ridiculous rating

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Admirable film.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Enjoyed "Christmas In July" as it was funny but not uproariously so. The hero, Dick Powell, thinks he has won a 25,000 dollar prize for submitting the winning slogan for Maxford House coffee, but he really didn't - it was the result of a practical joke by some co-workers. The story hinges, then, on a mean-spirited prank, which for me took some of the fun out of the movie.Dick Powell and Ellen Drew were the couple who had great plans but were brought down to earth when the hoax was uncovered. The best role in the picture went to Raymond Walburn as the bombastic, harried President of Maxford House and who had some of the best lines. Powell's character turns out to be a big-hearted, generous sort, with presents for as many neighbors and acquaintances as he could think of, which I felt made the joke even more heartless. I know, it was only a movie, but that's the way it struck me. De gustibus non est disputandum, as they say.

Dick Powell plays an office clerk named Jimmy MacDonald who loves entering all kinds of contests in hopes of winning the grand prize, including one from Maxwell House Ground Coffee. His co-workers decide to play a practical joke on him by faking a winning telegram saying that Jimmy has won the $25,000 grand prize. Ecstatic, Jimmy then goes overboard buying presents and proposing to his girlfriend, as well as receiving a promotion. When he learns the whole thing was a hoax, he finds himself in a real bind... Sporadically funny comedy is just too contrived and silly to succeed, despite an energetic cast. What a rotten trick to pull on someone too!

For his second film as a director, Preston Sturges was given a slightly bigger budget than he had with The Great McGinty. With that he went and hired a star, not too big a star mind you, but one who was looking for something decent to play and was quite at liberty.The star was Dick Powell who had finished his Warner Brothers contract and spent a year away from the movies. Though Christmas In July might have seen at first glance as silly as some of what he was trying to get away from, Powell did recognize the talent of Preston Sturges and signed for this one shot deal.Sturges chose to satire in Christmas In July, America's obsession with radio contests, a subject that later would be used for television in the James Stewart film, The Jackpot a decade later. Powell has thought of this clever jingle for Maxford Coffee, a play on words, 'if you can't sleep at night, it's not the coffee, it's the bunk' which he tries explaining to any number of people, to his girl friend Ellen Drew and to his co-workers where he toils at a dreary desk job.Co-workers Rod Cameron, Harry Rosenthal, and Adrian Morris decide a nice practical joke is in order and fake a telegram to Powell from Raymond Walburn, the head of Maxford Coffee, saying Powell's jingle won. Powell naturally goes giddy with the thought of $25,000.00 and does as the telegram directs, goes to Raymond Walburn who thinking his jingle committee has actually come up with a winner, cuts him a check.Powell is a very decent sort and thinks of a lot of people in his neighborhood whom he'd like to help and spends it on them. It's quite a letdown for all involved when it all turns out to be a hoax.Christmas In July like all really great comedy has its elements of pathos as well. This same scenario could easily have been the elements for great tragedy as well. Powell and Drew register the highs and lows of their characters very well.By now Preston Sturges had established his noted stock company of players, most of whom appear in Christmas In July. One of them, William Demarest proves the savior of the situation, an ironical savior to be sure when you see the film.Though Powell wanted to do drama and was not to get that chance until a few years later, Preston Sturges was definitely a step up from some of silly stuff Jack Warner had been casting him in. Powell showed he could handle screwball comedy with the best of them in Christmas In July.

This was one of Preston Sturges's best movies on his first time directing that included "The Great McGinty" and "The Lady Eve. The movie stars Dick Powell and Ellen Drew as a couple who are engaged but Powell wants to wait to get married because they don't make enough money and his mind is on a contest for $25,000 that he entered for a slogan of a coffee company. Powell's friends at work play a trick on him by writing a fake letter saying he won the prize money but once Powell opens it they can't get to him on time to tell him it's a fake. Then Powell gets a promotion and starts to buy everything for all his friends and family but not knowing it's a fake. It's a very funny movie that's one of Sturges's least known work.