Film review: Christmas in July (1940)

 If you're in the mood for Preston Sturges (and who isn't) but you haven't got much time, this is the one for you.  At a very brisk hour and seven minutes it seems like it's missing some of the usual beats of a film and plays out essentially in real time.  It's a little anxiety-inducing for such tender plants as myself, as the premise is that a man (Dick Powell's Jimmy MacDonald) who's submitted an advertising slogan for a $25,000 prize is pranked by his co-workers into thinking he's won it, and proceeds to splurge huge sums of money on buying everyone in his neighborhood presents.  What will happen when everyone finds out?  And the thing is, the slogan is, well, stupid.  It's for "Maxford House" coffee and it's "If you can't sleep, it isn't the coffee, it's the bunk".  We are all in the same boat as his faithful girl Betty (a very pleasant Ellen Drew, who didn't seem to do much else in movies) who just doesn't get it. 

Apparently Jimmy heard some scientist insist that coffee does not, as everyone knew it to do, keep you up, and he was very enamored of the pun on "bunk."  (Turns out, one person agrees with him.)  We are quickly introduced to the couple as the film opens with them sitting up on the roof of their apartment building listening to the radio, on which they're supposed to announce the winners.

But this doesn't happen, because the jury is deadlocked, and Jimmy's dreams (which have been quashed repeatedly, in numerous competitions, as they reveal) remain alive for at least another day.  Then, the next day at work (which is a rival coffee company, oddly enough), his co-workers overhear him calling in to check if the winner has been decided and hatch their plan.  They make up a fake telegram while Jimmy is called into his (strict but kindly) supervisor, Mr. Waterbury's office and given an eye-opening speech about winners and losers in a capitalist system, which has Jimmy feeling better about himself even if he doesn't win, but then:

Naturally, he is overjoyed and he and Betty (who also works there) are soon dancing on a table.

This brings the boss in, who is suddenly drawn to the newly-confident Jimmy and listens raptly to Jimmy's (much better) slogans for his coffee ("Baxter's Coffee - the Blue-Blood Brew!  It's bred in the bean!") and promptly promotes him and gives him his own office.  Then it's off to collect the check from Dr. Maxford.  Somehow he gets in and Maxford (who is a real character) believes him (and the fake telegram) and, thoroughly fed up with the whole contest business after the deadlock the previous night ruined (in his view) a golden advertising opportunity merely remarks on the absence of newspapers and cameramen before handing over the check.  Jimmy and Betty then go in search of, first, a ring for her, and then all sorts of furniture for Jimmy's mother and then presents for everyone on their block (who all seem to be a polyglot mixture of recent immigrants, notably including close friends the Zimmermans, who are obviously Jewish, this being 1940).  Only while this is happening does Maxford  go in search of his top employees whom he thinks should be doing their regular work for him, having cocked up the contest, but are still fighting it out on the jury and inform him that the telegram must be fake. 

He blocks the check and the owner of the department store that has sold Jimmy and Betty all their stuff finds out first and hotfoots it to his address to reclaim all their goods.  They are being assailed by the locals, who are not about to give up their new presents when Maxford arrives.  This all leaves Jimmy and Betty in a pickle, and Jimmy's newfound confidence melts away.

To make matters worse, when he tells his boss that the whole thing was a joke, his boss is inclined to take away his office and his promotion, admitting (in classic Sturges dialogue) that he himself is a useless judge and only believed Jimmy's slogans to be good ones because somebody else had judged his slogan good, and now that turned out to be a sham, his confidence in Jimmy's sloganeering had evaporated.  However, it is Betty's turn to give a stirring speech, and she persuades Baxter to give Jimmy a shot.  He gives a grudging concession to a week or so, and we are left with what looks like a mildly positive ending, when the one man (Mr. Bildocker - played by Sturges stalwart William Demarest) who had been holding up the whole prize jury shows up to announce the real winner of the contest to Maxford... 
I liked this one once I got over my anxiety.  It's definitely closer to Sullivan's Travels (in that it definitely has at least one Message - immigrants are America's strength, capitalism is dehumanizing, the US should be taking part in the war (both Hitler and Mussolini get contemptuously namechecked)) than my favorite, all-out farce Miracle of Morgan's Creek, and Dick Powell is oddly subdued, more serious than in his Busby Berkeley roles (or even his role as Marlowe) and the better for it.  Probably the best comedy is from Raymond Walburn and Ernest Truex as the two coffee barons.  Definitely check it out, if you haven't seen it - you know you can spare an hour and seven minutes!