Holiday Affair

Sportswriter Craig Calcaterra mentioned on Twitter this week that Holiday Affair is an overlooked holiday movie classic. I had never heard of it so I added it to my Roku watch list, and last night we watched it.

Short review - I'll be paying more attention to Craig's movie recommendations.

Set in the late 40s, the movie stars Robert Mitchum as a WWII Vet and drifter who loses his job as a clerk in a department store after showing a moment of kindness to a comparison shopper played by Janet Leigh, a single mom war widow. Mitchum decides to pursue his romantic interest in Janet, but she is set to marry a safe but boring guy that she has been seeing for two years.

You can see where this plot is going...which suitor will she choose?

Mitchum and Leigh are great in the movie, the annoying kid with a heart of gold that these movies always have is not as annoying as he could be, and a young Harry Morgan has a hilarious cameo as a cranky and wise cracking police officer.

Also, if you think the crowds are bad at your local Target this weekend check out the Christmas shopping crowds in the NYC department stores in this movie. The movie is set is 1949 NYC, so expect a complete lack of diversity in the cast, a cigarette in somebody's hand at all times, a forced kiss that we would call assault today, and just the general low level sexism that defined a woman's place in society in 1949. If that is going to ruin the movie for you, don't watch it. For everybody else, it's a worthy addition to your holiday movie rotation. I streamed it for $2.99, so it's a low risk choice regardless.

This is entry #23 in my attempt at 31 days of blogging for December 2018. I've haven't posted here daily since about 2007, so this should be interesting.