Holiday Affair

Each year, I make it my quest to find alternative Christmas movies for people to watch to combat the cable marathons of the holiday big three – It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, and Elf. Now, don’t get me wrong. Each of those is a great movie, and I love them as much as the next person slothfully laying on the couch at four in the afternoon two days before Christmas. But I also believe in the value of variety and also in the existence of hidden treasure. Some of my most memorable, pleasurable movie watching experiences have come from encountering movies that I knew almost nothing about, that somehow had flown completely under the radar. I think there are great movies out there that can become your next holiday favorite, if only you know where to find them.

So this year’s suggestion was given to me by Q90.1’s own Jeff Scott and it’s 1949’s Holiday Affair with Robert Mitchum and a 22 year old Janet Leigh. Leigh plays Connie, a single mother whose husband died in the war and who now works as a “comparison shopper” to support her six year old son, Timmy.  She works for a department store and goes into other stores undercover to compare prices and services. She’d braved the Christmastime crowds at a department store to buy an expensive electric train set but then came back the next day to return it, having gotten the information she needed.  It’s basically corporate espionage and so when she’s identified by Steve, a clerk played by Robert Mitchum, it’s bad news. But the swaggery Steve is charmed by Connie as she pleads that he not turn her in because she’ll lose her job. He lets her go but then is immediately fired himself by his manager who sees the whole thing and is angry that he didn’t turn her in. Connie feels bad and so she accepts Steve’s bossy suggestion that she buy him lunch. The two of them eat hot dogs in Central Park and watch the seals at the zoo while Steve talks about wanting to relocate to California to build boats. Connie is obviously charmed and they spend an afternoon together with Steve helping her in her comparison shopper duties. 

 This romantic afternoon is problematic because Connie is all but engaged to Carl, the dutiful, well-off, and slightly boring attorney who has been courting her for two years. Not only is it clear that she has far more chemistry with Steve than Carl, but things get even more complicated when Steve follows Connie home to return some of her secret shopper purchases and meets Timmy, her son. Timmy immediately likes Steve more than Carl. These crossed affections are even more difficult because Steve is practically destitute and borderline homeless. White Christmas, it’s not, my friends.

But it’s all played off with a deftness and a humor that takes things like having a dead husband or being in love with the wrong guy or breaking another person’s heart and makes them into light plot points rather than heavy drama to drag viewers down. They key player in this is Robert Mitchum as Steve. In his later roles, his weapons-grade cool came across more as contempt, but in this early role, his roll-with-the-punches affability is charming. Only someone like Mitchum could play a broke drifter who proposes to an engaged woman in front of her fiancée at the Christmas dinner they kindly invited him to and still be the loveable hero of the picture. The guy was a baller before balling was a thing.

Janet Leigh had only been in pictures for two years when she filmed Holiday Affair, but it’s easy to see what enabled her to have such a long career. Her portrayal of Connie is smart, loving, and passionate. She’s complex and she makes it believable that she could fall for an unconventional guy like Steve. The shifts in her performance between how she behaves with Carl verus Steve are subtle but clear. Even at 22 years old, Leigh had the chops. 

 I won’t spoil the ending, but I will say it ends on a California-bound train packed with New Year’s Eve revelers. You can watch the movie to find out who is on the train and why. I encourage you to give Holiday Affair a try. Maybe it will be your cinematic hidden treasure this Christmas season.