There is always something thrilling about finding a hidden gem of classic Hollywood. That is what makes the Cinecon film festival. Every Labor Day weekend, this festival shows rare and obscure films, many of which no one at the festival (sometimes even including the festival staff) has seen before. Going there this Labor Day Weekend is how I discovered this gem of a Christmas movie. Unfortunately, like many of the movies shown at Cinecon theatrical screenings like this are the only way you can see it. However, I hope eventually this film becomes available to watch anytime you please, I could see myself watching it every December.
In this movie, while drunk a newspaper columnist (Michael Whalen) writes a column about being the most lonesome man in the world and wanting to spend Christmas in the country with the most lonesome girl in the world. When he sobers up, he expects to be fired. Instead, the editor loves it and decides to play it up by finding the most lonesome girl in the world to spend Christmas with him. Meanwhile, a young woman (Jean Rogers) has witnessed a murder and decides that pretending to be the most lonesome girl in the world and spending Christmas with the columnist in the country would be the perfect way to hide out. What is not planned is how the two end up falling in love.
With an hour-long runtime this movie packs in tons of breezy entertainment. There isn't a single moment that isn't a joy to watch. The first portion of this film plays like a Christmas themed romantic comedy, almost like a prototype Christmas in Connecticut (1945). It makes for an excellent one. The romance is sweet and heartfelt; the characters are likable, and the humor is quite funny. Much of this works because of its two leads, Michael Whalen and Jean Rogers. The two have excellent chemistry and make the romance scenes completely believable. However eventually this film shifts into a crime drama. It is a pretty dang good one. There is a great sense of tension as well as some fantastic twists. Unlike many other B-movies there were times, I did not know where the film was heading. Even during this later portion though the movie keeps a great sense of humor. Some scenes involving a couple old ladies (Jan Duggan, Louise Carter) are truly hilarious and these characters and actresses steal the show. All this fits into the short runtime perfectly creating a real delight of a film.
This marks the third and final film in a brief series of B-movies known as The Roving Reporters. The previous two movies in this series (Time Out for Murder (1938) and While New York Sleeps (1939)) were directed by H. Bruce Humberstone. However this film was directed by Richardo Cortez, who is better known to movie fans as an actor. He played romantic leads in the silent era but in the talkie, era started to play tough guys. He even played the original screen version of Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1931). Working as a director now Cortez proved to be a real perfectionist taking his time to make sure everything was as good as possible. However, Fox (the studio this movie was made for) viewed as simply another B movie causing a lot of friction between director and studio.
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