Holiday Affair (1949): a super nice Mitchumovie

I finally started reading Baby I don't care, Robert Mitchum's ultra recommended biography. That means that from now on I'll start to spam with Mitchumovies, just like I did with Maureen O'Hara last week. You've been warned.

I just reached page...25, but I had a Mitchumovie I hadn't seen and sounded great: Holiday Affair (1949; Don Hartman) with Janet Leigh, so I decided to watch that one. It was so cute!

The plot told in a very confuse way: Janet Leigh is a widow and has one ultra adorable kid, Timmy, to support. They seem to manage very well together, their relationship is so warm and natural  AND they call each other Mr. and Mrs. Ennis...aww. But there are some problems: Janet works as a "comparison shopper", so she has to go from store to store buying certain products to check them and compare the competition.

She doesn't earn too much money and things get complicated when, just before Christmas, a handsome salesman (Mitchum, obviously) discovers her tricks. The guy understands her motives and gets fired for covering her. Besides, Janet has a fiance (Wendell Corey) who wants to marry her since the beginning of time, but she's completely unsure. And the adorable kid hates the guy. And then loves Mitchum, obviously.

Besides the lovely performance by Janet and the kid, I loved Mitchum's character, a man that is saving money to buy a boat and go to South America (so cool) and likes to go to the Central Park and eat in front of a seal and feed a squirrel. He has great chemistry with Janet, so great that they make you forget the fact that the fiancé was a really good, supportive, caring guy, that only wanted to have a family with Janet and her son, but after two years was left for Mitchum's coolness.

I also liked the fact that every character, even when they're minor (like the judge, Janet's parents, the owner of a big store, etc), seem to have a background which makes everything more believable. And it's so entertaining when movies show different aspects of the life in the cities where they're located (like people riding in a crowded bus, or the Park, or people buying in the stores, or how neighbor kids accompanied each other while their parents worked, etc).

So, what's my awesome conclusion? Well, there are terrific Mitchumovies in which Robert plays creepy characters that want to kill boys and nice Mitchum movies in which his characters are great with kids. Like this one. You should see it. 

• TCM.com has some clips of this movie (I couldn't embed them). 
• My previous reviews of two Mitchumovies: Cape Fear (1962) & Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957)