Holiday Affair

Connie Ennis is a widow with a small son. She shops in department stores but does not buy; she compares prices for a company and returns the goods the next day. In one store she runs into Steve Mason. He is a clerk and works out at once what she is doing. He does not report her. It costs him his job. Connie has a fiancé; Carl is reliable, orderly and a good man. Steve has nothing. Christmas is coming and the boy has already made his choice. Don Hartman directs. Janet Leigh plays Connie, Robert Mitchum plays Steve and Wendell Corey plays Carl. Mitchum was known in this period for hard characters and the studio placed him in a romantic comedy; the choice was found surprising at the time. The film did not succeed at the box office on release and its standing was built in later years through repeated television screenings. The matter it treats is when grief should end; Connie keeps up an order belonging to her dead husband and the boy notices. The narrative does not make the third character a villain; Carl is the most reasonable person in it and the film does that deliberately. The store and New York scenes record the Christmas trade of the period. Its limit is the script; the resolution comes quickly and the romantic turn is not sufficiently prepared. Who it is for: viewers who like classic Christmas films and studio era romantic comedy. Who it is not for: it is predictable, short, and the emotional turns abrupt.