Review of Christmas Holiday (1944) by Art S — 08 Mar 2016

Unusual ingredients make up this strange pudding that wants to be a film noir but lands closer to melodrama, of a particularly bleak variety. Perhaps it doesn't feel quite like noir because the central protagonist, the narrator of the flashbacks, is female (played by teen actress Deanna Durbin in a grown up role).

Watching women suffer the cruel twists of fate that the noir deals out doesn't create so much darkness as pity, especially when the woman is steadfast in her commitment to the wrong guy, the guy who caused her so much pain and misery.

That guy is Gene Kelly in an early role - he always seemed to have a sinister problematic quality and he plays it up here. He is believable although Durbin (whose character has sunk to presumed prostitution) is not.

Director Robert Siodmak (The Killers, Phantom Lady, etc.) lays all the noir trappings out but the underlying story by Somerset Maugham (The Razor's Edge), written for the screen by Herman J. Mankiewicz (Citizen Kane), is missing some edge.

An odd framing device involving a soldier on Christmas furlough doesn't quite fit. As I said, it is a strange pudding that might have tasted better if it weren't a Deanna Durbin vehicle (albeit one designed to remake her image).