A Cool Christmas, The Robert Mitchum Way

American Greatness:
Don Hartman’s 1949 film, “Holiday Affair,” has many elements of a great romantic comedy. A young widow, Connie Ennis (Janet Leigh), is struggling to make ends meet so that she can give her little boy, Timmy, a nice and memorable Christmas. She works as a comparison shopper, and ‘tis the season for shopping! Everyone wants the latest and greatest, and the streets of New York are bustling (more than usual) with shoppers.

Connie’s husband and Timmy’s father died in the war, and now, they find themselves in an uneasy world. Connie treats 6-year-old Timmy as the “man of the house,” and calls him “Mr. Ennis.” It’s a joke between the mother and son, but, just like with any joke, there is a grain of truth in it. There is a place in Connie’s heart that will forever remain vacant because of the wounds of war.

One man in her life, Carl Davis (Wendell Corey), has been courting her. He is a lawyer, a man who can offer her stability and security. Carl is deeply respectful of Connie’s past and is more than aware that he could never replace Timmy’s father. Still, even someone as sturdy as Carl is beginning to get impatient with Connie’s indecision about whether or not she will marry him. 

Things get quite complicated when Connie meets Steve Mason (Robert Mitchum). Steve is a war veteran, and like most men of that age, he is trying to find his way in the postwar world. He works at a department store and catches Connie in the act of comparison shopping for a rival department store. Instead of reporting her to the authorities, Steve decides to let her go, refunding her money for a toy train, but there are dire consequences for Steve: He gets fired. MORE