If ever there was a case to sue a movie studio for false advertising, it’s 1944’s Christmas Holiday. Cute and perky songstress Deanna Durbin stars opposite hoofer Gene Kelly’s Cheshire grin. But instead of a light, frothy studio musical, audiences were treated to a rare holiday noir. Dave Kehr referred to it as “a must for anyone who has suffered through (Durbin’s) One Hundred Men and a Girl. Directed by noir mainstay Robert Siodmak, the film is loosely based on a story by W. Somerset Maugham, retooled for the movies to include heaps of World War II propaganda by screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (who a few years earlier had a hand in Citizen Kane). Kelly plays a bow-tied psycho-killer whose prison break coincides with the holidays. Told in intricate flashback structure, the story relates how cabaret singer Durbin recruits the aid of a serviceman passing through New Orleans (Dean Harens, barely registering on screen) to help thwart her husband Kelly’s revenge-fueled break. Hardly the stuff mistletoe and holly is made of. There is one astounding moment of cinematic splendor that demands your attention. The lovers sit amidst a crowded symphony hall, awaiting a performance of selections from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. The conductor raises his baton, and with four jump cuts, we are rapidly drawn into the performance. But edit #5 whisks the audience to an intimate restaurant where the bandleader is kicking off a romantic violin rendition of Irving Berlin’s “Always.” The startling leap causes a brief displacement in your seat — reminiscent of Kubrick monkeying around with that bone and a spacecraft — and it’s one that’s sure to remind you what’s on screen is far tastier than a leftover hunk of stollen. (1944) — Scott Marks