Rent Christmas in July (1940)

Social Comedy. - Christmas in July review by Steve

The second Preston Sturges picture as writer/director is an update of his own unfilmed screenplay from 1931. And it feels like it belongs back then, in the worst years of the depression. It's another pro-New Deal comedy. Sturges hasn't yet found his groove and this doesn't have the screwball craziness of his classics.

This is a satire of US capitalism- with similarities to his script for Easy Living (1937). Dick Powell plays a frustrated working drudge who can't afford to marry and start a family with his colleague (Ellen Drew). When he is duped into thinking he has won a fortune on a caption competition, all his dreams have come true.

Only it was a gag and he is still poor. The themes of corporate exploitation, and social hardship make this a political film. Plus the incompetence of the bosses. And the drug of consumerism makes it feel contemporary. The fake winner is going to spend, spend, spend on a lot of shiny, gimmicky future landfill. 

Powell plays a likeable everyman who lives and works without opportunity. And there's a fine support cast of Sturges regulars. There isn't a single laugh, but the situations resonate still. What if the super-rich executives gave a little bit more to accommodate even the basics of life for the staff? Wouldn't that stimulate the moribund economy?