Reel Classics: It Happened on 5^th Avenue

Just in time for the Christmas hol­i­day, today’s Reel Classic takes a look at what I would call an “under the radar” Christmas film, It Happened On 5^th Avenue. Michael J. O’Connor (Charlie Ruggles) is the sec­ond rich­est man in the world.  He has all the mate­r­i­al pos­ses­sions one can imag­ine, but with the assis­tance of the oth­er char­ac­ters in this sto­ry, comes to real­ize he is miss­ing the most impor­tant pos­ses­sion of all—love and com­pas­sion for others.

The sto­ry begins with a home­less hobo walk­ing down the street with his dog.  We learn that Michael J. O’Connor pos­sess­es a man­sion on 5^th Avenue but leaves in the win­ter to stay in anoth­er of his man­sions in a warmer cli­mate.  The hobo, Aloysius T. McKeever (Victor Moore), is aware that the home is vacant in the win­ter and has been “squat­ting” in it at this time of year for some time.  He makes his way into the house, feasts on the food left behind by the own­er, and “bor­rows” O’Connor’s clothes while there. 

While out walk­ing his dog in the park one day he comes across anoth­er home­less man on a park bench.  We learn that this fel­low, Jim Bullock (Don Defore), is a WWII vet­er­an who had been liv­ing in an apart­ment build­ing owned by Michael J. O’Connor and was evict­ed as O’Connor plans to tear the build­ing down as part of a busi­ness ven­ture.  Bullock shares with McKeever the dif­fi­cul­ty for return­ing vets to find afford­able hous­ing.  He has friends with fam­i­lies liv­ing in their cars.  McKeever offers to have Bullock stay with him, and even­tu­al­ly, Bullock’s friends and their fam­i­lies join them in the huge 5^th Avenue house.  Bullock is very grate­ful for the kind­ness shown by who he believes to be the gen­er­ous and rich own­er of this home.

In the mean­time, Bullock and his friends come up with an idea and plan to con­vert a near­by aban­doned mil­i­tary base into afford­able hous­ing units, not know­ing that O’Connor has plans to pur­chase that prop­er­ty in anoth­er of his busi­ness ventures. 

We get to meet and learn more about Michael J. O’Connor when his daugh­ter Trudy (Gale Storm) runs away and goes to the man­sion on 5^th Avenue to get clothes.  We learn that O’Connor is divorced and his ex-wife, Mary O’Connor (Ann Harding), now lives in Florida.  We find O’Connor alien­at­ed from the fam­i­ly that once loved him dear­ly.  He learns his daugh­ter is at the 5^th Avenue loca­tion and goes to her.  She has, in the mean­time, fall­en in love with Jim Bullock but has not dis­closed to him her true iden­ti­ty.  She con­vinces her father to take on the iden­ti­ty of a home­less man and he too comes to the house that now has a host of home­less peo­ple liv­ing there.  They are soon joined by Mary O’Connor who has come to sup­port her daughter. 

Christmas approach­es and Mr. O’Connor is about to receive one of the great­est gifts in his life.  The folks gath­ered in the man­sion cel­e­brate Christmas togeth­er show­ing love and car­ing for each oth­er.  I will stop there as I do not want to pro­vide spoil­ers.  But most will fig­ure we are in for a hap­py ending—this is a Christmas movie.

This film, released in 1947, was the first pro­duc­tion by Monogram Pictures released as an “A‑film.”  The stu­dio was well known for their “B‑films” that cost about $90,000 to pro­duce.  This release cost $1.2 mil­lion but earned near­ly $2 mil­lion in box office returns.  This ven­ture was under a new divi­sion estab­lished by Monogram enti­tled Allied Artists Productions.

The sto­ry had orig­i­nal­ly been obtained by Liberty Films in 1945 and it was intend­ed for Frank Capra to direct it.  However, he opt­ed to direct anoth­er film instead, It’s A Wonderful Life.  The sto­ry was picked up by Monogram and direct­ed by Roy Del Ruth.  Another famil­iar face in the cast is Alan Hale Jr. (Gilligan’s Island) who plays one of Jim Bullock’s army buddies.

Many may remem­ber Gale Storm from her days on TV.  In the 1950s  she starred in two TV shows, My Little Margie and The Gale Storm Show.  But before TV she was a pro­lif­ic actress, mak­ing near­ly forty films at Monogram alone.  She was also a suc­cess­ful stage actress and record­ing star. 

Though he did not get top billing, many crit­ics iden­ti­fied Victor Moore as the star of the movie.  The crit­ic for the Los Angeles Times wrote that Gale Storm was “all radi­ance and spring­time” but that the film “is keyed by Moore, whose tem­po is nev­er ani­mat­ed, but who attains a fas­ci­nat­ing­ly droll warmth in his interpretation.” 

Variety called Moore’s per­for­mance “a gem that thor­ough­ly clicks in every facet.”  The crit­ic for Film Daily wrote that It Happened On 5^th Avenue was a “delight­ful­ly amus­ing pic­ture fine­ly played and direct­ed . . . Victor Moore’s work is brilliant.” 

The Hollywood Reporter also had praise for Charlie Ruggles.  The crit­ic wrote “Victor Moore has one of his most price­less roles as the jol­ly tramp, Mac.  He miss­es none of its joy, and is matched in every respect by what Charlie Ruggles makes Michael O’Connor mean.” They also praised Ann Harding: “And speak­ing of per­son­al­i­ty, Ann Harding brings superb craft­man­ship to her por­trait of the divorced wife.  Miss Harding comes into the pic­ture quite late, then pro­ceeds to dom­i­nate her every scene with the exquis­ite per­fec­tion of her playing.” 

The New York Magazine crit­ic wrote “It Happened On 5^th Avenue earns its warmth hon­est­ly, teth­er­ing a tale of fresh starts and changed hearts to the real dif­fi­cul­ties faced by those reach­ing for the American dream in a post­war era that was sup­posed to bring pros­per­i­ty to all.” 

As one review I read stat­ed, “this film does­n’t shy away from social com­men­tary.  There are many ref­er­ences to the lack of jobs for vet­er­ans and obvi­ous­ly the lack of hous­ing.  The rich have got­ten rich­er . . . and the won­der­ful world of high-pay­ing jobs and homes the sol­diers were promised fails to mate­ri­al­ize.  That ele­ment gives this movie a Capra-esque, social­ly con­scious feel . . .” (Cameron at The Blonde At The Film)

The film received an Oscar nom­i­na­tion for Best Writing, Original Story in 1948. 

Lux Radio Theater broad­cast a radio adap­ta­tion of the film in May 1947.  Victor Moore, Don Defore, Charlie Ruggles, and Gale Storm all reprised their roles for the production. 

Around 1990 the film essen­tial­ly dis­ap­peared from both TV broad­casts and retail sales.  A group of fans began an effort to peti­tion Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and the American Movie Classics (AMC) to show the movie.  Almost twen­ty years passed before the film appeared on TV again when Turner Classic Movies aired it in 2009.  It now often appears in their Christmas hol­i­day offerings. 

The Internet Movie Database rates It Happened On 5^th Avenue at 7.6 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a audi­ence score of 81%.

The Clark County Public Library has two copies on the shelf in two sep­a­rate Christmas film col­lec­tions.  Interestingly, one is a col­lec­tion of Christmas hol­i­day films by Turner Classic Movies.  I was only able to find one free stream­ing site (Artiflix) on my Roku search. 

A descrip­tion I read regard­ing the film sums it up nice­ly: “A sparkling com­e­dy laced with Christmas over­tones, romance, and a dash of social com­men­tary, It Happened On 5^th Avenue . . . spreads plen­ty of sea­son­al cheer.”

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Wikipedia.

I’ll be back soon with the next Reel Classic, but before I leave you with the trail­er below let me remind you that if you enjoy these clas­sic movies, please join me on the sec­ond Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m. at the Clark County Public Library for “Ron Kibbey’s Comedy Classics.” I present a clas­sic com­e­dy film usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by a vin­tage car­toon.  Popcorn and drinks are pro­vid­ed.  More infor­ma­tion about the next film is avail­able on the library’s web­site and Facebook page.