Christmas in July (1940) User Reviews

Community jest...

[Lejink · 7/10 · 4 February 2009]

Short and sweet, bright and breezy, but not without pith, this early Preston Sturges feature helped further establish his "wonder-kid" reputation in the early 40's before his great classics "Sullivan's Travels", "The Lady Eve" and my favourite "Hail The Conquering Hero".

The simple premise of a hoax win in a national coffee-slogan competition for ordinary average nice-guy Powell is the springboard for a light morality tale along the lines of "he who does good has good things happen to them" - although not without the usual series of ups and downs, just as you'd expect.

Of course nobody here is really bad, even the duped killjoy Mr, no make that Dr Maxford of the sponsoring coffee company or Mr Shindler of the too-trusting department store from whom Powell buys gifts for the whole neighbourhood on the strength of the phony winning telegram placed on his desk by his prankster work colleagues. Even when he finds out that his win is bogus, Powell can't get angry at the tricksters, so it's no real surprise that his homeliness, honesty and humility wins everyone over, including his feisty girl-friend, played by Ellen Drew, with the predictable twist in the last reel that Powell's slogan wins anyway.

Powell is very likeable in the lead, although Drew is a little too high-pitched in delivery for my taste as the film develops. There's the usual troop of madcap eccentrics which peoples almost every Sturges comedy, with some nice little cameos, I particularly liked the actor playing the deadpan cop, not above making some contemporary allusions to Hitler & Mussolini to stress a point.

The dialogue of course is mile-a-minute vernacular and I got a kick out of Sturges' Dickensian word-play over triple-barrelled lawyer's names (along the lines of "Swindle Cookum and Robbem!"). Right from the start, we get the "screwball comedy" template of a poor Joe and his girl, dreaming of something bigger waiting for something extraordinary to happen, with Powell and Drew's extended night-time scene on their New York apartment roof-top, and succeeding entertaining scenes including Powell's reaction to "winning" the competition and best of all the frenetic crowd scene when Maxford tries to get his money back only to cop a batch of rotten fruit ("Don't throw the good stuff" admonishes one parent to a tomato-wielding youngster), it's all good clean fun and ends up happily ever after. And get a load of that "zoom" shot back into Maxford's office at the end - it certainly got me out of my chair, not the last time Sturges employed camera tricks of this type - remember the memorable stop-start sequence to "The Palm Beach Story".

The movie celebrates community, the little guy who dreams of making it big and how to meet disaster with alacrity, in short a feel-good movie with a big heart, well worth an hour and four minutes of anyone's time.

Have a Cup of Coffee with Preston Sturges

[wes-connors · 8/10 · 27 June 2009]

Coffee company clerk Dick Powell (as Jimmy MacDonald) enters a sloganeering contest with the catchphrase: "If You Can't Sleep at Night, It Isn't the Coffee, It's the Bunk!" Mr. Powell thinks the slogan is as "clear as crystal," but pretty, pragmatic girlfriend Ellen Drew (as Betty Casey) is unmoved. Although his slogan is confusing, Powell is optimistic about winning the $25,000 prize. The next day, Powell is anxious to learn if he's won the contest; and, three of his practical-joking co-workers send him a phony telegram stating, "We take great pleasure in informing you that your slogan has won the twenty-five thousand dollar first prize…"

Powell excitedly picks up his prize, from cantankerous Raymond Walburn (as Maxford), who doesn't know his executives haven't yet picked the winner. Powell plans his wedding to Ms. Drew, and buys gifts for most of the people in his lower-class neighborhood. Drew says he's spending money like it's "Christmas in July." Then, the prank is discovered…

Writer/director Sturges' bright satire is still amusing, after all these years. Like "Maxwell House" coffee, it's "Good to the Last Drop" - perhaps, the story could be revised, for the "Starbucks" era (many of the Sturges lines don't need changing). The supporting players - Mr. Walburn (Maxford), Alexander Carr (Schindel), William Demarest (Bildocker), Ernest Truex (Baxter), and others - are excellent.

******** Christmas in July (10/18/40) Preston Sturges ~ Dick Powell, Ellen Drew, Raymond Walburn

A Winner

[kenjha · 8/10 · 7 January 2010]

A clerk making $22 per week dreams of winning the $25,000 grand prize in a coffee company's slogan contest. Sturges' second directorial effort is not only a sweet and simple comedy but also fast-paced and efficient, wrapping up in just over an hour. As the ambitious but earnest sloganeer, Powell basically plays the role of the straight man, surrounded by loony characters, including Walburn as the flustered owner of Maxford House, not to be confused with Maxwell House, and Sturges regular Demarest as one of the judges of the contest. Despite the short running time and the emphasis on comedy, Sturges manages to make the characters human.

Enjoyable Sturges flick...

[cereal_11 · 15 July 2002]

This may be my favorite Preston Sturges film. It's as well written and well crafted as anything he made after it. Sturges had a knack for creating unique characters and throwing them into even more unique situations.

Jimmy MacDonald is absolutely determined to make money the easy way; by winning a contest. A few of his coworkers, aware of his desperation to win an upcoming contest, decide to send him a telegram in order to make him believe he's won the recent contest, along with the enormous cash reward. What begins as a cruel little joke (to find out how Jimmy would react to winning) becomes something much bigger. It wouldn't make sense for me to explain the plot any further; much of the enjoyment in watching the film comes from how it unpredictably unfolds.

"Christmas in July" is rather unusual in comparison to some of Sturges other movies, namely his two most famous films, "The Lady Eve" and "The Palm Beach Story". It contains more pathos and less sexual innuendos, but it never becomes cheap, manipulative melodrama. It's also quite short in comparison to his other movies, but it's all the better for it.

The Bunk, Folks, Don't You Get It?

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 17 April 2009]

For his second film as a director, Preston Sturges was given a slightly bigger budget than he had with The Great McGinty. With that he went and hired a star, not too big a star mind you, but one who was looking for something decent to play and was quite at liberty.

The star was Dick Powell who had finished his Warner Brothers contract and spent a year away from the movies. Though Christmas In July might have seen at first glance as silly as some of what he was trying to get away from, Powell did recognize the talent of Preston Sturges and signed for this one shot deal.

Sturges chose to satire in Christmas In July, America's obsession with radio contests, a subject that later would be used for television in the James Stewart film, The Jackpot a decade later. Powell has thought of this clever jingle for Maxford Coffee, a play on words, 'if you can't sleep at night, it's not the coffee, it's the bunk' which he tries explaining to any number of people, to his girl friend Ellen Drew and to his co-workers where he toils at a dreary desk job.

Co-workers Rod Cameron, Harry Rosenthal, and Adrian Morris decide a nice practical joke is in order and fake a telegram to Powell from Raymond Walburn, the head of Maxford Coffee, saying Powell's jingle won. Powell naturally goes giddy with the thought of $25,000.00 and does as the telegram directs, goes to Raymond Walburn who thinking his jingle committee has actually come up with a winner, cuts him a check.

Powell is a very decent sort and thinks of a lot of people in his neighborhood whom he'd like to help and spends it on them. It's quite a letdown for all involved when it all turns out to be a hoax.

Christmas In July like all really great comedy has its elements of pathos as well. This same scenario could easily have been the elements for great tragedy as well. Powell and Drew register the highs and lows of their characters very well.

By now Preston Sturges had established his noted stock company of players, most of whom appear in Christmas In July. One of them, William Demarest proves the savior of the situation, an ironical savior to be sure when you see the film.

Though Powell wanted to do drama and was not to get that chance until a few years later, Preston Sturges was definitely a step up from some of silly stuff Jack Warner had been casting him in. Powell showed he could handle screwball comedy with the best of them in Christmas In July.

Wistful Preston Sturges romance

[lqualls-dchin · 10/10 · 27 January 2002]

Not as well known as "The Lady Eve" or "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek," "Christmas in July" was an unusual film for the writer-director Preston Sturges: it's more wistful, less frenetic. Though it's filled with a myriad of those wonderful character actors that Sturges loved to use to fill the frame (including Franklin Pangborn and William Demarest), it's touching in its regard for the struggling young couple (played by Dick Powell and Ellen Drew) who get swept up in the idea of winning a slogan contest ("If you can't sleep, it's not the coffee, it's the bunk!"). The romantic mood seems to be set in the Depression era, reminiscent of the scripts that Sturges wrote for those Depression comedies "The Good Fairy" and "Easy Living": innocents get swept up in mistaken identities and come out winners anyway. Maybe it's not as manic as his classic romantic comedies, but it has its share of hilarious moments and it's full of charm.

The black knew

[jakob13 · 7/10 · 18 January 2016]

A Preston Sturges romantic comedy, with a cast of colorful characters. Written and directed by Sturges, he refreshed a 1931 script 'A cup of Coffee' as if nothing happened since the early days of the Great Depression. We are in New York, among the working class who struggle to make ends meet in what passes for a typical neighborhood of tenements, with the usual make up of 'ethnic' New Yorkers, save the blacks. Dick Powell in one of his last role as juvenile (42 Street for example)is Bill MacDonald a dream who enters contests to win the big prize. He never does, but this time he thinks he shall: he entered the Medford Coffee contest for the best new slogan which will put a good spin on flat advertising. Ellen Drew play his girl friend who sticks with him through thick and thin. There is a wonderful scene where Medford is on the air in a coast-to-coast hook to announce the winner from over 2 million entries. But the jury is deadlocked in a comic scene that years later will turn up in Paddy Chayefsky's 'Twelve Angry Men'. The hold out is the wonderful comic actor William Demarest. And Franklin Pangborn, for once is not type cast as a pansy, does a good turn as the radio announcer and Raymond Walburn as the excitable Dr. Medford. To drive home the comic spin of 'Christmas in July', Macdonald works in the billing department of a rival coffee maker. His office mates hear him telephoning Medford Coffee to find out if the jury has picked winner, and they take him for a sap. So in the days of telegrams, they cut and paste a message saying MacDonald hit the jackpot. And from this the story takes off at a hop-skip-and jump speed. His boss at Baxter Coffee finds out he's a man of idea, even though Baxter's advertising department considers him a dreamer. But the boss respects the power of money, and in scene there's our Bill with cigar in his mouth coming up with a perky slogan and a plan for Baxter. And so it goes, a large check of $25,000 (in today's dollars worth millions?)is an open sesame to buy an engagement ring, a fur coat, a sofa bed for his mum, and and endless number of gifts for his neighbors on the street he lives in. The farce is exposed, but Powell takes it in his stride, nothing ventured, nothing lost'. As he and Drew go back to his new office at Baxter ready to confess, the janitor Sam (the only black in the film and a yessum Mr. Bill stereotypical line on his smiling, chuckling facy)is asked by MacDonald if a black cat rubbing his leg is a bearer of bad luck. And the wise Sam chortles 'it depends what comes after'... Try to find the film on YouTube, for the ironic but guessable denouement a la O. Henry.

Well Worth a Purchase

[Christmas-Reviewer · 9/10 · 7 August 2016]

Well to kick off our "Third Annual Christmas Watching Season" we put on the classic film "Christmas in July" This 1940 Film is a Gem "Christmas in July", is written and directed by Academy Award winner Preston Sturges. In this film a workplace practical joke goes awry when an office clerk (Dick Powell), believing he has won a $25,000 prize, takes his girlfriend (Ellen Drew) on an extravagant Christmas shopping spree… in the middle of July! After they discover it was all a hoax, their spending spree turns into a wild slapstick riot. More than just a holiday heart-warmer, this madcap masterpiece is a classic gift of laughter that is perfect for every season.

The fast paced film runs only 69 Minutes but not a minute goes by without 10 laughs!

Raymond Walburn rocks!

[weezeralfalfa · 7/10 · 27 October 2017]

This is a Preston Sturges mistaken identity drama and comedy. It was only moderately interesting to me. It's listed as 64min. long, but the version I saw was only 55min., missing 12 min.. The beginning and ending were present, and I didn't notice any gaps elsewhere.

Raymond Walburn, as Dr. Maxford, president of the Maxford Coffee Company, steals this one, for the most part. Dick Powell, as Jimmy, who is the elated victim of a practical joke, provides occasional fireworks, as when he received a bogus telegram notifying him that he had won the grand prize in a slogan contest by Maxford: "If you can't sleep at night, it's not the coffee, it's the bunk". Maxford didn't like it, but an awards committee presumably did. Also, when Jimmy is picking out gifts for his girlfriend Betty(Ellen Drew),and mother, and when handing out lesser gifts to the neighbors and friends, Jimmy is especially animated. "It's like Christmas in July" exclaims Betty. But there are slow sections too, especially, the initial scene with Jimmy and Betty gabbing away on a rooftop for maybe 10min..

Walburn was perfectly cast as the easily excitable, blustering, company president, who's intimately involved in this slogan fiasco. He had few peers in this era in this type of role. Adolphe Monjou was nearly as good, at times. I know some people don't like their shtick, but I find them very funny and charismatic. Ellen Drew, as Betty, had little to do, except tag along with Jimmy, wherever he went. She mainly served as eye candy. The duo would be reteamed in "Johnny O'clock". Stuges often included irony as a major plot feature, as well as for lesser roles. For, example,, there are many in his masterpiece "Sullivan's Travels". Here, I point out a few in the present film:

1)After all the hullabaloo about the fake telegram had died down, the awards committee, not knowing about this development, selected Jimmy's entry(which Maxford hated)from among many thousands, as the winner.

2)That the fake telegram perpetrators were very wrong, in assuming that this was a harmless practical joke that the Maxford people would figure out before they gave him the $25,000..

3)Even though Jimmy was more than ecstatic over apparently winning the prize, he first thought of gifts for Betty, his mother and neighbors, never mentioning anything for himself.

4)Jimmy, in initially falsely winning the contest, induces his boss to assume he's a genius, promoting him, and giving him his private office and secretary, whereas previously, he considered Jimmy an idling daydreamer.

Smarter than you may at first think.

[hitchcockthelegend · 9/10 · 4 March 2008]

On the surface this effort from the brilliant Preston Sturges looks like a standard sugar coated feel good movie, but strip away the outer skin and you get a delightful collage of comedy, romance, satire, drama, and nudge nudge observations about hunger of wealth and all the spin offs that wealth creates.

I don't deem it unfair to state that the films core plot of frivolity may not be to everyone's taste, but to me personally it ticks all the boxes for a joyride with more at its heart. The pace of the film is more in keeping with screwball comedies of the great era, but that is not to say that the film doesn't shift down a gear for poignant reflection, because it does, but ultimately the film is full of hilarity from many quarters, that is acted out accordingly from a sparky cast, and of course directed by a deity .

A joyous winner that prods you in the ribs and gives a cheeky wink along the way. 9/10

It's good.

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 19 July 2023]

A national radio search for a coffee slogan becomes a fiasco and deadlocks without a winner. Office clerk Jimmy MacDonald (Dick Powell) dreams of winning the contest and starting his marriage with girlfriend Betty Casey (Ellen Drew). Three co-workers play a trick on him. He gets a telegram announcing that he has won $25k.

This is a lesser known Preston Sturges film even if Hallmark took it as a slogan. How meta. A slogan from a movie about a slogan. It has a quirky premise and an endearing story. I do want to like this more. Something is holding me back. I don't know if I love Jimmy and Betty. I like them enough. They need a meet-cute. They really need to sell this couple more. The drama and the emotions get ramped up after the mix-up is discovered. That has some of the best moments. I would like a few different turns although I don't want to list everything that I would change. The second half is good. It's good.

A treat any time of the year.

[matusekpres · 10/10 · 26 March 2003]

Could this be one of Preston Sturges's most profound comedies?

In addition to being one of the funniest and most underappreciated. In "Sullivan's Travels," Preston Sturges has the

Joel McCrea character speak admiringly of fellow director Frank

Capra. In "Christmas in July" possibly Sturges was trying to teach

Capra how to handle sentiment without falling into sentimentality --

the scene where Dick Powell is handing out presents to his

neighbors, and he gives a doll to a crippled girl in a wheelchair --

a remarkably tender moment in the midst of a hectic scene -- done

with just the right touch, One of my favorite lines occurs when

bug-eyed Raymond Walburn sarcastically tells contest-winner

Powell, "I can't wait to give you my money!" Sturges also shows

that you can have plot complications without resorting to villains --

no Capraesque class warfare here -- rich and poor are equally

lovable -- even gruff William Demarest.

Sprightly Comedy From Sturges.

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 30 June 2012]

Dick Powell is sent a fake telegram informing him that he has won the Maxford House Coffee slogan contest. Nobody else, including the Maxford House Coffee people, know that the notification is phony. Powell therefore gets a $25,000 check -- that's in 1940 dollars, when you could buy two Cadillacs for one penny -- and goes on a spending spree with his fiancée, Ellen Drew. He receives a promotion at his own place of employment and buys presents for everyone he knows.

If Preston Sturges is peeping out from this vaudeville show, it's in the character of the people that are in supporting roles -- Powell's friends, his employer, the salespeople who are honored by his patronage. What a congeries of ordinary folk they are, with ordinary virtues and vices. And they're flamboyantly ethnic too. Nobody had yet found ethnicity and a little of its stereotypy offensive. This was 1940, not 1970, and Tony could still be a fruit peddler. Mr. Schwarz could gaze down at some commotion in the street and decide, "He's drunk." Sam could be an African-American janitor -- I mean custodian, of course -- and ask Powell, "Does you needs a valet now?" Eventually, of course, Powell does find out that his winning the contest was fraudulent but, what do you know, the judges have independently decided that his slogan, among the ten million submitted, is after all the best: IF YOU CAN'T SLEEP, IT'S NOT THE COFFEE, IT'S THE BUNK. ("That's a pun!," exclaims judge William Demarest.) It all ends happily.

Madness In Marketing

[slokes · 5/10 · 17 December 2014]

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.

Very Good

[Michael_Elliott · 7 March 2008]

Christmas in July (1940)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Preston Sturges comedy about a poor boy (Dick Powell) with big dreams who goes on a shopping spree after he thinks he's won $25,000 in a contest. This was actually my first film from the director and I got a tad bit nervous at first because the comedy in the opening ten minutes really didn't work for me. I wasn't sure how the rest of the film was going to work with me but it was a homerun after the scene in the office where Powell thinks he's won the money. The film is certainly pretty shallow in its delivery but that works just fine since the one word that came to my mind while watching the film was sweet. The film has a sweet little idea with sweet little messages and in the end it delivers on pretty much all levels. Powell is very good in the role but it's the supporting cast that steals every scene.

Preston Sturges pulled his punches here

[mjneu59 · 6/10 · 10 November 2010]

This early Preston Sturges satire suffers by comparison to his later films, but even if it never reaches the dizzy heights expected of a Sturges comedy it still presents an enjoyable (if at times too predictable) farce. The earthbound scenario offers none of the director's usual madcap flights of fancy, following an unlucky entrant in a marketing slogan contest (Dick Powell) who mistakenly believes himself the winner of a $25,000 grand prize. It's all the result of an innocent practical joke, but the gag backfires when everyone else, including the contest sponsor, believes it too. The unsuspecting Powell suddenly finds the world off his back and at his feet, and the consumer frenzy that follows shows glimpses of the classic Sturges brand of anarchy, sadly lacking from the rest of the film. Lots of running around and shouting at double-quick speed can't really camouflage the lack of belly laughs, but the cast works up plenty of enthusiasm, and the final image (look quick) is wonderful.

A gem!

[moonspinner55 · 9/10 · 7 May 2002]

Joyous dose of whimsy from writer-director Preston Sturges, who always managed to wring both sentiment and cynicism from a fairy tale premise. Here, Dick Powell is a working-class guy who's under the impression he's won $25,000 in a coffee-slogan contest. Short at 70 minutes, but sharp as a tack, this is a wonderful stroll through Hollywood's Golden Era. Powell is terrific and Ellen Drew is equally good as his sweetheart. Watch it and enjoy! ***1/2 from ****

A sweet little film about big thoughts of dreams, hard work, and money, with a metaphorical reference to the Merry Period.

[SAMTHEBESTEST · 7/10 · 5 April 2022]

Christmas In July (1940) : Brief Review -

A sweet little film about big thoughts of dreams, hard work, and money, with a metaphorical reference to the Merry Period. Dreams and hard work are two things that are bigger than money, but does money make them bigger than their existence? That's some complex conflict which Christmas In July tries to explore. It does full justice to it, but it isn't that easy to understand because it doesn't speak up much, and tries to say a lot with hidden and unspoken words. It also teaches you one big lesson in your lifetime: that hard work and talent have no substitute for achieving your goals. Another unspoken big thought is: why should you always choose to earn money through hard work rather than an easy way like the lottery or something that does not require effort? However, the main conflict here isn't fully about the lottery kind of thing; rather, it smartly uses the side string of talent to make it effective. When the co-workers of an ambitious clerk trick him into thinking he has won $25,000 in a slogan contest, he begins to use the money to fulfil his dreams. What will happen when he realises that the win wasn't real, but his dreams were and are still? Humanity is at the centre here, but more than that, it is about human nature before and after getting money. I kind of enjoyed the plot and loved the concept. Any 30s comedy with a good lesson always works for me, so there was no chance that Christmas in July would fail to impress me. It missed a few things, but I wasn't expecting a high-end classic. I was just looking for a feel-good film with solid content, and the film did provide me that. I wish all Preston Sturges' films were so brilliant about context. Some of his films are great, but he also made mistakes with some. Thankfully, he didn't go wrong with Dick Powell and Ellen Drew this time, and delivered a fantastic entertainer that doesn't forget to educate you.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest.

Glorious

[B&W-2 · 10/10 · 6 April 1999]

Sturges's directorial effort is astonishingly funny. He creates such winning characters, and then does such terrible things to them! It's amazing how he is able to walk a tightrope between satire and sentimentality. The Sturges company is in place already, watch for Walburn as Dr. Maxford, everything he says is a marvel of pomposity! Powell and Drew make an appealing working-class couple, yearning to be together, but lacking the funds to get married. You will laugh, and you will be sucked into Jimmy's plight! Modern comedies could learn from Sturges, Stevens, Capra, et al.; it's fun to laugh at, and with, people that we like...

The first word that comes to mind is "sweet".

[wisewebwoman · 7/10 · 7 June 2001]

This is a charming little movie and the two stars have great appeal. The story is light, but the bit players, direction and script make it worth while. Preston Sturges wrote and directed and one can see how he always makes the female the more powerful in his movies, men are slightly bewildered duffers. I saw another one of his "The Lady Eve" recently and the same scenario, these manipulative dames engineer all the moves and get the man. Interesting take on the life of Preston. I must read his biography some time. I gave this a 7 out of 10.

"It's not the coffee. It's the bunk!"

[theowinthrop · 10/10 · 18 February 2007]

As the follow up to "The Great McGinty" Preston Sturgis returned to an old play of his that was written in 1931 and called "A Cup Of Coffee". Sturgis, for all of his cynical slant in his comedies and screenplays, had a pretty accurate view of the American Dream. In "Christmas In July" the hero is trying to make it to fame and fortune overnight - by winning a jingle/slogan contest on the radio. And the truth of the situation is far more complicated than we credit it in being.

Powell has entered every contest he can, figuring that the law of averages will eventually come to his assistance and win him the big prize. He doesn't stop to think that the same viewpoint is held by everyone else who is competing against him. He also does not like the regular hard work ethic that is pushed by his office manager (Harry Hayden) to concentrate on his job and you will be a success - not spectacular but one who meets his debts and looks the world in the eye. Powell is not opposed to hard work, but he hates being one of the herd of numberless drudges like most of us.

He has gotten three of his office friends so fed up with his constant sweep-stake fantasies that they decide to send him a fake telegram that he has won the Maxford House Coffee sweepstakes. He has a slogan "If you find you can't sleep at night, it is not the coffee, it's the bunk!" Cute (a pun of course), he keeps explaining it to everyone who couldn't care less. But the Maxford House Radio show which was supposed to find a winner is unable to reach a timely decision (William Demerest is trying to convince them to favor one that he thinks is a snappy slogan, and Robert Warwick wants a more formal and dignified short slogan). Taking advantage of this impossible tie situation, the trio send their false telegram - and Powell and his girlfriend Ellen Drew go crazy.

But that's just it - everyone goes crazy. Powell's boss Ernest Truex, who has rarely given him a second glance, when he hears about this thinks Powell is a business genius and starts considering promoting him. The staff of his accounting firm and various businessmen all bow and scrape to him. The three friends who play the joke find it has gotten so out-of-control that they can't stop it (they don't dare to). The joke even is pulled over the coffee company owner, Dr. Maxford (Raymond Walburn, who almost steals the film from Powell). Maxford is disgusted by the way the slogan jury under Demerest won't do as he orders, and he is totally prepared to accept the fake telegram as proof that the same committee didn't even bother to notify their employer first!

The film is pretty funny throughout, as Powell enjoys the height of glory and the depth of despair as the truth about the telegram hits Maxford and the people from whom Powell has been buying goods (gifts for his family and friends - since it is summer the title of the film makes sense). But in a society that worships success, should it penalize someone who innocently seemed to be successful but wasn't? The conclusion of the film suggests that some trial and error is required, but Sturgis still finds that the hand of fate may be necessary to allow someone to show his or her full potential.

Coffee Song

[writers_reign · 6/10 · 6 February 2016]

Once he got the green light to direct as well as write Preston Sturges turned out two movies back to back, The Great McGinty and this one with little to choose between them in terms of quality although plot-wise there were vast differences. By 1940 Dick Powell had wisely decided that singing was best left to those who could actually do it, like Sinatra, and though he had yet to find his niche - after Bogie he was the best Philip Marlowe of all those who had a stab at it - in Farewell, My Lovely, he makes a half-decent fist of Jimmy McDonald, a faceless clerk in a large organization who dreams of getting ahead by winning a slogan contest. There are interesting parallels here between Sturges and Billy Wilder; both were contract writers at Paramount and both turned out exceptional screenplays in the late thirties - Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, Midnight, Easy Living and both lobbied to direct their own scripts and became hyphenates almost simultaneously, with Wilder's The Major and The Minor hot on the heels of The Great McGinty. In 1960 Wilder wrote and directed The Apartment in which Jack Lemmon, as C.C. Baxter is a faceless employee in a large corporation and gets ahead not by writing a slogan buy my lending his apartment to senior executives. The office in which Lemmon works is larger than Powell's but laid out on exactly the same lines and for good measure there's a character name-checked as Baxter. By now the Sturges repertory company - Franklin Pangborn, Raymond Walburn, William Demarest etc was up and running and a good time is had by all. Chock full o' nuts.

A simple story, told perfectly.

[planktonrules · 10/10 · 28 October 2010]

This is probably my favorite Presto Sturgess film--and I am not sure wonder why it's one of his least famous films. This is because although the story is quite simple, it's presented absolutely perfectly. The dialog, the characters and everything about the production is top-notch. In fact, it's so good I give it a 10--something I actually do pretty rarely. But it has got to be one of the best comedies of its time--in the same league as great comedies such as "Bringing Up Baby", "His Girl Friday" and "Arsenic and Old Lace" (all, incidentally, which starred Cary Grant).

The film stars Dick Powell and Ellen Drew. I have always liked Powell in films where he didn't sing--he had a nice presence about him and was underrated as an actor. As for Powell, he, too, hated the singing in all his earlier films and I am sure he liked having a break in the usual routine. However, if you've seen many of writer/director Sturgess' films, you'll know that the real stars of his movies are the wonderful supporting characters. Raymond Walburn is simply terrific but Franklin Pangborn, William Demerest (who seems to be in almost EVERY Sturgess film) and Ernest Truex are just wonderful and add so much color to the movie.

Powell plays a guy who is always entering jingle contests (something rather popular back in the good 'ol days) but keeps failing. He is especially excited about a coffee company that is giving away a $25,000 first prize--and that's all he thinks about or talks of to his fiancé or at work. To play a joke on him (a very, very unfunny one), one of his co-workers decide to send him a phony telegram saying he's won this contest. As soon as this occurs, an unexpected chain of events takes place and the joke goes spiraling out of control. I'd say more, but I don't want to ruin the film. Just see the movie--it will give you quite a few laugh out loud moments and is clever and supremely well-constructed. A must-see.

Well, I wouldn't say it was THAT great...

[RobT-2 · 2/10 · 25 April 2000]

...but it's certainly not without merit. Already writer-director Preston Sturges is experimenting with unusual cinematic effects in telling his stories, creating broadly drawn yet distinctive characters and situations, and writing clever and sometimes unexpectedly wise and compassionate dialogue. (No wonder the Coen brothers' next movie is going to be an homage to Sturges.)

The major problem is that the plot's not all the way there yet; it lacks surprise, the unexpected plot twists and sudden changes of fortune that keep viewers guessing. The coffee slogan is a lousy thing to hang the plot upon, and the ending is thoroughly predictable. Frank Capra does this sort of thing much better.

If you're new to Preston Sturges, check out "The Lady Eve" or "Sullivan's Travels" or "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" first. If you've seen these already, then go ahead and watch this one.

If you don't like this film, it's the bunk!...

[AlsExGal · 9/10 · 22 December 2018]

... and if you don't understand that title then join the rest of us who do not understand Dick Powell's entry into a coffee company slogan contest where the grand prize is 25K. None of the other characters in the film do either. Powell plays a clerk doing the kind of rote bookkeeping tasks that were replaced by computers decades ago. As he anxiously waits for the results of the contest, three of his colleagues decide to play a prank and send him a fake telegram at work saying he won the grand prize. But their joke quickly spirals out of control as the boss and even the owner of the company get involved in Powell's imaginary good fortune. They just don't have a chance to tell Powell the truth without possibly getting fired from a job they probably don't like but desperately need.

This honest earnest clerk then goes to the coffee company that was giving the prize, manages to collect the 25K check from the owner, and goes on a shopping spree for the whole neighborhood. How will this all work out? Watch and find out.

Ellen Drew plays the supportive girlfriend even BEFORE the guy thinks he won the dough, Georgia Caine plays Powell's poor but proud mother with the heart of gold, and Sturges regular William Demarest hardly has any screen time, but gets his mileage in with his attitude, one liners, and a great boomerang ending. This film at under 70 minutes manages to satirize class, media, corporate culture, and even the winds of war with the typical Sturges wit and hilarity. Highly recommended.