Product Details

• Actors: Dick Powell, Ellen Drew, Raymond Walburn, Alexander Carr, William Demarest
• Directors: Preston Sturges
• Writers: Preston Sturges
• Producers: Buddy G. DeSylva, Paul Jones, William LeBaron
• Format: Black & White, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Universal Studios
• VHS Release Date: October 9, 2001
• Run Time: 67 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6300184293
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #181,472 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Released the same year as his directorial debut, Preston Sturges's second feature, Christmas in July, streamlines and supercharges the writer-director's visual and narrative styles. Sturges again tackles a ripe satirical target (in this case, advertising), and dramatizes it with a hyperbolic plot and over-the-top characters, all clocking in at a blink-and-you'll-miss-it 67 minutes.

Jimmy MacDonald (Dick Powell), an underling at the mammoth, bureaucratic Maxfield House Coffee company, dreams of his big break through an entry in his employer's radio sweepstakes for a new slogan. Jimmy's would-be tagline ("If you can't sleep at night, it isn't the coffee--it's the bunk!") may be inscrutable to all but its author, but when coworkers engineer a phony victory, even the company president swallows the bait. For a moment, at least, Jimmy and his sweetheart (Ellen Drew) are $25,000 richer. How they spend, then lose, that fortune occupies the rest of the slender story line, setting up Sturges's fable as a comment on greed and community.

Even with Sturges's hectic pacing to push characters and wisecracks at a furious clip, the feature feels more like a fast-food snack than a full meal, and specifics of the plot feel very dated. The director's fans will probably find the biggest Christmas present is the evident expansion of Sturges's still embryonic repertory company, which adds some key players in Franklin Pangborn, Ernest Truex, and Raymond Walburn. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A comic gem from Sturges., July 22, 2002

By 

Marc Russell (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Christmas in July [VHS] (VHS Tape)

One of Preston Sturges' best but least known films stars Dick Powell as an ordinary guy who becomes the victim of a prank and thinks he has won a slogan-writing contest. Altho the events are fairly predictable, this does not detract from the laughs. As with all Sturges films, plenty of fine old character actors (including, as always, William Demarest) are on hand. Why doesn't anyone make 67 minute movies anymore?

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comedy and Humanity, June 24, 2005

By 

Jerry Engelbach (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Christmas in July [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I've always loved this film. Other reviewers have described it in detail, so I won't repeat. The comic foil characters have more humanity than similar characters in better known, and more highly regarded, Sturges films. And it's a terrific spoof of the PR industry.

At the Soho Repertory Theatre, my coartistic director Marlene Swartz and I came across Sturges's original playscript for the story, entitled A Cup of Coffee, when we were producing a series called "The Lost American Play" in the late 1980s.

Surprised that the play had never been produced on the stage, we obtained permission from Preston's son Tom and his widow Sandy for Soho Rep to premiere it at the Greenwich House Theatre in 1988, where it played to capacity houses and came close to being optioned for Broadway.

Our production provoked media interest in Preston Sturges's career and resulted in a book deal for Sandy Sturges, who published Preston's writings as his posthumous autobiography. Sandy and Eddie Bracken subsequently presided over a book signing at a Sturges festival at the Film Forum in New York.

As a result of this rewarding experience, I continue to be attached to Christmas in July for reasons beyond the film's merits, but I still trust my original reactions to it, and for me it shares with The Lady Eve the status of favorite among so many Preston Sturges masterpieces.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Underappreciated Sturges masterpiece, November 20, 2001

By 

George Matusek (St Louis, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Christmas in July [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Not only is "Christmas in July" one of the funniest films ever made, it is also one of the sweetest, most lovable films of all time -- I think Preston Sturges was trying to show Frank Capra how to make an unsentimental Capra film -- more precisely, how to make a Capra film where the sentimentality doesn't become cloying by the third viewing. There are no villains in this film -- plot complications arise from innocent misunderstandings or pranks, never from deliverate cruelty. Sturges indulges in none of Capra's class warfare -- here, the rich are just as warmly human as the poor. A film teeming with great character actors. Read James Harvey's book "Romantic Comedy in Hollywood from Lubitsch to Sturges" -- his high praise for "Christmas in July" makes for inspired reading -- he mentions scenes in this film where the screen is jampacked with Hollywood's best character actors -- at least, they were at their best when directed by Preston Sturges. Another book (a book of movie "bests" ) suggests that this film has the best happy ending of any film because only the audience realizes that it is a happy ending -- the characters in the film do not yet know that the gods have smiled down on them and that a great reversal of fortune is about to befall them -- a black cat runs in front of Dick Powell and Ellen Drew -- they ask a black janitor if this portends good luck or bad luck -- he tells them that all depends on what happens next -- and what will happen next is sweetly wonderful, but only we, the audience, know it. What a whirlwind finale!