#140RVW
Curtiz-directed comedy at times feels like adapted play (it is). My all-time favorite Christmas movie. Bogie should have done more comedies.
What’s more:
Watch this one while wrapping presents every year. There are better Christmas movies, of course, ones that more completely reflect the season, but this is a very nice mix of heartwarming and dark comedy. Not black comedy, exactly, just moments of darkness. After all, the main characters played by Bogart, Ray & Ustinov are hard (if not hardened) criminals. What’s truly wonderful about their performances is that while they spend most of the film showing their tender and kind side, there are a few moments where they let their genuine menace show.
It’s a slow burn, not hiding its origins as a play. Two plays, actually, as it was originally put on in France. There are lots of quiet moments, meaningful glances, pregnant pauses. It really is a nice feel, because at the heart of all the silences are the layered emotions of these convicts and their realization that not all prisoners are behind steel bars.
Just one more thing: there is another movie of the same name made in 1989 by the otherwise reliable Neil Jordan. Ostensibly based on the two original plays and the 1955 movie, it is truly dreadful. Avoid like the plague…
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Trailer:
