal to him even when he was found guilty and sentenced. As they were leaving the courtroom, Mrs. Manette suddenly slapped Abigail across the face. She blamed her daughter-in-law for not keeping Robert away from gambling.Mason asks Abigail why she didn't divorce Robert. She replied that she would always love him,no matter what. As for Mrs. Manette, the last Abigail heard she was working as a housekeeper for a wealthy New York family.By this time, it is so late that Abigail has missed the last bus. Mason offers to let her sleep on the sofa of his hotel suite. He has decided against going on to San Francisco. As soon as he can get transportation, he will return to his base.Just after Abigail leaves the next morning, Simon telephones looking for her. Mason says she should be on her way back to the nightclub. He doesn't know that Robert Manette broke out of prison and is hiding out in Simon's apartment. Simon asks Manette to leave but he refuses. He has come to check up on his wife, but he can't leave until it's dark.Mason spots the newspaper headlines about the prison break and feels Abigail is in danger. He goes to the nightclub but the police are there waiting for Manette. He and Simon climb unnoticed into the window of Abigail's dressing room. She is overjoyed to see her husband and instantly starts planning how they can escape the city. Manette has an ugly air about him as he accuses Abigail of cheating on him. She denies it just as Mason bursts into the room. The police notice footprints leading to the half-open window. Shots are exchanged and Manette dies in Abigail's arms. She has loved him to the end.

Tags: murder, flashback

Review:
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
The two stars are Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly so 1940's audiences seeing a title like "Christmas Holiday" may well have expected a musical.
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 plot's about a soldier stranded in New Orleans on Christmas Eve, after getting a Dear John wire from his fiancee; he ends up meeting Durbin in a roadhouse, and they swap stories after midnight Mass.
The picture is also fortunate to have two outstanding character actresses among the cast, Gale Sondergaard reserved and conflicted as the no account Kelly's mother and the great and under-appreciated Gladys George in her typical role of the been around goodhearted but tough owner of the joint where Deanna has landed.
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!
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.
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!
DEANNA DURBIN begged Universal to let her play a dramatic role after her great success in a string of mostly mediocre films where she played a Little-Miss-Fixit in featherweight romantic comedies who sang operatic ditties with great skill and charm.
She was always involved in a scheme to reunite her mother and father for the final clinch.Here, she handles her very adult role with competence, quite believable as a torch singer in a disreputable nightclub, a troubled woman seeking redemption for problems in her twisted past relationships with a mother and son (GALE SONDERGAARD and GENE KELLY).Deanna shines in the role, giving it shades of both simplicity and charm while playing the happy bride, but convincing when she becomes the bruised and fragile woman who manages to tell her tale of woe to a young lieutenant.
But Robert Siodmak and cameraman Woody Bredell give the whole piece a fluid style with long tracking shots and superior cinematography for several key scenes, notably the one that takes place at a church service on Christmas eve, and another in a concert hall.Durbin's fans will certainly appreciate her rendering of "Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year" and Irving Berlin's haunting ballad "Always." The background music, a mixture of popular songs and classical pieces, is effective, especially for all of the nightclub scenes.
The major attraction here is that Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly both play against type in a "doctored up" Somerset Maugham story.
It stars Deanna Durbin, Gene Kelly, Richard Whorf, Dean Harens, Gale Sondergaard and Gladys George.
All of these instances mark Siodmak's film out as a fascinating oddity, and certainly of high interest to film noir lovers.Plot essentially has Durbin telling Harens in flashback how her life crumbled around her when she married Kelly.
The strong performances by the leads, supplemented by the wonderful Sondergaard (you know things are going to be creepy when she's around), and the Oscar nominated score by Salter round out the many strengths of Christmas Holiday.Not one to cheer you up at the yuletide season, and far from perfect with its draggy mid-section, but this is hugely effective film noir and fans of such will get plenty of miserablist rewards from it.
Nice to see some good supporting performances by Gladys George and Gale Sondergaard--although Ms. Sondergaard seems a bit young to play Gene Kelly's mother!!.
I know that online bidders pay up to $75 for this film AND Gene Kelly and Deanne Durbin are cast against type (which, I guess, is cool) AND Robert Siodmak directed AND....Well, the plain fact is that it's not a great fim or a great film noir.
Cast against type both Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly are excellent in Robert Siodmak's noirish romance "Christmas Holiday".
She's an chanteuse in a New Orleans 'club' (for that read brothel) telling her story, (it's mostly in flashback), to soldier Dean Harens one stormy Christmas Eve. You see, she was married to good-for-nothing wastrel Kelly who's now in jail for murder.
Sounds just like a Deanna Durbin movie, doesn't it?Durbin here plays Jackie Lamont, who tells her story to a soldier, Charles Mason (Dean Harens) grounded in New Orleans during bad weather.
Yet he showed he was an actor to be reckoned with.Through a combination of circumstances soldier on leave Dean Harens who was supposed to be getting married but has just gotten a 'dear john' letter is alone and at sea in New Orleans and meets up with Deanna Durbin who is singing in a nightclub.
Kelly kills Cy Kendall, a bookmaker he's into for some big bucks and eventually the cops catch up with him.But that is hardly the end of the story as both Harens and Durbin learn a lot about life and love in that Christmas Holiday season.New song that Deanna sings is Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year and Irving Berlin's classic Always is given a fine rendition.
This is the story of a Christmas holiday, but it doesn't belong to either of the two principals, Gene Kelly and Deanna Durbin.
A young lieutenant, Charles (Dean Harens), on his way home to San Francisco on leave finds that his bride-to-be has married another, and on a stop-over in New Orleans meets nightclub torch singer slash prostitute Jackie (Deanna Durbin) who tells him the story of how she married the charming young Robert (Gene Kelly) and how he got sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.Noir specialist Robert Siodmak makes the most of a slightly befuddled script that never comes anywhere near to explaining Kelly's psychopathy or, even more puzzling, the circumstances surrounding the murder, who was killed?
A young Army lieutenant receives a "Dear John" telegram on Christmas Eve and as he heads West to confront his unfaithful fiancée, bad weather grounds his plane in New Orleans where he meets a chanteuse with an even sorrier tale of amour fou...An all-consuming love becomes a degrading, destructive force that only death can still in Robert Siodmak's offbeat, masochistic film noir.
Universal's singing sensation Deanna Durbin is cast against type as a roadhouse canary who's world-weary veneer cracks on Christmas Eve during midnight Mass and in a series of flashbacks she tells the jilted serviceman (Dean Harens) how she went from utter bliss to the depths of despair after falling madly in love with a sociopathic ne'er-do-well (future musical star Gene Kelly) who involves her in murder.
Robert Siodmak's career is huge .I wonder whether there's one user who has seen all of his output.It includes German,French and American movies.1944 saw three of his movies: a classic "Phantom Lady" ,an exotic extravaganza best forgotten "Cobra Woman" ,then the overlooked "Christmas Holiday"."Christmas Holiday " is a deceptive movie.Its very structure is weird beyond comment: it was not that much common to begin a film with many scenes revolving around a character that is not really the hero of the story (Gene Kelly appears long after the cast and credits);more stunning ,the two flashbacks are not in chronological order:the first one actually takes place in the middle of the second one.Even more amazing is the Christmas mass: to attend a service after spending the first part of the night in a club is downright disturbing.Anyway ,it's in that scene in the church that Siodmak turns in some of his finest signatures:creating an atmosphere was always his forte ,witness "the spiral staircase " or the French "Pièges" (remade as "lured" by Sirk) .After a complete "Kyrie Eleison" sung in Greek,there's this incredible moment when Deanna Durbin begins to cry as she hears the "Mea Culpa Mea Culpa Mea Maxima Culpa" sentences (which echo to the "guilty ,guilty,guilty" when the jury brings a guilty verdict and when the mother slaps her daughter-in -law in the face.) That mother is over possessive ,like so many Hitchcock mothers ("Notorious" "Strangers on the train" etc) and Gale Sondergaard as Mrs Monette almost outshines the two stars.(In Wyler's "the letter"another Somerset Maugham adaptation, ,she almost stole the show from Bette Davis).And the editing of the flashbacks makes sense: the first one begins after something horrible happened ,something the husband and his mom do not want the wife to know,because she is an intruder in their house.The title itself is a misnomer.People who are expecting a nice Christmas tale will be disappointed.People who are looking for something different will be satisfied.Siodmak's last French movie was called "Pièges" (= Traps)..
When she first enters the film to sing "Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year", she is both poignant and bored to death, a combo I tend to love in my leading ladies (Dietrich, anyone?).Kelly always seems self-conscious and over-rehearsed to me (this mommas-boy-psycho role might be a little out of his grasp), but OK, I'll buy his shift from smirking charmer to brooding villain, especially since he's terribly sexy when he emerges in the final reel with his 3-day beard.I wouldn't call Christmas HOLIDAY a raging success--so much needs to be squeezed into this running time to make the finale ring true, and yet it still feels rather sleepy (I have similar issues with Siodmak's PHANTOM LADY).
Somerset Maugham, "Christmas Holiday" is a floridly stylish, oddly convoluted mood piece starring Universal's grown-up child star Deanna Durbin in a luridly dramatic role and a miscast Gene Kelly.
After watching the fun romantic Christmas drama Holiday Affair,I decided that I should try to hunt down a Film Noir which takes place during the Xmas period.Asking for advice on this websites fantastic Film Noir board,I got suggested a very interesting,grim Film Noir,that features the future star of Singing In The Rain in a leading role!The plot:Prepairing to take a break from the army and get married to his girlfriend,Lt Charles Mason gets a heart breaking letter shortly before Christmas from his long-time girlfriend,who has written to give him the news that she is leaving him.Deciding to make the most of a bad situation,Mason decides to tag along with his army buddies,and get away from the barracks.Sadly Mason's luck continues to nosedive,when the plane that he is on has to make an emergency landing.Chatting to other poor souls stranded,Charles is eventually taken to a bar,to chill out for the night.Suddenly the owner of the bar appears and goes over to Mason's table,to offer him some "quality entertainment" for the night.Before he has the chance to reply,the owner calls one of the very best "bar" girls over to the table: Jackie Lamont.After originally being uneasy around her,Mason soon gets use to Jackie,and ends up inviting her to a mass!.Part way through the mass,Charles is caught off-guard when Lamont begins to have an emotional break down.Attempting to comfort her after the mass,Jackie explains that she decided to attend the mass with him,so the she would at last have the opportunity to become a part of something.Calming herself down,Lamont surprises Mason when she tells him that her real name is in fact Abigail Martin.Feeling strangely at ease around Mason,Jackie begins to tell him about her "past life" with her husband Robert Manette,who she feels will never be let out of jail,after he was found guilty of murder.Unbeknowst to Martin,whilst she is telling Charles everything that her husband and his mother put her through,Robert is beginning to plan away out of jail,to finally be reunited with his wife Abigail Martin..
Mankiewicz credited as the writer of this wonderful film.Interestingly both films feature flashbacks that show the characters happiest moments before their "fall",with Kane remembering his winter childhood,and Martin remembering the experience of a music concert.For Abigail's marriage,Herman makes sure that the character gets put through hell with both barrels.Thanks to making the husbands (Robert Manette) mother Mrs Manette (played by a wonderfully cunning Gale Sondergaard) someone who kicks in Abigail's anxiety at every waking moment,due to Mrs Manette having a vice-like grip on her "mummys boy" son Robert.Whilst Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly are both more well known for their famous musical performances,both actors show that they have what it takes to become engulfed in a Noir world.Although Deanna's role as a "bar escort" is only hinted at,Durbin is still able to make Abigail Martin into a tremendous Femme Fatale,thanks to showing Abigail to be a very fragile character,who goes from living in almost total bliss with her new husband,enjoying the finer things in life and doing everything possible to become accepted via Robert's mum.To gradually living in constant fear,which is unhelpfully heightened when she discovers that Roberts trousers have a spot of blood on them, (a reference to Macbeath?)and that his mother is being a prison-warden type figure to her,who makes sure that punishment is served whenever Martin falls out of step in the slightest.For his strong performance,Gene Kelly turns Robert Manette into one real creep.Initially in the scenes that show Robert and Abigail meeting for the first time,Robert just seems to be a bit of a "wise guy",with Kelly showing Robert to be goose bump-inductively all over Abigail.As the flashbacks to their married life expand,Gene starts to cleverly show Manette's mask gradually removed,and show that behind his "wise guy" image,Robert is someone in a pre-Psycho era,who will do what ever possible to get into the good books of his mother,who both cause Abigail to walk on egg shells around them.Until everything gets too much,and begins to crack for her.
The film has the nightclub singer, "Jackie" AKA Abigail Manette (Deanna Durbin), lose everything, due to her ex-husband, Southern aristocrat Robert Monette (Gene Kelly)'s gambling, resulting her to live, in a somewhat quiet, yet gentler life.
I wondered why, with two such great stars as Gene Kelly and Deanna Durbin, I had never heard of this movie before.
For one thing we waste a good reel and a half on something that is totally superfluous; a passing-out parade, a Dear John letter, a plane journey interrupted by bad weather that could all have been eliminated leaving us with the main story of Deanna Durbin's ill-starred marriage with Gene Kelly who, in addition to enjoying an all-but-spelt-out incestuous relationship with his mother, Gale Sondergaard, is also addicted to gambling and not above murder.