Christmas Holiday

Christmas Holiday is a 1944 American film noir directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Deanna Durbin, Gene Kelly, and Richard Whorf. Based on the 1939 novel of the same name by W. Somerset Maugham, the film is about a woman who marries a Southern aristocrat who inherited his familys streak of violence and instability and soon drags the woman into a life of misery. After he is arrested, the woman runs away from her husbands family, changes her name, and finds work as a singer in a New Orleans dive. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Musical Score for Hans J. Salter.

Producer Walter Wanger first planned to make W. Somerset Maughams novel Christmas Holiday into a film in 1939, but the Hays Office rejected his proposal as they felt the novels story about an Englishman meeting a beautiful Russian prostitute was too sordid. In 1943, Durbins future husband Felix Jackson gained permission to film the novel provided he change the characters. Universal optioned the book rights in March 1943. Screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz changed the setting from a Paris brothel to a nightclub in New Orleans and the main character was changed from a prostitute to a more ambiguous nightclub singer and hostess. Mankiewicz considered the screenplay among his 1940s successes of which he was most proud.Producer Felix Jackson chose this project as a dramatic vehicle for Deanna Durbin, a change from Durbins usual lightweight musical fare. Universal loaned Turhan Bey to MGM in exchange for Gene Kelly who played her husband. Gene Kelly and Deanna Durbin are cast against type in this sordid and dark film. Kelly gives a disturbingly convincing portrayal as a man virtually devoured by his inner demons. Durbin, usually the girl next door in Universal Pictures musicals, plays a naif who falls for him and sticks with him even knowing hes a killer. Christmas Holiday was the first film Durbin starred in that had not been specifically written for her. Gale Sondergaard is cast as Kellys tyrannical mother. ........

Source: Wikipedia