Holiday Affair (1949)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

            Hope you are all having (or had) a wonderful Christmas Eve with your families. For the past few Christmases it has just me, my parents, my three brothers, and my grandparents instead of several extended family members. I come from a pretty big Italian family but unfortunately several of them have moved far away and my ninety-seven year old great-grandmother does not like to travel anymore so no more big Christmas get togethers. I have to say though the smaller crowd has been very nice. Christmas has been more laid back and fun. We play board games and watch movies. The movies are usually not Christmas movies though. My brothers are obsessed with superhero movies and my grandparents like action movies.

            Instead of sitting through a non-Christmas, I have taken it upon myself to watch one. I have chosen to watch Holiday Affair from 1949.

            Steve Mason (Robert Mitchum) is a salesman in a department store. He has been given the task of selling a toy train set during the holidays. A large group of children have gathered around the display to hear him talk about the latest model train. A young woman named Connie Ennis (Janet Leigh) breaks through the crowd of children demanding to be waited on. She is in a hurry and pressures Steve to write up that she will be buying the train. She has the exact amount of money the train costs including tax. After she buys the train, Connie calls the company she works for. She is a comparison shopper and tells the person on the other end she will bring the train to the office the following day.

            At the end of her hectic day of shopping for other people, Connie returns to her apartment where son Timmy is waiting for her. Connie placed the wrapped box with the train on her bed. Timmy being a curious little boy, takes a peek inside the box when his mother is out of the room. He becomes very excited believing his mother has bought the train for him.

            That night Connie’s boyfriend Carl comes over. He wants to marry her but she feels like she still needs time. Timmy’s father died in the War and she is still not completely over him. Connie tells Carl that when she is ready she will ask him to marry her.

            No longer needing the train, Connie goes back to the department store to return it. Steve tells her he knew she was a comparison shopper and he could get her in a lot of trouble for what she did. He becomes sarcastic with her and asks her what her story is thinking she has made up a fake one. When Steve realizes Connie is telling the truth about her son and her dead husband, he feels bad and lets her return the train. Connie then goes downstairs to buy a pair of men’s undergarments. Steve comes down at that moment and pretends to be her husband. When she asks why he is not upstairs working, he responds that he has gotten fired because of her. To make up for what has happened Connie agrees to take him to lunch where he likes to go. Where Steve likes to eat for lunch is a few vendors near the Central Park Zoo. They have a nice lunch and walk around the park. Steve asks Connie how she has gotten him to talk so much.

After their lunch and walk Steve helps Connie carry some packages from another department store where she has to buy things for her job. The crowd becomes too much and they get separated. He manages to find out where Connie lives and brings her packages over. Carl is also there and the atmosphere becomes a little tense between the two men. Things also become a little awkward when Timmy gets an attitude about Carl being there. He knows Carl wants to marry his mother and he does not like that because he likes the way their lives are at the moments. And also because he was not getting the train set he wanted. Timmy gets sent to his room after he yells at Carl. Carl gets mad at Connie for yelling at him for the way he spoke to Timmy. Steve goes into Timmy’s room to talk to him and make him feel better. When their talk is through, Steve goes to Connie in the kitchen, kisses her, and leaves.

            The next morning is Christmas. Timmy runs into Connie’s room all exited. She goes into the living room to find the toy train Timmy was upset over. She knows the train is from Steve. She is upset with him for spending the money on it. Connie goes to his hotel that morning and finds Steve has checked out. She figures out he has gone to their place at the zoo. Before heading to the zoo she had stopped home to get a tie she had planned on giving to Carl to give to Steve. When she sees him, Connie asks Steve why he is leaving. He tells her he is saving to get on the cheapest train to California so he can go into the boat making business like he has always wanted to do.

            Connie goes home to Timmy and her in-laws. Carl comes over and just in time. A detective comes to the house saying she needs to come down to police headquarters. Steve has been wrongfully arrested over an incident that occurred at that the Park that morning. The police believe he beat someone up and tied him up with a tie and stole a gift of salt and pepper shakers. That morning in the Park Steve had given a man his old tie when Connie had given him his new one. A few moments after that, a little girl came over to him and gave him the box with the shakers in it. Connie tells the police chief the whole truth and Steve is let go. Timmy was there as well and invites Steve to come over for dinner since he does not know anyone else in the city. Dinner goes well until Steve is asked to give a speech. At the end of his speech he asks Connie to marry him.

            Timmy is sad about Steve leaving the night before. He feels bad that Steve spent money he does not have on the train set. He takes it upon himself to go to the department store to return it. At first Timmy has no luck until he hears two women discussing how someone wanted to return something and they went to see the owner of the store who took the item back. Timmy goes up to the owner’s office with the train and tells the owner the whole story. Connie and Carl had been worried sick over Timmy all day. She looks out the window and sees Timmy has gotten a ride home with the store owner. He tells them that he got the money back to give to Steve. Connie and Carl drive over to where Steve is now living. Carl knows she does not really love him. He knows she loves Steve and tells her so. He waits for her while she goes in to give the money to Steve just in case. Steve lets her know that he loves her but he is not going to ask her to marry him again. He tells her that she is still hung up on her husband and cannot move forward. This makes her a bit angry and she leaves.

            On New Year’s Eve, Connie gets a telegram from Steve that he is leaving for California. Connie is going out for the night with two of her friends. Timmy mentions that when he is older and leaves the house she will be all alone. She thinks of Steve.

            Connie, along with Timmy, manages to make it onto the same train Steve is on.

            The story of Holiday Affair was not very Christmas-y. It is one of those films that is just centered around the holiday. I liked it, I thought it was cute. Janet Leigh was actually really good. I am not a fan of her acting in the few other films I have seen her in but in this film she was adorable and her acting was not bad at all. Robert Mitchum it was weird not seeing him as this really tough guy like he is in most of his film, or at least the ones I have seen him in. He and Leigh, surprisingly, made a good pair. Holiday Affair is a decent film worth seeing at least once. At least I got to sit through something that deals with Christmas! Right now I think everyone in my family is downstairs watching James Bond!

 

            Have a very Merry Christmas. I hope you all get at least one gift you wanted be it a toy, money, food, or getting to spend time with your family. 

The Lusty Men (1952)

“Hope's a funny thing. You can have it even when there ain't no reason for it.”

            Seriously I want to know what some studios in Old Hollywood were thinking when they named films. There have been so many times I have watched a film and thought the title does not even fit with the story. Sometimes they made the films seems so melodramatic and silly. These thought came to mind when I watched The Lusty Men. When I heard this title I thought it was going to dramatic and seductive. I was completely thrown off when I saw it was about rodeos and crazy men who like danger.

            Jeff McCloud (Robert Mitchum) worked in a rodeo up until he road a dangerous bull and got really hurt. After the rodeo he goes back to his old house. He did not think anyone was living there. He finds an old unmarried man named Jeremiah living there. Jeff goes to leave when Louise (Susan Hayward) and her husband Wes pull up to the house. They are ranch hands on a cattle farm. Since Jeff needs a job they take him with them. The ranch owner is leery about hiring Jeff he does not want someone who will rough up the horses like a bunch of the other men who have come through. Jeff promises that will not happen.

            Soon Jeff realizes Wes brought him to the ranch to teach him how to ride in rodeos so he can win some money. Wes did not plan on telling Louise about going to a rodeo. She found out he took out money to send in to save his place in a show. She is upset with him but she lets him do what he wants. Wes does decently in his first rodeo. He likes it enough that he wants to quit his job and travel around working in the rodeo. Louise tells Jeff that all Wes is thinking about is getting his own ranch while she is the one who has been thinking rationally. Louise asks Jeff about trying to talk Wes out of rodeo-ing. He tells her he just wants to see someone get what they want. Louise is willing to travel with Jeff because she likes him.

            The three of them get a piece of ground where all the rodeo guys stay. They talk to the men and women who have been traveling with the rodeo for a long time. They hear horror stories of bad injuries and how the men drink and gamble all the time.

            In his first rodeo Wes is signed up for riding a bull. He has never ridden a bull before and he winds up drawing the most dangerous one. Wes manages to ride the bull to the finish. After the rodeo they all go out to a hotel in town where all the other riders and their wives go. A girl hits on Wes and Louise literally kicks her in the ass to get her away from Wes.

            Louise receives a cable that the ranch they want is ready to be sold. Wes wants nothing to do with the ranch now he wants to stay on the road and ride in the show. Louise still wants Jeff to talk her husband out of doing rodeos. He confesses he went along with them just so he could be near her and they kiss.

            Wes gets mad at Jeff for kissing his wife and calls Jeff a coward for not riding. Jeff decides to ride a bull. He gets hurt and a rib punctures his lung and he dies. After Jeff dies Wes decides to give up the rodeo.

            What a terribly boring story The Lusty Men was. The only reason I stuck through the whole thing was because of Robert Mitchum and Susan Hayward. I can only hope their other film they made together was not as bad as this (if anyone knows where to find their film White Witch Doctor from 1953 please let me know!).  I do not like westerns or anything that has to do with rodeos or with the Midwest. I am a total easterner from the NY/NJ area with a bad attitude when it comes to people from the Midwest and cowboys and all that western nonsense. I apologize to anyone from the Midwest who is reading I am sure you are a cool person and that we would be friends since you are reading this which means you must like old films or Susan Hayward or Robert Mitchum. Anyway before I ramble myself into a hole, I will stop here with my review of The Lusty Men so I can go to sleep (it is very late at night/early in the morning) and now forget I ever saw this film. 

Blood on the Moon (1948)

“I've been mixed up in a lot of things, Tate, but up to now, I've never been hired for my guns.”

            Whenever I think of Film Noir I think of Out of the Past, Night of the Hunter, Laura, Daisy Kenyon, The Killers, Leave Her Heaven, Whirlpool, Where the Sidewalk Ends, and Black Widow. I think of tough guys with guns roaming the streets of New York with revenge on their minds or poor everymen who have had a tough time and they get mixed up in something they never wanted. These films take place in cities where everything is gritty and fast paced. Never in a million years would I have thought a Noir could take place in the Midwest with cowboys and ranchers. One such western Noir is Blood on the Moon starring a recurrent Film Noir actor Robert Mitchum.

            Jim Carry (Mitchum) is heading out to an old friend of his named Tate. He was just about to camp out for the night when a herd of cattle come stampeding towards him. He manages to get up into a tree before he is crushed. In the chaos he loses his horse and all his camping equipment. A man comes by and makes Jim follow him to his camp. The leader of the group is a man named Lufton. They are having trouble with a rancher who has kicked Lufton off the Indian reservation where his cattle feed. Lufton tells Jim his house is near the basin and for him to go there. As Jim is riding by the basin he is shot at. He finds out the shooter is one of Lufton’s daughter’s named Amy (Barbara Bel Geddes). She keeps shooting at him before her brother stops Jim.

            The bad guy Milo hears that Jim has been asking for Tate. Milo thinks Jim is a cattle detective. Jim is only looking for a job he is not in town to be on anyone’s side. Eventually Jim gets into a shoot out with some of Milo’s men. Tate has been working with Milo. He gets his information about where Lufton and his group will be from Lufton’s other daughter Carol who is in love him. Tate recognizes Jim in the shoot out and tells his men to stop firing. When the two former friends are alone Tate tells Jim that Lufton is the enemy the government has been working to get Lufton off the reservation. Tate has the plan to corner Lufton and then buy his cattle cheap. He has told the men that they are fighting for their own land when in reality they will not be getting any.

            Carol and Tate meet secretly at a small house. Carol knows what Tate does. She was trying to make her father see both sides. She gets information out of her father. Everyone thinks Jim was the one to gave away the information of where Lufton would be. Lufton tells Amy he has Jim pegged as the spy all along. Jim winds up saving Lufton and Amy from two of Tate’s men in town. He leaves after this so he will not cause or become entangled in anymore trouble. Tate catches up with Jim in another town. They get into a fight and Jim beats Tate unconscious. One of Tate’s men goes to shoot Jim but he saved when a man named Kris shoots the guy.

            After the fight Jim goes back to Lufton’s house. He wants to warn him of what had happened. He leaves again but this time Amy wants to go with him and follows. She wants Jim to go back and accept her father’s apology. Jim likes Amy and decides to go back yet again. Carol goes back to Tate. She has learned the truth about him through Jim. Tate is not denying what he is doing. She feels used and upset.

            Now Tate is desperate for the land. He has his men surround Lufton’s house. He is looking for a shoot out with Jim.

            Blood on the Moon was alright. I liked the Noir feel of it. I never knew before this that there was such a thing as a western Film Noir. Robert Mitchum was perfect for his part. To me, besides Dana Andrews, he is the male face of Film Noir. Mitchum did not over act he always seemed calm and cool. Blood on the Moon, to me, was a boring story but to see a Film Noir set in a western made it interesting to watch. Blood on the Moon is not available to watch through Youtube and it is not available to own on DVD in the US. Keep an eye out for it on TCM.