Reel Classics: Holiday Affair

This sto­ry was first pub­lished in December, 2022.

Ah, it’s Christmas time and we seek out our favorite Christmas movies.  I’m guess­ing every­one read­ing this has a list of movies they love to watch at this time of year.  I have mine as well, and it includes Miracle on 34^th Street,  A Christmas Carol, It’s a Wonderful Life, and  A Christmas Story.  They are like­ly on your list as well.  But today Reel Classics looks at one of my favorite Christmas movies that may not be on your list (and quite pos­si­bly you may not be famil­iar with it).  Holiday Affair is one of my favorites and I watch it every year.  It’s one of those films that, as oth­ers I have writ­ten about here, may be fly­ing under the radar for most people. 

Holiday Affair (released in 1949) stars Robert Mitchum as a sales clerk (Steve Mason) in the toy depart­ment of a large New York City depart­ment store.  Connie Ennis (Janet Leigh) is a sin­gle mom with a six year old son who is a com­par­i­son shop­per employed by a dif­fer­ent large New York City depart­ment store.  She was wid­owed when her hus­band was killed in the war. She is being wooed by a suc­cess­ful attor­ney, Carl Davis,  played by Wendell Corey.  He has been woo­ing her for a cou­ple of years and repeat­ed­ly asks her to mar­ry him.  The son, Timmy Ennis, is played by Gordon Gebert and is, in my opin­ion, a shin­ing star in this film.

The sto­ry opens just a few days before Christmas with Connie Ennis bat­tling a mob of shop­pers at the toy train dis­play at which Steve Mason is work­ing.  She wants to buy the most expen­sive train set in the store with no ques­tions asked and the exact amount of mon­ey in her hand.  The cost, $79.50, would be equal to over $800 today.  One can see the sus­pi­cion on the face of Steve Mason. 

Connie, exhaust­ed from a day of shop­ping and wrestling with crowds, goes home with pack­ages bought dur­ing the day plan­ning to check in with her employ­ers tomor­row.  There she finds her dar­ling young son who imme­di­ate­ly becomes curi­ous when he sees the pack­ages.  While mom is in the kitchen, he sneaks a peek at the big box and finds the train set.  Naturally he thinks it is his Christmas present and is so excit­ed.  His dream come true ends quick­ly how­ev­er when she takes the box into the liv­ing room and explains it was bought as part of her job and she will return it tomor­row.  Carl arrives and again asks Connie to mar­ry him.  She again puts her deci­sion off but promis­es to give him an answer soon.

The next day she returns to the store with the train and again meets Steve Mason.  She tells him she wants to return the train.  He lets her know that he will have to report her as it is appar­ent that she is a com­par­i­son shop­per and she will be banned from the store.  She implores him not to do so as she will lose her job and she is a sin­gle mom.  He learns she is a war wid­ow and he too is a vet­er­an of the war try­ing to get by.  He agrees not to report her and gives her the mon­ey back.  A bit lat­er he sees her at anoth­er sec­tion in the store and she learns their con­ver­sa­tion was over­heard by the floor walk­er who pro­ceed­ed to get him fired.  She feels sor­ry for him and agrees to accom­pa­ny him to lunch.  She learns that Steve has a dream and hopes to join a friend in California some­day in a busi­ness build­ing boats.  In the mean­time he works at var­i­ous jobs try­ing to save mon­ey to send to his friend.

As the sto­ry pro­ceeds they con­tin­ue to have chance encoun­ters and Steve is falling in love with Connie.  But, does she love him?  How does her suit­or, Carl,  feel about all this?  Timmy Ennis has a large role in this bur­geon­ing roman­tic tri­an­gle as he has met and has tak­en a lik­ing to Steve Mason.  He also has some scenes that tru­ly tug at the heart strings.  One of the com­pli­ca­tions in this tri­an­gle is that there is real­ly a fourth factor—the deceased hus­band.  Connie has had great dif­fi­cul­ty in let­ting go.

Holiday Affair has many of the typ­i­cal attrib­ut­es of the roman­tic com­e­dy, but it also reflects very well the peri­od after World War II in which it is set.  People strug­gling with the changes the war brought about in their lives and the increase in com­mer­cial­ism in the econ­o­my after the war.  It also reflects some of the strug­gles that return­ing vets faced.  But, don’t get me wrong—I find this film over­all to be uplift­ing and reflect­ing that dreams can be achieved. 

This was a bit of a change in roles for Robert Mitchum.  He was most often seen in west­erns, war movies and in film noir.  The stu­dio want­ed him to take on this role after he was arrest­ed on mar­i­jua­na pos­ses­sion charges.  The intent was to give his image a bit of a boost.  Interestingly, the pub­lic­i­ty from the arrest did not appear to hurt him in any way—his pop­u­lar­i­ty appeared to rise. 

A famil­iar face to many will be Harry Morgan (MASH and Dragnet).  He plays the role of the police lieu­tenant at the police sta­tion.  He has a brief but very enter­tain­ing appear­ance  in the film. 

Holiday Affair was adapt­ed from  a sto­ry enti­tled “Christmas Gift” by John D. Weaver.  Though the stu­dio iden­ti­fied Robert Mitchum for the role of Steve Mason, oth­ers con­sid­ered were Montgomery Clift, Cary Grant, and James Stewart.  It was released on Christmas Eve 1949. 

Unfortunately, it did not do well at the box office.  The film lost $300,000.  Critics were some­what luke­warm in their reviews but had pos­i­tive things to say.  A review in Modern Screen described the film as “unusu­al­ly charm­ing” and the act­ing as “warm and real.”  Showmen’s Trade Review stat­ed it was an “amus­ing roman­tic com­e­dy that is cer­tain to delight­ful­ly and thor­ough­ly enter­tain every­one.”  Praise was giv­en Gordon Gebert, (Timmy) stat­ing that he “steals the pic­ture.”  (I think I might agree with that.  His joy at the belief he was going to get a train set for Christmas will like­ly stir the mem­o­ries of those of us who also wished for some­thing special—and Santa deliv­ered.)  Variety described Holiday Affair as a “warm Christmas offering.” 

As with oth­er movies we have looked at here, the pop­u­lar­i­ty of this film increased over time.  Turner Classic Movies (TCM) now offers it up as part of their annu­al Christmas film selec­tions.  It shared the fate of anoth­er now iden­ti­fied Christmas clas­sic—It’s A Wonderful Life.  That too did not do well at the box office when first released but today is per­ceived to be a classic.

Robert Mitchum and Gordon Gebert reprised their roles of Steve and Timmy for the Lux Radio Theatre broad­cast in December 1950.  In December 1955 it was tele­vised as part of the Lux Video Theatre star­ring Scott Brady and Phyllis Thaxter. 

The Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb) rates Holiday Affair at 7.1 of 10. Rotten Tomatoes has an audi­ence score of 69%.  My per­son­al rat­ing would be much high­er as I find the movie to be heart­warm­ing and uplift­ing.  It’s a pic­ture about dreams com­ing true and the impact of love.  I have rec­om­mend­ed this film to friends for years and I nev­er grow tired of the sto­ry.  I hope you will give it a watch as well if you haven’t already seen it.  Just as a cup of hot choco­late and a warm fire on a win­ter’s evening brings a warm glow with­in, I find this movie to do the same. 

In search­ing for free stream­ing sites, I found it avail­able on the ROKU Christmas Collection site.  The Clark County Public Library also has it avail­able on DVD as a sin­gle DVD as well as part of a four film col­lec­tion enti­tled “Classic Holiday Collection.” 

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

I want to wish all the read­ers out there a very Merry Christmas and hope you enjoy your favorite films of the sea­son.  I wish every­one Peace and Love at this time of the year and for the new year about to begin.  And, keep watch­ing for the next edi­tion of Reel Classics.  Below is the trail­er for Holiday Affair.