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Such a frustrating disappointment

As Good As It Gets

Absolutely Fantastic

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

O. Henry was a late 19th and early 20th century short story writer. He was best admired for his twist endings. O. Henry's Full House selected five of his tales to dramatize.As a kid I watched the film on television, sitting on the couch with my beloved dachshund sleeping in my lap. "The Last Leaf" starring Anne Baxter was absorbing my attention. Tossed into a New York City blizzard by her rejecting lover, she despairingly makes her way to her sister's apartment building in front of which she passes out. How curious that in real life, Baxter would decades later collapse on a city sidewalk and die.Baxter is helped inside by her sister and a doctor makes a house call. Diagnosing her with pneumonia, he naively believes that due to her young age she will survive. However, the sister knows about the affair yet cannot convince Baxter to forget it. Lying in bed looking through the picture window, noting the leaves dropping from the vines, she declares that when the last leaf has fallen, she will die.That night the sister and we see two remaining leaves. One blows away and the other is beginning to break off. We all fear the leaf will fall by morning. When dawn comes, there is sunlight behind the curtains, and Baxter demands her sister pull them open. In horrific anticipation, I found myself squirming, startling my poor doggy. To avoid spoiling the scene, I won't reveal what next transpires, but take my word that O. Henry's twists could be quite complex - what you think you see, might not be what really is there.The last movie segment was based on his most popular "The Gift of the Magi", wherein newlyweds experience their first Christmas Eve together. Even in 1905 there was commercialism demanding that people spend rather than focus on their love for each other. We witness the wife in tears as she sells a precious possession to buy a gift for her beloved. When he comes home he is shocked at what she sold. Then she and we experience shock discovering what he in fact sold to afford his present. Fortunately the pair laugh at what they've done, celebrating the true meaning of the season.They've learned the priceless lesson that this feature reminds us of - count your blessings.

For me this hasn't weathered at all well. Maybe the fact that the first segment, The Cop And The Anthem, features Charles Laughton has something to do with it Laughton hails, appropriately, from Scarborough which is in Yorkshire and a bigger York ham I have yet to see. I am, on the other hand, a great admirer of Richard Widmark and it was disappointing to see this fine actor squandering his talent in a reprise of his Tommy Udo character in his breakthrough role, Kiss of Death. The Ransom of Red Chief is frankly embarrassing despite the presence of the great Fred Allen who made far too few movies, and it would have been kinder to have left it on the Cutting Room floor. The last two segments are pure sentiment in the shape of The Last Leaf in which Gregory Ratoff sacrifices his own life to save Ann Baxter's and finally the one everyone knows, The Gift Of The Magi. I have no problem with sentiment but sentiment PLUS Farley Granger and Jeanne Crain is a tad too much.

Perhaps I am getting too old, but this film grows in my eyes as the years pass. The old saying they don't make films like this anymore is set in granite here. The under 40 generations has perhaps heard of a few of the stars here, but each in his day and time has their moment in the sun. They made a moved called Ragtime a few years back, it never hit the spot, marked the era as well as this film did. 1890-1910, the United State from the small towns to big New York City. The more you know about history the more I think you can feel the verse and sense the style of this movie. Ragtime, 1900 in New York, the city of Teddy Roosevelt, The time of Ben Hecht and Ring Lardner.... The Clarion Call is to my mind, a classic that seems to ring out a sense of the era. The other critics think that Richard Widmarks over the top performance was a bit much. No way, he was playing a type, a person you might find in Guys and Dolls that at one time and day did exist. The feel of the day, the period of Yellow Journalism, the sense of honor and betrayal. all speak to me. I give the Clarion Call a big thumbs up. The Last Leaf and The Gift Of The Magi will leave romantics smiling or crying. Short films are not made like this anymore. Each of these stories is put to film by a master filmmaker and most people just need to sit back and move back to those days of yesteryear's. For a story to read, O'Henry will knock the sock off your average reader as he lived much of what was in each story. The Ransome of Red Chief and The Cop And The Anthem....Are each good casting and funny and ironic. Marilyn Monroe fans will want to watch this movie to see her at her most lovely. If you missed Oscar Levant or don't know about Fred Allen, here a time to pause and reflect. The time is 1900,Scott Joplins music is playing, Tin Pan Alley really exists...The coin of the realm is an Indian Head Penny and O'Henrys characters come alive in this classic movie. Too bad you don't get to see Alias Jimmy Valentine, or the Cisco Kid and his tales of Old California. but for the price of admission you can be taken back to yesteryear when the 20th century was new. American society is so different now, but ... if you turn off the lights... put this movie on, you too can start to better understand America. Marilyn, its time for your close up.........

I had never seen this film until a couple of days ago and it was an interesting experience. I enjoyed John Steinbeck's narration of the five O'Henry stories. It was obvious he greatly respected William Sidney Porter as writer and as human being.The segments are nicely done. Charles Laughton has a fabulous turn as a gentlemen tramp who's just simply looking for his room and board for the winter by trying to commit a minor infraction that will give him jail time during what looks like a rough winter coming. Anne Baxter and Jean Peters are also good as a pair of sisters one of whom has convinced herself she'll die if the last leaf falls off of a bush. Fred Allen and Oscar Levant do nicely as a pair of confidence men turned kidnappers who have the tables turned on them by their victim. You have to have confidence to be a confidence man is Allen's advice to Levant. Nice to see that legendary radio comedian on the big screen. And Farley Granger and Jeanne Crain are touching in the classic Christmas storyThe Gift of the Magi.The only jarring note comes from one of my favorite actors, Richard Widmark. He and Dale Robertson do a turn as a bad guy and coprespectively in a short story called The Clarion Call. Widmark has committed a murder and Robertson knows it, but can't bring himself to arrest him because of a monetary debt from years past.The O'Henry stories are set in the gaslight era of New York. Widmark does not do anything original but just repeats his Tommy Udo character from Kiss of Death. He even dresses like him, the standard black dress shirt and white tie are jarringly out of place here. The director of this segment was Henry Hathaway who did do Kiss of Death as well sothat might offer an explanation. But it just looks ludicrous.Other than this segment the film is fine. 7 out of 10.