The premise behind "Christmas In July" seems arresting: Capitalism is a sucker's game that can be fun to play anyway. Yet its execution is not sharp. This early Preston Sturges comedy is more interesting for the ideas that seemed to shape it than for anything on-screen.
Jimmy MacDonald (Dick Powell) is a lowly office drone at a coffee company who has big dreams. His latest involves coming up with a new slogan for a rival coffee company, a contest hosted on a national radio program. Surprise, surprise, he gets a telegram telling him he's the winner, but no sooner does he share his joy with the neighborhood than everything goes to pot.
Weighing in at under 70 minutes, "Christmas In July" won't overtax your patience. The bouncy concept of early 20th-century marketing gone awry is pleasant for a while. Compare it to the Depression-era films of Frank Capra, where some greedy fat cat was cheating the little guy of his just reward: Here Sturges gives us no easy villains, presenting us instead with a more sophisticated, rather disturbing if nonetheless heartwarming critique of American life.
In fact, it's a mid-manager at MacDonald's company, a guy named Waterbury whom Sturges initially establishes as a bullying bad guy in the Capra mold, who winds up surprising both MacDonald and us by graciously offering a heartfelt, humanitarian perspective on things:
"Ambition is alright if it works, but no system can be right where only one-half of one percent were successes and the rest were failures."
Waterbury urges MacDonald to let go of his dreams and focus on doing what he can, content in being able to live upright and look people he cares about in the eye. It's a bracingly fresh and balanced perspective from Hollywood, then or now.
The problem "Christmas In July" has may be related to that sensibility, though: It's stiff and takes itself too seriously most of the way through. Taken from a stage play, the film only has five or six scenes, which means Sturges doesn't give himself much room for subplots. Powell is surprisingly hard to warm up to in the central performance, and the sentimentality gets rather gooey, as when Jimmy and his girlfriend Betty (Ellen Drew, not much better than Powell) play Santa to their impoverished neighborhood, treating the kids to ice cream and a wheelchair-bound girl with her own doll. The girl has black rings painted under her eyes in case the wheelchair wasn't enough for you.
For gags, we get too much sputtering, snarling, and people putting on goofy hats. There's even people pelted with fish and vegetables. It's like Sturges went back and added this material when he realized he wasn't getting enough laughs in the reading room.
The whole marketing gimmick of coming up with a new slogan for Maxford House Coffee, because everyone agrees the old one is too tired ("Grand To The Last Gulp" doesn't sound like anything that would fly today, does it?) has potential, and MacDonald's alternative slogan is pretty funny because it is so terrible. It's long, requires convoluted logic to appreciate, and serves to remind people why they don't use the product half the day.
"It's a pun," MacDonald explains to Dr. Maxford himself.
"It certainly is," Maxford deadpans. "It's great. I can hardly wait to give you my money."
But the notion of marketing as a science people put their faith in without really understanding is only lightly touched upon. The reaction of Jimmy's employer at the other coffee company seems similarly like a wasted opportunity, as his apparent brainstorm has benefited a competitor. They just want a chance to bask in his genius, too, until it is exposed for what it really is. That's pretty much the whole of the plot, Jimmy and Betty trying to do right in good and bad times.
"Christmas In July" has some fun performances, a clever ending, and a pure heart, but don't mistake this for one of those classics upon which Sturges built his reputation.
Jimmy MacDonald (Dick Powell) is a lowly office drone at a coffee company who has big dreams. His latest involves coming up with a new slogan for a rival coffee company, a contest hosted on a national radio program. Surprise, surprise, he gets a telegram telling him he's the winner, but no sooner does he share his joy with the neighborhood than everything goes to pot.
Weighing in at under 70 minutes, "Christmas In July" won't overtax your patience. The bouncy concept of early 20th-century marketing gone awry is pleasant for a while. Compare it to the Depression-era films of Frank Capra, where some greedy fat cat was cheating the little guy of his just reward: Here Sturges gives us no easy villains, presenting us instead with a more sophisticated, rather disturbing if nonetheless heartwarming critique of American life.
In fact, it's a mid-manager at MacDonald's company, a guy named Waterbury whom Sturges initially establishes as a bullying bad guy in the Capra mold, who winds up surprising both MacDonald and us by graciously offering a heartfelt, humanitarian perspective on things:
"Ambition is alright if it works, but no system can be right where only one-half of one percent were successes and the rest were failures."
Waterbury urges MacDonald to let go of his dreams and focus on doing what he can, content in being able to live upright and look people he cares about in the eye. It's a bracingly fresh and balanced perspective from Hollywood, then or now.
The problem "Christmas In July" has may be related to that sensibility, though: It's stiff and takes itself too seriously most of the way through. Taken from a stage play, the film only has five or six scenes, which means Sturges doesn't give himself much room for subplots. Powell is surprisingly hard to warm up to in the central performance, and the sentimentality gets rather gooey, as when Jimmy and his girlfriend Betty (Ellen Drew, not much better than Powell) play Santa to their impoverished neighborhood, treating the kids to ice cream and a wheelchair-bound girl with her own doll. The girl has black rings painted under her eyes in case the wheelchair wasn't enough for you.
For gags, we get too much sputtering, snarling, and people putting on goofy hats. There's even people pelted with fish and vegetables. It's like Sturges went back and added this material when he realized he wasn't getting enough laughs in the reading room.
The whole marketing gimmick of coming up with a new slogan for Maxford House Coffee, because everyone agrees the old one is too tired ("Grand To The Last Gulp" doesn't sound like anything that would fly today, does it?) has potential, and MacDonald's alternative slogan is pretty funny because it is so terrible. It's long, requires convoluted logic to appreciate, and serves to remind people why they don't use the product half the day.
"It's a pun," MacDonald explains to Dr. Maxford himself.
"It certainly is," Maxford deadpans. "It's great. I can hardly wait to give you my money."
But the notion of marketing as a science people put their faith in without really understanding is only lightly touched upon. The reaction of Jimmy's employer at the other coffee company seems similarly like a wasted opportunity, as his apparent brainstorm has benefited a competitor. They just want a chance to bask in his genius, too, until it is exposed for what it really is. That's pretty much the whole of the plot, Jimmy and Betty trying to do right in good and bad times.
"Christmas In July" has some fun performances, a clever ending, and a pure heart, but don't mistake this for one of those classics upon which Sturges built his reputation.