Christmas in July (1940), by Preston Sturges, is a nice short story of a film. It isn’t novelistic, yet it is a feature film. Jimmy MacDonald (Dick Powell) is tricked by co-workers into believing he won a commercial slogan contest. He can’t possibly afford the purchases he then makes; enter the police, etc. As in other Sturges movies, a pendulum swings from being poor to being rich or vice versa, and it happens one way or another. An American fond of Europe, Sturges looked at New World wealth with European guilessless and consternation but also hope.

Christmas is slight but pleasurably rowdy. Not as good as, say, the more novelistic Sullivan’s Travels, it is nevertheless engaging. Powell’s acting is ready for tragicomedy and successful. The daughter of an Irish-born barber, Ellen Drew is likable as Jimmy’s wife but seems to have a bit of an accent which harms her voice appeal in lengthy speech.