Holiday Affair

Holiday Affair is a 1949 American romantic comedy film produced and directed by Don Hartman and starring Robert Mitchum, Janet Leigh, and Wendell Corey, with Gordon Gebert.

Steve Mason, a veteran seeking to go to Southern California to build sailboats, is employed as a salesman during the Christmas season at Crowley's, a New York department store.

Connie Ennis is a comparative shopper for a rival store, and hurriedly buys an expensive toy train set from him without asking any questions about it.

The next day, when Connie seeks a refund on the train set, Steve reveals he had suspected her all along and threatens to report her to the store detective.

Freed, Steve is invited to an uneasy Christmas dinner at the Ennis home, where he openly asks Connie to marry him instead of Carl.

He eventually explains the situation to the store's owner, Mr. Crowley, who gives Timmy a refund and a ride home to his distraught mother.

The Brooklyn Eagle found it a "mildly pleasant, unpretentious romantic comedy...that strikes a vague but teasingly familiar note as it unfolds."

After citing the New York setting around the Christmas holiday, and the importance of a large department store, the review said these would likely bring to mind Miracle on 34th Street (1947), with the film "wending an amiable but unimaginative way toward a foregone climax.

Advertisement in Modern Screen , January 1950