How about a Christmas Noir? I actually Googled those terms, looking for a crime flick with some holiday spirit, and believe it or not there are a few. I guess it's not that unusual when you consider "Die Hard", but that's a modern movie and I guess I wasn't expecting to find anything similar from the old days. But I did, and the one I chose was called "Mr. Soft Touch"(1949), starring Glenn Ford as a nightclub owner who is on the run from the Mob. As the movie opens, he's in a car chase, hightailing it through the streets of San Francisco with four hoodlums hot on his tail. It seems he's just robbed his own club of a hundred grand in cash.
I'd better stop to explain: Ford is an ex-GI, perhaps an incongruity considering his line of work, but he's a patriotic guy and honest for the most part. He's tried to co-exist with the local mobsters, but while he was overseas, they moved in and took over his joint. He was left with no choice but to rob it, to get the money from the safe that is rightfully his. So yeah, in short, he's just robbed his own club, which has been taken over by the 'Frisco Mob, and now they're chasing him down.
He tries hiding out at the apartment of an old pal, but the hoods are on to that pad. So, Ford stages a ruse to get himself arrested, which will put him in jail where he knows he'll be safe, at least for the night. The date is December 23rd. In the morning, much to his surprise, he is bailed out by a social worker (Evelyn Keyes), who works at a home for the indigent. She scours the courthouse for cases such as Ford's, and thinks him to be a down-and-out vagrant who can be rehabilitated. She whisks him away to the Home, which also houses orphans, and suddenly we have our Christmas theme, and on Christmas Eve no less.
As noted earlier, Ford is basically a decent guy, so he starts using his recovered loot to buy things for the Home (bed sheets, towels, even a piano), but he has to do it all anonymously, lest Miss Keyes find out that he isn't a hobo but a man with dangerous connections. Making the situation more complex is a nosy gossip columnist (John Ireland) who also has one foot in the Mob's door. He wants to make a name for himself, either by nailing the mobsters or turning them on to Ford's hideout; he doesn't care which.
It sounds pretty hard boiled, but in truth it's played on a lighter level. The crime context is a framework for the social themes espoused by Keyes as the Home's chief administrator. She has a backstory of her own, which Ford works hard to get out of her before they succumb to the inevitable romance. Before that happens, there is a Christmas party to prepare for, with lots of classic Hollywood character-types taking part. The portrayal of a privately funded house of charity feels more Depression-era than late-40s (almost 1950), but it works better to have that throwback because it adds to the Christmas sentiment as only Hollywood can capture.
The crime theme will still be maintained throughout the film, and will bracket the ending as it did the beginning, but the bulk of the story is about recovery from adverse conditions, strength in numbers, and in the trust that the meek shall inherit the Earth. There are some slow sections, but Glenn Ford's star presence props up any lags, and the real story is propelled by Evelyn Keyes, and the great Beulah Bondi in a supporting role as a fellow social worker at the Home.
Give it a shot if you're up for a different kind of Christmas movie. Two Thumbs Up for "Mr. Soft Touch".
I don't like being home at the moment because I live next door to non-stop party people and it's become an untenable situation. Currently I prefer being at Pearl's, and if there is any way I can do so, I am gonna try to get out of this building in 2021. I only mention it because today was a little trying, hence the short blog and just one movie review instead of two. But I'll be back tomorrow with the other one. In the meantime, here's Five Tomes, big books of 600 pages or more that have greatly influenced my perspective in recent years.
1) "Energy From The Vacuum" by Thomas Bearden
2) "Genesis, Creation and Early Man" by Father Seraphim Rose
3) "Aberration in the Heartland of the Real : The Secret Lives of Timothy McVeigh" by Wendy Painting
4) "The Rendlesham Enigma" by Jim Penniston
5) "Forbidden Archaeology" by Michael Cremo
See you in the morning. Tons of Love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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