I was quite charmed by the low key quality of this Christmas movie on TCM last night, which I'd never seen, called Holiday Affair (1949). I found that the little boy, Gordon Gebert*, gave a remarkably un-mawkish performance. It was so nice to see a Holiday movie that wasn't trying to knock your eye out with some ersatz idea of perfection, but did an exceedingly nice job of weaving a quiet spell through the good script by Isobel Lennart and genuine performances by one and all, particularly Robert Mitchum, Janet Leigh and Wendell Corey. I liked the way that the director (Don Hartman) and the script allowed each character some time to develop and even those in small parts, such as Henry O'Neill as the department store boss, Griff Barnett and Esther Dale as Leigh's parents, and Harry Morgan as a cop, all had their moments.
It was fun to read in a TCM article about this movie that Mitchum, who was at his best in this movie playing against type, became genuine friends with relatively new actress, Janet Leigh. According to the article, "During a tense dinner scene, [Mitchum] and co-star Wendell Corey each slipped a hand onto her knee under the table. She started fidgeting in response, which turned out to be the perfect reaction for the scene." Naughty boys! She was very good in that particular scene, as she was in the scene when in the car with Corey, when they make a mutual, surprisingly mature decision together. Corey was exceptionally expressive in this movie, though the poor guy was always getting jilted in his career, wasn't he?--even his partner John Hodiak wanted to ditch him in Desert Fury (Corey's very good premiere performance on film)!
If you're interested in seeing Holiday Affair, it's on again on TCM at 1:45pm ET today.
* Say, here's a little article from the Des Moines Register about the boy who played Timmy. Believe it or not, it's a success story about a former child actor!
