Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Clarissa Mora The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

JohnHowardReid Director: DON HARTMAN. Screenplay: Isobel Lennart. Based on a story, "Christmas Gift", and a novelette called "The Man Who Played Santa Claus" by John D. Weaver. Photography: Milton Krasner. Film editor: Harry Marker. Art directors: Albert D'Agostino and Carroll Clark. Set decorators: Darrell Silvera and William Stevens. Miss Leigh's costumes: Howard Greer. Music composed by Roy Webb, directed by Constantin Bakaleinikoff. Hair styles: Larry Germain. Make-up: James House. Assistant director: Sam Ruman. Sound: Frank Sarver and Clem Portman. Producer: Don Hartman.Copyright 23 November 1949 by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. U.S. release: 24 December 1949. New York release at Loew's State: 23 November 1949. U.K. release: 6 February 1950. Australian release: 6 April 1950. Sydney release at the Esquire: 10 March 1950. Australian length: 7,943 feet (88 minutes). U.K. length: 7,812 feet (87 minutes).SYNOPSIS: Comparison shopper inadvertently gets toy salesman fired from New York department store. Salesman romances shopper and her six-year-old son.COMMENT: A slight little Christmas romance with a foregone conclusion that seemed a lot more entertaining and engrossing back in 1950 than it does now. Admittedly, the two principal characterizations are fairly intriguing - Mitchum is likeably off-beat at first but becomes more conventionally outspoken as the film progresses; Miss Leigh's profession is refreshingly original - but the rest of the players are handicapped by their strictly clichéd roles, particularly Wendell Corey's stuffy attorney and Gordon Gebert's gap-toothed wonder. The players are not helped by direction that only comes to life with fluid camerawork in some of the crowd scenes, elsewhere letting the cast and the dialogue do all the work in a series of long takes. The dialogue is occasionally witty or pointed but mostly it and the situations are dull to the point of boredom. Even the episode in the police station which could have been fairly amusing seems somewhat strained as Henry Morgan makes heavy weather out of rather thin clouds. Miss Leigh looked good to indulgent males in 1950, but Father Time has stripped a lot of her illusion away, forcing her to rely on a charm and personality that is otherwise blandly inadequate. Photography and other credits are capable enough - even occasionally attractive. A Holiday Affair also has some historical interest as Mitchum's first starring essay into the field of romantic comedy and it must be admitted that he handled the lightweight part with a professional flair of delightful nonchalance (when he wasn't buried under sticky dialogue of the sentimental kind). However, despite mildly enthusiastic reviews and a domestic release that coincided with Christmas, Mitchum's fans were unimpressed and A Holiday Affair added little to RKO's coffers. It was not until his final RKO film, She Couldn't Say No (1954) that Mitchum was again cast in a comedy.

Stephen Alfieri "Holiday Affair" may be a lesser known holiday film, but it certainly lacks nothing in the way of likability or warmheartedness.I viewed this for the first time, just a few days ago, and I can say that it will be one of those that I watch every Christmas season.Robert Mitchum and Janet Leigh are a perfect combination. And Wendell Corey plays the Ralph Bellamy-type role to a tee. The three of them play off of each other, and add such warmth, that I dare anyone to resist the charms of this film.And Harry Morgan steals the film.This will be the best film that you've never heard of, this season.

SnoopyStyle Connie Ennis (Janet Leigh) is a war widow with son Timmy. Carl Davis asks her to marry him. She's a corporate spy and comparative shopper. Store clerk Steve Mason (Robert Mitchum) catches her but he lets her finish her job anyways. That gets him fired and he joins her on a 'date'. He loses her and tracks her home. He meets Carl who gets jealous and the night ends badly.Robert Mitchum is too perfect. He's a full out Hollywood movie star and his character is even better. He's a saint. I wouldn't have been surprised if Mason turned out to be an angel or the return of her husband's spirit. At least, that would be more interesting. It's a romance without intensity. The only tension comes from wondering if Carl would beat the boy. This is not at the same level as other Christmas classics but the two legendary leads keep it interesting.

robert-temple-1 This is very much a 'film of its time', but it was designed to be precisely that. It dealt with one of the major social issues of the immediate postwar years, the problems of the grieving young women whose husbands had been killed in the War. The main character in this film is just such a pretty young war widow, played by Janet Leigh. She keeps framed photos of her husband in uniform all round her apartment and beside her bed, and can't let him go. Her little boy Guy is turned into what she calls 'the man of the house'. She cannot come to terms with her loss or make a new life for herself, despite the fact that three or four years have gone by. America was full of women in her condition at this time, women who had been deeply in love with their husbands, lost them in combat, and were then expected to find a new man. Janet Leigh just can't do that. A boring and 'stable' admirer, played by Wendell Corey, has been patiently courting her for two years and keeps telling her that friendship is enough for a marriage and she doesn't need to love him. She is gradually bringing herself round to accept this kind of a future and even says yes to him at last, convincing herself that it will give her 'a quiet life' and a father for her boy (who does not like Corey and keeps insulting him). This film was given a misleading title, because there is no 'affair' and the 'holiday' refers merely to the fact that it is Christmas time. However, this is not, as some imagine, just 'a good Christmas film'. Christmas is merely the convenient background for the story. The story is really about Janet Leigh's struggle to come to terms with her loss. Through an amusing, if somewhat hectic, series of circumstances, Leigh meets Robert Mitchum. He is working in a New York City department store selling toy trains and she is a 'comparison shopper' working for a rival department store. She goes around buying things, taking them to her employer for study, and then returning them and getting a refund. Mitchum discovers this and is about to turn her in, but when he hears she is a war widow with a child, he takes pity on her and lets her go. This is spotted by the floorwalker, and Mitchum is instantly fired. Then a highly complex relationship develops, involving the boy, a train set, various misunderstandings and comic coincidences, and Fate, which obviously had it in mind all along, brings them closer and closer together. This gets up the nose of Corey, who takes it very badly indeed. Little Guy adores Mitchum, and the story is really very ingenious and amusing, as to how things go on from there. I can't reveal what happens in the end, but you could say Leigh is really on the spot and struggles between boring safety and passionate uncertainty. Mitchum proposes too, and which one will she, can she, choose? This film would have gone straight to the heart for many thousands, probably tens of thousands, of young American widows in her position at that time. As social history it is very important. The film is very sensitively done and must have been a big hit when it came out. It is entertaining to watch, has many amusing moments, and excellent performances.