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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
A pleasant hour - nothing more,
By Gem (Scotland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Christmas In July [DVD] (DVD)
At just over an hour long, this seems to be a B movie, a wee bit of entertainment before the "main feature". It has a good premise but there is no time to develop the story properly. Dick Powell and Ellen Drew give likeable performances and if the film was 30 minutes longer, it could have been a cracking little comedy. As it is, you feel that the film ends just as Powell and Drew were getting started. I can't help feeling that this should be a DVD extra rather than a DVD in its own right.I'm a fan of Dick Powell in his "nice guy" and comic roles, so I didn't feel that it was a wasted hour. It was, however, a wasted opportunity to make a really good film.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.9 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews) 11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A comic gem from Sturges.,
By Marc Russell - Published on Amazon.com
One of Preston Sturges' best but least known films stars Dick Powell as an ordinary guy who becomes the victim of a prank and thinks he has won a slogan-writing contest. Altho the events are fairly predictable, this does not detract from the laughs. As with all Sturges films, plenty of fine old character actors (including, as always, William Demarest) are on hand. Why doesn't anyone make 67 minute movies anymore?
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Comedy and Humanity,
By Jerry Engelbach - Published on Amazon.com
I've always loved this film. Other reviewers have described it in detail, so I won't repeat. The comic foil characters have more humanity than similar characters in better known, and more highly regarded, Sturges films. And it's a terrific spoof of the PR industry.
At the Soho Repertory Theatre, my coartistic director Marlene Swartz and I came across Sturges's original playscript for the story, entitled A Cup of Coffee, when we were producing a series called "The Lost American Play" in the late 1980s. Surprised that the play had never been produced on the stage, we obtained permission from Preston's son Tom and his widow Sandy for Soho Rep to premiere it at the Greenwich House Theatre in 1988, where it played to capacity houses and came close to being optioned for Broadway. Our production provoked media interest in Preston Sturges's career and resulted in a book deal for Sandy Sturges, who published Preston's writings as his posthumous autobiography. Sandy and Eddie Bracken subsequently presided over a book signing at a Sturges festival at the Film Forum in New York. As a result of this rewarding experience, I continue to be attached to Christmas in July for reasons beyond the film's merits, but I still trust my original reactions to it, and for me it shares with The Lady Eve the status of favorite among so many Preston Sturges masterpieces. 6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Underappreciated Sturges masterpiece,
By George Matusek - Published on Amazon.com
Not only is "Christmas in July" one of the funniest films ever made, it is also one of the sweetest, most lovable films of all time -- I think Preston Sturges was trying to show Frank Capra how to make an unsentimental Capra film -- more precisely, how to make a Capra film where the sentimentality doesn't become cloying by the third viewing. There are no villains in this film -- plot complications arise from innocent misunderstandings or pranks, never from deliverate cruelty. Sturges indulges in none of Capra's class warfare -- here, the rich are just as warmly human as the poor. A film teeming with great character actors. Read James Harvey's book "Romantic Comedy in Hollywood from Lubitsch to Sturges" -- his high praise for "Christmas in July" makes for inspired reading -- he mentions scenes in this film where the screen is jampacked with Hollywood's best character actors -- at least, they were at their best when directed by Preston Sturges. Another book (a book of movie "bests" ) suggests that this film has the best happy ending of any film because only the audience realizes that it is a happy ending -- the characters in the film do not yet know that the gods have smiled down on them and that a great reversal of fortune is about to befall them -- a black cat runs in front of Dick Powell and Ellen Drew -- they ask a black janitor if this portends good luck or bad luck -- he tells them that all depends on what happens next -- and what will happen next is sweetly wonderful, but only we, the audience, know it. What a whirlwind finale!
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