The Class Struggle- With Preston Sturges’ Christmas In July In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Christmas In July, starring Dick Powell, directed by Preston Sturges

Scene: A boy from the tenements, the New York City tenements from the high rise backdrop feel of it, the respectable working poor tenements not the rough-edgedHell’s Kitchen variety filled with pug uglies and the dregs of society if you please, is daydreaming, no, night dreaming with his girl about what they would do if they had some real dough. Real dough in the times we are talking about, maybe the late1930s early 1940s, being about twenty-five thousand dollar. Nothing but walking around money today but serious dough back then, especially for boys and girls who came up the hard way living on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Spam, or some such variations. And what they dream of coming out of the Great Depression is not some mansion or Rolls Royce but a little cottage for two (maybe for more later, after they tie the knot), with a white picket fence out in, well, out in not New York City tenement land. Maybe a nice Nash Rambler, a few bucks in the bank after taking care of the extended family and easy street all wrapped in a bow. Just like today except like I say, today you had better add some zeros to that easy street number discussed above.

Of course sitting on some star-crossed tenement rooftop dreaming such dreams does not get you to square one in the quest for easy street. You have to have an idea, a good idea, and work your butt off to prove that you are worthy of such easy street luxuries. And so boy, Dick, and girl, Ellen, just dream the dream and go to their nine to five prison office jobs and place those aforementioned dreams on hold just like millions of other in depression times or not. But not so fast. See Dick has an idea, an idea of himself as a budding Madison Avenue mad man ad man and with just a break or two, just a little whisper in some hot- shot’s ear might be just the thing to push him alone. Wouldn’t you know just as Dick is about give up hope he decides to screw up his courage and walk right in the general manager’s office with his bag full of ad ideas, good ones too, the ones not so good he left on the cutting room floor. Ads that will make confirmed tea drinkers cry out in the night for coffee, that will make housewives who swear by virtues of pure butter scratch each other’s eyes out getting to the dairy counter for oleomargarine, and make formerly satisfied Camel smokers turn with nicotine rage until they can get their hands on a fresh deck of Lucky Strikes. More than one man, more than one company too, would be willing to pay a pretty penny for such results if only they were aware that such a budding ad man existed on the planet.

Dick finally did screw up that courage, finally did go into the general manager’s office and present his case. And while the general manager was skeptical about some of Dick’s ad ideas he passed the material on up the chain of command to the boss man, the owner, who liked many of his ideas, and thought they had some merit. And as a reward for such good ideas and the willingness to go to the mat for them Dick moved over from his thirty- dollar a week desk job along with forty others all arranged in rows of ten checking invoices to the ad department creating ads at fifty- dollars a week along with thirty others all arranged in rows of ten. Of course if somebody had an idea to make a movie of Dick’s’ life (and don’t forget faithful Ellen) he would have as a result of his pluck been on happy ending easy street cavorting with the Mayfair swells, working hard on the nightclub circuit and dreaming with Ellen out in some cozy little suburban cottage. But this is a saga of the class struggle, not about tinsel town movies and so it goes.