Christmas Holiday

Although this 1944 film, directed by Robert Siodmak, is set over Christmas, the title is quite misleading, as it's a noirish melodrama that features Gene Kelly as a bad guy. It's based on a book by W. Somerset Maugham, and if I were an executive at Universal at the time I would have insisted on a title change. It was also released in the middle of summer.

It's a so-so movie that starts with a young soldier (Dean Harens) who is engaged to be married after he receives his officer commission. But he is jilted by his fiancee, and he flies back to San Francisco to confront her. The plane is grounded by bad weather in New Orleans. He meets a boorish reporter who takes him to a nightclub with taxi dancers (I've always assumed that in movies they are a euphemism for prostitute, but who knows). Haren gets to talking with one played by Deanna Durbin, and go out to eat. It's late, so he offers her part of his hotel suite, and she tells him why she's in that situation.

All of a sudden we're in a flashback, with Durbin being courted by a gambler and hoodlum, played by Kelly. He promises that he'll give up his errant ways after they get married, and she believes him. But of course he keeps on the unrighteous path and ends up killing a bookie. His controlling mother (Gale Sondergaard) tries to destroy evidence, but he's arrested and convicted, and she blames Durbin for not being able to control him.

Kelly breaks out of Angola prison (how is conveniently left out) and comes back for her, thinking that she's cheating on him. I won't say any more.

I think the most interesting part of the movie is Kelly. I don't know if he ever played a bad guy in any other movie, but he's pretty good here as a mama's boy with a gambling addiction. Durbin, who was briefly a sensation in the ''40s, is fairly wooden, but Sondergaard, an accomplished actress, plays the mother-in-law from Hell with quiet authority.

The film is buoyed by its music. The score, by Hans J. Salter, was Oscar nominated, and the Irving Berlin song "Always" is a recurrent theme.

I'd recommend this film only for noir or Gene Kelly enthusiasts.