O. Henry's Full House (1952), 7 {nm}

John Steinbeck introduces a quintet of five of O. Henry's most celebrated stories from his New York Period (1902-1910) in this anthology film.
1h 57min | Drama | 7 August 1952
Directors: see below
Stars: Fred Allen, Anne Baxter, Jeanne Crain, Farley Granger, Charles Laughton, Oscar Levant, Marilyn Monroe, Jean Peters, Gregory Ratoff, Dale Robertson, David Wayne, Richard Widmark.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044981/

'52 was a busy year for MM, and there's at least 1 more to come.

The Cop and the Anthem, dir. Henry Koster: Here she has a very small part, as a prostitute, but one so beautiful and innocent-seeming that tramp CL attempts to mash her in order to get thrown in jail for the winter. She's amazingly luminous when the cop asks what happened, and she says "he called me a lady." Again, very close to her famous persona, but with so little to do, it's incomplete.

The interaction between CL and DW reminded me very much of Jolson and his sidekick in Hallelujah I'm a Bum ('33), but not the story, nor the character that CL portrays.

The Clarion Call, dir. Henry Hathaway: DR & RW play an unpleasant tale of cop and murderer who knew each other in childhood, and bad has control over good until the cop hatches an excellent plan. RW channels Dan Duryea as the baddie.

AB, JP & GR play in The Last Leaf, dir. Jean Negulesco, about the power of the mind, the will to live, and more self-sacrifice.

The Ransom of Red Chief, dir. Howard Hawks: In between, we FA & OL kidnapping a horrible child for ransom, but the child, who wants to play Indians, is such a terror that the parents know they can charge money to take him back.

The Gift of the Magi, dir. Henry King, is the last story. That one really made an impression on me when I first heard/saw it as a child. JC and FG are beautiful and play their love convincingly.

This is good writing, brought well to the screen.

The commentary track is worthless, describing what we see on the screen. But the featurette about O. Henry actually summarizes his life.

Fox, dir. various; 7