Waste of time

Purely Joyful Movie!

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

I'm usually a softhearted for these Christmas movies from the 40's and maybe if Frank Capra had had an opportunity to recast and have some significant rewriting done then maybe this film would have turned out better. A neglected film is Holiday Affair with Robert Mitchum, Janet Leigh, and Wendell Corey. Directed by Don Hartman it has a lighter and more comedic touch.The only member of the cast I like is Charles Ruggles. Everyone else is miscast and without sympathy which is not good for a film that's supposed to pull on your heartstrings. By now you know the plot, a hobo moves into a Fifth Avenue mansion while the owner winters in Tennessee. Victor Moore is the hobo and had a spotted film career. Moore's character, Aloysius T McKeever, ends up having a recently evicted soldier, Jim Bullock (Don DeFore) move in with him and then a slew of others show up. When the mansion's owner Michael J. O'Conner (Ruggles) shows up, his daughter Trudy (Gale Storm) is romantically interested in Bullock. When Trudy realizes her father is about to have everyone in the house arrested, she calls in her divorced mother Mary (Ann Harding) to help present a bulwark against her father.Of course, there is the requisite happy ending with O'Conner and his wife getting back together, Bullock and Trudy cementing their romance, a bunch of ex-servicemen pulling their money to buy housing, the usual. I am sure in the current climate (2017), the story might have appeal with the little people vs. the industrial giant; but the little people only win because Michael J. O'Conner lets them in a rather unbelievable end. It's not that I don't like the message, it's just the wrong movie for me.Oddly enough this movie was popular with audiences while Capra's directorial choice It's a Wonderful Life bombed. But with time the Capra film is now a Christmas classic; and It Happened on Fifth Avenue is just about completely forgotten.

It's right after WWII and Defoe and his vet buddies are out of money and out of luck. Until they happen upon the vacant (or so they think) O'Connor mansion on 5th Avenue in NYC. Nice to see the Skipper (Alan Jr.) out there, I've always said if it's a WWII movie you always have a shot at either Alan Jr or Sr, often as a cook. Gail Storm glows and shows just how she became a household name in early TV, and when you hear her movie dad Ruggles you'll recognize his voice from Rocky and Bullwinkle. This really isn't as polished as It's A Wonderful Life, so I can't put it up there with the top Christmas classics, I think it fits better in the Little-Known Christmas Gems category.

This is a hybrid of The Pied Piper and A Christmas Carol in which Victor Moore has a sure-fire recipe for beating homelessness; he simply moves into a large mansion on Fifth Avenue which is boarded up for the winter whilst the owner is in Florida then, when the owner, Michael O'Connor (Charlie Ruggles) moves back in Spring Moore moves into his now empty Florida mansion. One year (1947) he invites ex-serviceman Don DeFore to share the house with him and then, before he knows it, this Pied Piper has acquired a group of ex-servicemen and their wives and families, victims of the chronic housing shortage that obtained immediately after the Second World War. Now the story switches into Dickens mode as the owner of the mansion enters the scene and masquerades as a tramp in his own house. Portrayed as a Scrooge figure he naturally has to bee redeemed and became humane by the last reel. There are, of course, flaws inasmuch as O'Connor is not in Florida at all but in his office in Manhattan therefore there is no reason why he would not be living on Fifth Avenue himself and with a retinue of servants. Cavils like this aside this is a delight from beginning to end with the only jarring note being Gale Storm who lacks the attractiveness to be the love interest and is light years less prepossessing than Ann Harding, cast as her mother. It was made within months of both Miracle on 34th Street and It's A Wonderful Life, shares their wholesomeness, sentimentality, is equally heartwarming, made on a tenth of the budgets of the other two and need not take a back seat to either.

A lovely holiday tale about a hobo, Victor Moore, who uses a millionaire's mansion on Fifth Avenue during the winter months. He knows when the millionaire leaves for his winter home and respectfully lives like a king in the mansion, only this year he meets down and out, homeless Don DeFore and invites him to stay. Soon the mansion is refuge to a couple of DeFore's friends and their wives, the millionaire's runaway daughter, and even the millionaire and his ex-wife, who all learn a valuable life lesson from the wise and kindly tolerant hobo. This film is full of fun and perfectly performed by fine actors and actresses of the day and so very well directed to deliver a humanitarian message of compassion, kindheartedness, charity and love. This brilliant and enjoyable sentimental story set during the Christmas season, will certainly enrich all who watch.