I'm usually a softhearted for these Christmas movies from the 40's and maybe if Frank Capra had had an opportunity to recast and have some significant rewriting done then maybe this film would have turned out better. A neglected film is Holiday Affair with Robert Mitchum, Janet Leigh, and Wendell Corey. Directed by Don Hartman it has a lighter and more comedic touch.
The only member of the cast I like is Charles Ruggles. Everyone else is miscast and without sympathy which is not good for a film that's supposed to pull on your heartstrings. By now you know the plot, a hobo moves into a Fifth Avenue mansion while the owner winters in Tennessee. Victor Moore is the hobo and had a spotted film career. Moore's character, Aloysius T McKeever, ends up having a recently evicted soldier, Jim Bullock (Don DeFore) move in with him and then a slew of others show up. When the mansion's owner Michael J. O'Conner (Ruggles) shows up, his daughter Trudy (Gale Storm) is romantically interested in Bullock. When Trudy realizes her father is about to have everyone in the house arrested, she calls in her divorced mother Mary (Ann Harding) to help present a bulwark against her father.
Of course, there is the requisite happy ending with O'Conner and his wife getting back together, Bullock and Trudy cementing their romance, a bunch of ex-servicemen pulling their money to buy housing, the usual. I am sure in the current climate (2017), the story might have appeal with the little people vs. the industrial giant; but the little people only win because Michael J. O'Conner lets them in a rather unbelievable end. It's not that I don't like the message, it's just the wrong movie for me.
Oddly enough this movie was popular with audiences while Capra's directorial choice It's a Wonderful Life bombed. But with time the Capra film is now a Christmas classic; and It Happened on Fifth Avenue is just about completely forgotten.
The only member of the cast I like is Charles Ruggles. Everyone else is miscast and without sympathy which is not good for a film that's supposed to pull on your heartstrings. By now you know the plot, a hobo moves into a Fifth Avenue mansion while the owner winters in Tennessee. Victor Moore is the hobo and had a spotted film career. Moore's character, Aloysius T McKeever, ends up having a recently evicted soldier, Jim Bullock (Don DeFore) move in with him and then a slew of others show up. When the mansion's owner Michael J. O'Conner (Ruggles) shows up, his daughter Trudy (Gale Storm) is romantically interested in Bullock. When Trudy realizes her father is about to have everyone in the house arrested, she calls in her divorced mother Mary (Ann Harding) to help present a bulwark against her father.
Of course, there is the requisite happy ending with O'Conner and his wife getting back together, Bullock and Trudy cementing their romance, a bunch of ex-servicemen pulling their money to buy housing, the usual. I am sure in the current climate (2017), the story might have appeal with the little people vs. the industrial giant; but the little people only win because Michael J. O'Conner lets them in a rather unbelievable end. It's not that I don't like the message, it's just the wrong movie for me.
Oddly enough this movie was popular with audiences while Capra's directorial choice It's a Wonderful Life bombed. But with time the Capra film is now a Christmas classic; and It Happened on Fifth Avenue is just about completely forgotten.