1940 Directed by Preston Sturges
An office clerk loves entering contests in the hopes of someday winning a fortune and marrying the girl he loves. His latest attempt is the Maxford House Coffee Slogan Contest. As a joke, some of his co-workers put together a fake telegram which says that he won the $25,000 grand prize.
Dick Powell Ellen Drew Raymond Walburn Alexander Carr William Demarest Ernest Truex Franklin Pangborn Harry Hayden Rod Cameron Adrian Morris Harry Rosenthal Georgia Caine Ferike Boros Torben Meyer Julius Tannen Al Bridge Lucille Ward Victor Potel George Anderson Sam Ash Jan Buckingham James Conaty Jimmy Conlin Sayre Dearing Norah Gale Harry Hollingsworth Arthur Hoyt Arthur Stuart Hull Stanley Mack Show All…
Oh my god, I loved this. Was really expecting a lesser Sturges (and really only put it on because it's a cool 67 minutes) but it's so delightful. Raymond Walburn's Dr. Maxford is incredible. He's got so many little lines that made me giggle. We should bring back calling someone a "burger" as an insult.
"We have muffed the most dramatic advertising moment in commerce, and you've made a fathead out of me!"
Christmas in July is just as imaginary a concept as benevolence in capitalism in Preston Sturges’ 1940 social comedy.
The promise of a Santa showing in the film is a false of a premise as that of upward class mobility, as “July” is more occupied with mulling societal inequities than what to put on a Christmas wish list. The very un-seasonal plot actually depicts a lower class ad copywriter who mistakenly is led to think he has won $25,000. But what a dupe it is that Sturges uses the lure of the most money dependent holiday in a work critiquing capitalism.
Like many of Sturges’ earlier Depression-era entries, there are no haves and have nots in “July.” There are only the…
Without exaggeration, every single one of Raymond Walburn’s lines in this movie is funny to me. Can’t think of anybody with a bettwr hit ratio. All-time goof!!
“I’ve seen better heads on… umbrellas!”
“My grandmother was Scottish.”
“Mine was Lithuanian.”
So desperate and so packed with jokes. Sturges satire about capitalism idiocy is very funny but it sustained by a great eye for its characters self delusions. Sturges supporting cast is rich as usual and the film benefit from a very good rapport betwen Dick Powell and Ellen Drew that grounds the absurd action (I think this is Powell's best perfornance combining both his more likable and harsh qualities while keep him more animated than usual). It is a movie about the ridiculous of advertising that has a great sense about the personal and publc figures and how central it is for the construction of imagination and Sturges manages to keep it at same time very negative and while superficially upbeat through a very impressive handling of mixed tones. It is an extremy hollow destructive movie that has a surprising amounth of warmth.
"You wouldn't know a slogan if you slipped on one."
Preston Sturges' sophomore directorial effort Christmas in July represents a great leap forward in terms of pacing and narrative efficiency but is still constrained by periodic mawkishness. Sturges' screenplay concerns the turbulent fortune of tenement-dwelling daydreamer Jimmy MacDonald (Dick Powell), whose fantasies of personal vindication through pecuniary windfall are tactlessly stoked when a group of co-workers forge a telegram claiming Jimmy has won a lucrative slogan contest for Maxford House Coffee (though in fact a committee is still debating over the outcome). Affirming the principle that human value is determined by labor capital, Jimmy's dithering boss (Ernest Truex) promotes him on the spot—despite being inclined to fire him only moments…
I knew I was gonna like this the moment the main character got in trouble at work because he wouldn’t stop writing “$25,000” on a piece of paper
Cinematic Time Capsule
1940 Marathon - Film #15
”Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Well, dog my cats, I should say it is!”
An office prank spirals out of control when coworkers trick Dick Powell into thinking he’s won a slogan contest for his company’s competitor.
Only a year away from his one-two punch of “Sullivan’s Travels” and “The Lady Eve”, Preston Sturges brings us his second directorial effort and it’s an absolutely charming fable of fortunes never made, and fortunes never lost. Sturges’ scripts are magnificent feats of dialogue and it makes the whole movie a pleasure to watch.
Dick Powell & Ellen Drew are great together, as the couple who ground the picture in earnestness while several scenery eating characters swirl around…
I thought beforehand that my favorite swear word in Golden Hollywood movies was 'holy mackerel' but Raymond Walburn certainly topped it with his thundering 'jumping Jerusalem'.
Consistently funny and wonderfully acted, just ultimately rather lightweight.
The film starts as a sharp send up of the emptiness of capitalism, and how our society fetishizes wealth. Where so much of society is built around debt, credit and fictional capital, the core premise of a person gaining further money and prestige just because they think they've already got the money is a great one. It shows the exclusive nature of societal progression and the central lies of the pernicious system.
Alas, the film loves its protagonist a little too much. When the rug is pulled out, and the system is seen as a sham, the film can't cement its messages and instead goes for emotion. Our protagonist actually does…
The wholesome imagery of Jimmy and Betty having their sweet rooftop dates and of Jimmy's second-generation immigrant home just barely covers Sturges's acid vision of the rat race of social climbing. A "fake it til you make it" narrative about a man who doesn't even realize he's perpetuating a con, Christmas in July sets up poor Jimmy as a hapless poor man whose only conceivable path out of modest-wage office work (check the roving shots of endless desks that fit a long tradition of classic Hollywood depictions of the workplace as an endless, almost Escherian nightmare) is to win a contest cynically mounted by a company owner who will reap far more from the attention than he will paying out…
I'm no genius. I didn't hang on to my father's money by backing my own judgment, you know.
Fake it ‘til you make it. Even if that fakery is entirely under false pretences and we were playing a prank on you this whole time. Oops, we’ve just gone and exposed how corrupt this whole game is, how we’re all so punch-drunk on dollar signs that little (read: nothing) else matters and the fastest way to climb to the very top of that ladder is the illusion of wealth and control at the total expense of everything else, haven’t we? Oh haha, would you look at us.
Say what, it was all a ruse? But you claim you’re a really hard…
