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Christmas Holiday (1944)
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Overview
User Rating:
Release Date:
30 June 1944 (USA) moreTagline:
DURBIN in the screen's greatest woman's role!Plot:
A young femme fatale-type woman realizes that the wealthy man she married is an incorrigible wastrel. | add synopsisPlot Keywords:
Awards:
Nominated for Oscar. moreUser Comments:
A perfumed but poisoned Christmas card from Siodmak, Durbin moreCast
(Credited cast)| Deanna Durbin | ... | Jackie Lamont / Abigail Martin | |
| Gene Kelly | ... | Robert Manette | |
| Richard Whorf | ... | Simon Fenimore | |
| Dean Harens | ... | Lt. Charles Mason | |
| Gladys George | ... | Valerie de Merode | |
| Gale Sondergaard | ... | Mrs. Monette | |
| David Bruce | ... | Gerald Tyler |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parentsRuntime:
93 minCountry:
USALanguage:
EnglishColor:
Black and WhiteAspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 moreSound Mix:
Mono (Western Electric Recording)Fun Stuff
Soundtrack:
Always moreFAQ
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Christmas Holiday, one of Robert Siodmak's early cluster of what would later be called film noir, is based on a W. Somerset Maugham story and a Herman J. Mankiewicz script. It's a triumph of casting against type. Gene Kelly is a scheming charmer prone to violence; his doting mom is Gale Sondergaard, for once not splaying her usual dragon-lady claws (at least not through most of her role). Most startling is the diminutive thrush Deanna Durbin, a pert presence and teen star in a number of 30s and 40s hits. Here she delivers a natural, nuanced performance that cleaves nicely between the exuberant ingenue of her early romance with Kelly (told in flashback) and the hardened torch-carrier she becomes. Her singing reflects these shadings, too: the winsome songbird warbles an early snatch of "Always;" a swacked, Chet-Bakerish chanteuse phones in "Spring will be a little late this year," while the reprise of "Always" turns into a heavy, torchy number. The plot's about a soldier stranded in New Orleans on Christmas Eve, after getting a Dear John wire from his fiancee; he ends up meeting Durbin in a roadhouse, and they swap stories after midnight Mass. Alas, Kelly has escaped from the pen at Angola with a mind to settle some scores. Maugham's chum Noel Coward once marvelled at how potent cheap music could be; this movie, like Jean Negulesco's Humoresque, ends with the strains of Wagner's Liebestod -- transcendent music cheaply used -- and, against your better instincts, you get sucked right in.