Customer Reviews

Christmas Holiday

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Christmas Holiday is very different from the musical you would think Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly would make together. It is in a completely different genre. This film is definitely part of the film noir genre, a dark film told mostly in flashback by imperfect characters. The title comes from the man being told the story. A soldier is on leave and gets stranded going to San Francisco in Louisiana. There, he meets a nightclub singer named Jackie (Durbin), a seductive woman with many layers and a story to tell. She gets to talking to him and relays the story of her life. Her name is really Abigail; she changed it to escape her past. She is married to a murderer (Kelly), a man she still loves despite his crime.

Durbin is breathtakingly gorgeous here in a mature role that allows her to be emotional in a way that her breezy musicals never allowed. It makes one wonder why she never made more films like it. She does however sing a few songs, most notably the lovers theme, "Always." Kelly is also impressive as a complicated villain, a man one wants to protect, love, and yet fear all at the same time.

Unfortunately, this film is only available through bootlegged versions recorded from rare TV broadcasts. Hopefully, because of the star power involved, it will be released on DVD.

Christmas Holiday is very different from the musical you would think Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly would make together. It is in a completely different genre. This film is definitely part of the film noir genre, a dark film told mostly in flashback by imperfect characters. The title comes from the man being told the story. A soldier is on leave and gets stranded going to San Francisco in Louisiana. There, he meets a nightclub singer named Jackie (Durbin), a seductive woman with many layers and a story to tell. She gets to talking to him and relays the story of her life. Her name is really Abigail; she changed it to escape her past. She is married to a murderer (Kelly), a man she still loves despite his crime.

Durbin is breathtakingly gorgeous here in a mature role that allows her to be emotional in a way that her breezy musicals never allowed. It makes one wonder why she never made more films like it. She does however sing a few songs, most notably the lovers theme, "Always." Kelly is also impressive as a complicated villain, a man one wants to protect, love, and yet fear all at the same time.

Unfortunately, this film is only available through bootlegged versions recorded from rare TV broadcasts. Hopefully, because of the star power involved, it will be released on DVD.

This is perhaps Deanna Durbin's finest acting in her brief career with Universal Studios. It is a film-noir with Deanna Durbin as a nightclub singer, married to a gambling murderer, Gene Kelly, pining her estrangement from her jailed husband. A young service man has just been jilted by his girlfriend as he is about to leave for a Christmas Holiday. He becomes entangled in the life of Deanna Durbin and witnesses the murder threat to Deanna from recently escaped Gene. This is not strictly speaking a musical, but some of Deanna Durbin's best known songs are from this film: Always; Spring Will be a Little Late This Year; etc.

I bought this some time ago and finally got around to watching it for THIS holiday season. Strange for Deanna Durbin, strange for Gene Kelly, and strange for a noir. I was sorry this dvd didn't have any commentary--I'd have liked to have learned the back story.

And what a bizarre title for such a bleak story!

This movie and "Lady in the Lake" are the only Christmas noirs that I can think of and for that reason "Christmas Holiday" is a must-have for fans of the genre.

Incidentally, the acting was great if a bit over the top at the end.

CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY (1944) was adapted by Herman Mankiewicz from Somerset Maugham's novel. This one's considered by many to be film noir. The title suggests a cheery musical, but the picture's really a dense, dark melodrama.

A lieutenant (Dean Harens) returns home on Xmas leave so he can marry his fiancée, but he finds a letter from her telling him she's taken up with someone else. The depressed soldier accompanies a reporter to a nightclub, where he meets the club's girl singer (Deanna Durbin), after she performs "Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year."

She asks him to go to church with her, and the lady starts crying while at Mass. The lieutenant takes her to a diner and the girls's story is revealed in flashback. Next comes the meat of the movie. It involves Durbin's troubled marriage to Gene Kelly, who is a real louse. I'll say this much: blood is spilled. Viewers are taken on one heckuva ride before the story ends!

If you haven't yet seen CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY, put this one on your Xmas "to do" list!


Also recommended:
Deanna Durbin is witness to a murder that nobody believes she saw in LADY ON A TRAIN (1945). This is available, along with four of her more typically "frothy" titles on the budget-priced DEANNA DURBIN SWEETHEART PACK.


Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 viewer poll rating found at a film resource website.

(6.6) Christmas Holiday (1944) - Deanna Durbin/Gene Kelly/Richard Whorf/Dean Harens/Gladys George/Gale Sondergaard/David Bruce (uncredited: John Hamilton)

I don't particularly like Gene Kelly but I love Deanna Durbin. Gene Kelly really impressed me in this role. He didn't play the normal playful goofy song and dance man. He was darker and his character deeper. I really appreciated the complexity. Deanna Durbin was also very different in this role. You will really feel her pain while she tells the story of her love and loss. Great film noir!

I ordered this item and was expecting a good transfer. The image was grainy, but what was most annoying, is that the audio track skips, and acts like a badly scratched (or too often recorded!) CD/DVD. There is NO continuity to this film, and watching it is an exercise in utter frustration.

I feel, even now, a year or more later, USED by the vendor peddling this product. With the marvelous transfer to VHS and DVD of the 'major' Durbin films, I expected that quality here. I have been sorely disappointed.

This is a very strange movie. Which is neither an insult nor a compliment.

It's set at Christmas. In New Orleans. So no snow. And it's done in the style later called "film noir," so there's lots of rain and shadows (rather than snow).

It features former kiddie musical sensation Deanna Durbin. But she doesn't sing much. And she's no longer a kiddie. She's the femme fatale, the troubled woman who may or may not--I won't give it away--bring doom to one or more men.

There are no holiday songs, although it does feature two very lovely songs: "(I'll Be Loving You) Always" and "Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year." The former is a classic song of romantic dedication. But in this movie, it's about a woman loving a wastrel, as they used to call guys what was no good.

Gene Kelly plays the wastrel. (Are you getting the weirdness vibe yet?) And Gale Sondergaard, famous for playing dragon ladies, is Kelly's mother, and she is formidable during the moments she isn't being sweetly maternal (which are few).

There's a tricky story structure in which a soldier who's been jilted meets Durbin. Durbin's story of loving a Bad Guy gives the solider a lot to chew on when it comes to love and romance. And that's the basic kick of the story: a young and inexperienced man hears a story that's so far beyond his ken that he grows up just by hearing it.

But it's all very tricky. Durbin's story gets told in flashback and party backwards: she tells the sordid stuff first, then goes back to the sweet falling-in-love bits, which then seem foreboding rather than sweet. And basically her life then gets worse and worse--which brings the audience up to the present day, when the Durbin character is basically what used to be called a "hostess"--a woman who danced with the customers to induce them to buy watered-down expensive drinks which allowed the bar to cash in at the male customer's expense.

So it's not much of a Christmas story. (It was released in July, so the producers knew it was not holiday fare.) It's a dark romance.

All this is fine. It's all kind of crazily, darkly enjoyable.

And since Durbin was one of Universal's biggest star, director Robert Siodmak clearly had a decent budget: there's a Christmas mass, an orchestral hall which is shot in full during what seems to be an actual concert (or reasonable facsimile), and there are two- or three-story sets in which the camera follows the actors down and around complicated stairs and such. Clearly, the studio was spending money, and the director was having some fun fooling around with the camera.

I have only two complaints. One is that although Deanna Durbin was a reasonably attractive person, she was not Movie Star Beautiful. Her face has a pudgy quality from most angles--except for one. That one angle is terrific: Durbin looks like a sweet little sister type with quite a bit of extra sparkle. But they only use that angle a couple of times.

My second and larger complaint is that the movie uses Wagner's Liebestod, and that sets us up to think that at least one romantic couple will end up in a deadly embrace, and I won't spoil it, just say it's not quite that way. They seem to have softened the ending.

In short, this is a very UNUSUAL movie, to say the least. But it's pretty well done. Is it worth what it costs to get something that's been more out-of-print than in? It's up to you. If you like truly offbeat material, this is your thing.

But chances are most people will never see this movie.

What a gem of a noir! Gene Kelly and Deanna Durbin play against type and are fantastic. A haunting, excellent film.

LT Charles Mason(Dean Harens)on leave from the army has a Dear John letter from his girlfriend.Stuck in New Orleans Charles meets Jackie Lamount(Deanna Durbin)a nightclub singer down on her luck.Jackie tells Charles about her exhusband,Robert Manette(Gene Kelly)in jail for murder.Roberts wealthy mother(Gale Sondergaard)stupidly blames Jackie for her sons problems.
Charles and Jackie are slowly falling in love,but news comes that Robert has escaped from prison.
Not a typical Gene Kelly or Deanne Durbin movie(Film Noir Thriller)but,Its still very good.If you like Film Noir,this is for you.
Deanne is in top form with her songs,Spring Will Be A little Late This Year and Always.