CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY (1944)

Loosely derived from a 1939 Somerset Maugham novel, this darkly fatalistic romance is a feast of sharp-witted misdirection under Robert Siodmak and scripter Herman J. Mankiewicz: title, cast, incidental opening storyline, each of them wrong-footing us. Apparently initiated by chubby-cheeked ingenue/soprano Deanna Durbin, Universal’s biggest box-office draw, looking for a stark change-of-pace, the film unexpectedly opens without her as newly commissioned army officer Dean Harens receives a ‘Dear John’ telegram (from a fiancée we never meet) that sends him to San Francisco. Waylaid by bad weather in New Orleans, we pick up a new storyline & a new gal in floosie chanteusie Deanna Durbin. Unusual story construction for an unusual story, told largely in flashback by Durbin to the sympathetic young officer, all about her doomed marriage to sophisticated sociopath Gene Kelly, scion of a faded New Orleans dynasty, a man she fell hard for and married before discovering he’s a debt-ridden gambling addict with lethal charm . . . that’s literally lethal. Yikes! Loaded with swank & atmosphere (quite the lux production for Universal, with stellar support from Gale Sondergaard, Gladys George & Richard Whorf). And while the tone may not be perfectly sustained, the film is always compelling. Particularly in its use of music. From Durbin, who sings at a swanky pickup joint, getting a swell Frank Loesser original (‘Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year’), and doing even better with Irving Berlin’s ’Always.’ And from Kelly with Durbin, bonding over Wagner at Symphony Hall as they swoon to TRISTAN UND ISOLDE. Later, startling us as Beethoven’s EGMONT Overture shockingly jump-cuts to Berlin’s ‘Always’ back at the club. Quite a trick, that! Note how peripheral Officer Harens is to all this. Lots of pre-noir touches in here, but the film, like Fritz Lang’s SCARLET STREET/’45 next year, is more Hollywood-meets-German Expressionism than anything else.

DOUBLE-BILL/ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Two years later, TRISTAN UND ISOLDE would chart a similar path of romantic destruction for Joan Crawford & John Garfield under Jean Negelusco in HUMORESQUE/’46. OR: As mentioned above, SCARLET STREET.