O. Henry's Full House (1952) Weeks ago, I gave up keeping track of the avalanche of Christmas movies that now flood every streaming service and channel like an apocalyptic tsunami.....
I'd almost forgotten about this one, which I don't think I've laid eyes on since I was riding my dinosaur to attend 8th grade in the Jurassic age...
Any buff who treasures Golden Age Hollywood studio films along with holiday related stuff shouldn't miss this one. It fills the bill on classic old school movies lightly tinged with snow and caroling.
It's a rare genre for 20th Century Fox in the early 1950's, an anthology of five short stories, each one from a different director....
The stories come from William Sydney Porter, a prolific short story writer who specialized in heartfelt, sentimental tales, each topped off with an ironic twist. (and written under one of his pen names, O. Henry)
Fox went all out for 'O.Henry', which features practically the studio's entire roster of star players along with a host of familiar character actors. And as narrator they recruited no less than author John Steinbeck to introduce them.
And in the Christmas spirit, and for those who never heard of or never picked up an O Henry story, I'll make these plot summaries SPOILER FREE. (Honest)......so here we go....return with me now to the late 19th, early 20th century......
"The Cop And The Anthem" Cute way to start.....Charles Laughton hamming it to the max as a erudite , loquacious hobo who avoids spending cold winters out on the streets by getting himself arrested and jailed for at least 3 months. But this time around, bad luck. No matter how hard he tries, he can't get the law to park him in the slam,,,,,This one struck me as little bit sad, since O Henry devises a real double whammy of twists for this guy.... don't blink and you'll catch sight of Fox's pretty new starlet, Marilyn Monroe......
"The Clarion Call" A bit of nasty fun here, with director Henry Hathaway reuniting with Richard Widmark his "Kiss Of Death" star.....and with Widmark reviving the same kind of loony, madly giggling psychotic creep he played in "Kiss". He doesn't get to push any wheelchair-bound old ladies down the stairs, but he does cackle insanely as he torments a boyhood friend turned police officer (Dale Robertson). An okay twist, but it's Widmark's unbridled mania that makes the show here......
"The Last Leaf" Probably the most well-known of the O. Henry stories, even by people who never read it. A young woman (Anne Baxter), slowly expiring from pneumonia, thinks she'll die when the winter winds blow the last leaf off some vines she can see from her window. This catches the attention of her crusty upstairs neighbor (Gregory Ratoff) an aging artist who struggles to sell his way, way ahead-of-their-time abstract paintings. A classic O.Henry heart-clutcher, guaranteed to make an audience sigh out a collective "Awwwwwwww......"
"The Ransom Of Red Chief" I simply don't understand the behind-the-scenes backstory surrounding this one. Fox didn't like it initially.....so much so that the segment was cut out of the theatrical prints. Why, you ask? Beats me. It's the only all-out comedic story, featuring two of show business's most acerbic wits - radio star Fred Allen and musician-pianist and all round curmudgeonly crank Oscar Levant. They play travelling con-men who wander into the deep South, with a plan to randomly kidnap some rube's child and collect a handsome ransom. The poor dopes unwisely snatch little J.B. Dorset (Lee Aaker) a 10 year old terror who easily turns the tables on them. True enough, the kid loves playing an Indian chief in that standard racist derogatory attitude toward Native Americans, but this is still 1952 we're talking about, decades away from the death of such stererotypes. Allen and Levant make a dryly funny team, so I've no real idea why the studio axed it.....and didn't put it back until its TV airings in the early 1960's. Because of the story's central idea (the kid's feared and unwanted by even his own parents), you should have no trouble seeing the twist from the very beginning.
"The Gift Of The Magi" A blatant, too insistent heart-tugger, begging for its tears.....and features the weakest of all the twist endings on display. An impoverished young couple (Farley Granger, Jeanne Crain) can barely scrape together enough money to buy each other Christmas presents.......but hubby's happy for the free things in life.... like marveling at his beloved's luxurious, waist-length head of hair. I'll go no further to spoil things, but you've gotta get a load of Granger's workplace-from-hell.....a Dickens-ian nightmare presided over by a scumbag Scrooge who demands maximum output for the 0.37 cents an hour he's laying out......and no Christmas bonus either. Forget the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future....this guy needs a visit from Freddy Kruger....
Still in the holiday spirit and love the classics? BQ highly recommends this full house of O Henry...4 stars (****),
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