It Happened on Fifth Avenue

Aloysius McKeever does the same thing every winter. When the owner of the great house on Fifth Avenue leaves to spend the season somewhere warm, McKeever comes in the back door and moves in. This winter he is not alone; a soldier turned out of his home joins him, then the soldier's friends. Then the owner's daughter walks in. She does not say who she is and she stays. Then her father arrives. In the end one of the richest men in the country is sitting as a guest in his own house, unable to introduce himself to anyone. Roy Del Ruth directs. Don DeFore, Ann Harding, Charles Ruggles, Victor Moore and Gale Storm are in the cast. It is an American production. Frank Capra had intended this story as the first film of the company he founded in 1945; he then sold the rights to Roy Del Ruth and set to work on It's a Wonderful Life. The film was made by Allied Artists, newly formed by Monogram, as part of that company's effort to shed its reputation for cheap pictures. The matter it treats is the postwar housing shortage; soldiers with nowhere to live are set beside great houses standing empty. The film flattens class difference through comedy and the rich man is changed by the end. The narrative carries the Capra manner; good will is rewarded and money comes second. The homeless man played by Victor Moore is at the centre and is the best thing in the film. The narrative is set around Christmas and it came to be watched as a holiday film. The ending reconciles everybody. Its limit is length; the narrative is long, the pace slack, and some passages repeat. Who it is for: viewers who like classic Hollywood comedy and Christmas films. Who it is not for: it is dated, long, and the ending too sweet.