“IT’S THE BUNK!”

By Raymond Benson

In the year 1940, Hollywood screenwriter Preston Sturges elevated his career to become one of the first writer/director double threats since the silent days of Chaplin and Keaton. For a brief five years in the early 40s, his flame burned brightly as he churned out sophisticated screwball comedies that had great wit, intelligence, and a stock company of iconic supporting comic actors—the guys you always recognize but never know their names (actually, they are talents like William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn, Al Bridge, Georgia Caine, and Ernest Truex, to name a handful who appear in Christmas in July).

After winning an Oscar for writing The Great McGinty (1940), Sturges presented superb material through 1945. Short, smart, and hilarious, Christmas in July was his second directorial effort from a script based on his own unproduced stage play. Like most of Sturges’ works, the story concerns the Everyman who wants nothing more than to better himself—and if he must challenge authority and make some waves while he does it, then so be it.

July’s Everyman is Jimmy (Dick Powell), who works as a lowly office man in a major corporation. Interestingly, the depiction of the militaristic and robotic employees and their strictly enforced drudgery is a foreshadowing of how Billy Wilder portrayed the insurance agency grindhouse in The Apartment, twenty years later! Jimmy dreams of making enough money to justify proposing to his sweetheart, Betty (Ellen Drew). In fact, he has entered a contest sponsored by a rival coffee producing company to invent a new advertising slogan, the winner of which will receive $25,000. (His slogan is “If you can’t sleep at night, it’s not the coffee—it’s the bunk!” Get it?)

As a cruel prank, three of Jimmy’s colleagues create a phony telegram, informing him that he’s won. A further series of miscommunications and timing mishaps deliver the real prize money to Jimmy, so he goes on a huge spending spree for Betty (a diamond ring), his mother, and his friends and neighbors on his block. To reveal what happens when the powers-that-be discover the mistake would spoil the rest of the story!

The picture is not really a “Christmas movie.” The title simply refers to the spending spree Jimmy goes on. It’s “like Christmas” for everyone. What makes the film unique for a comedy—and there are many laughs—is the tremendous amount of suspense that is built. Sturges sets up the situation and then lets it explode with one misunderstanding after another. The audience knows that eventually Jimmy’s good fortune is going to come crashing down. We so want it to turn out well for our hero and his girl… but will it?

It's fabulous stuff.

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray 1920x1080p restoration looks good enough (much better than the previous DVD release in a Sturges box set from some years ago), and it comes with an optional audio commentary by film historian Samm Deighan. There are no other supplements other than theatrical trailers for this and other Kino Lorber releases. (Note to Sturges fans—The Great McGinty is coming soon on Blu-ray, too!)

Preston Sturges was a national treasure, and anything he released between 1940-1945 is a classic to be savored. Christmas in July is one of those delectables.

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