25 Days of Christmas | It happened on 5th Avenue, 1947

It happened on 5th avenue | 1947

Aloyisius T. McKeever (Victor Moore) is a New York City hobo who hasn’t been homeless for 20 years, ever since he discovered how easy it was to break in the houses of the wealthiest men in New york city for the winter, while they were away during the holiday season. For the past three winters McKeever has been living on fifth avenue, in the mansion that belongs to Michael O’Connor (Charles Ruggles), the second richest man in the world. McKeever wears O’Connor’s clothes, eats his food, winds the clocks, and even dusts the furniture on occasion. 

His path crosses that of Jim Bullock (Don DeFore) a young world war II veteran who, never having been trained for anything other than being a soldier, can’t find a job and has recently been evicted from his apartment building. McKeever takes pity on the young man and takes him in, introducing him to his unique lifestyle. 

The two of them are surprised one night when they find a girl inside Miss O’Connor’s room, fiddling with her wardrobe. Little do they know but the girl actually is Miss Trudy O’Connor, O’connor’s 18 year old daughter, who has fled school and made her way to the mansion in her father’s absence with her heartv set on getting a job playing piano at a music shop and pursuing a life of her own. McKeeve and Jim - however take her for a street girl with nowhere else to go – much like themselves – and she lets them believe that, pleading for a place to sleep in that big house. She doesn’t seem to be bothered at all that those people are trespassing on her father’s house, in fact, it seems to her to be unnatural that such a big house should remain empty while those people were left homeless on the streets. She is even happier when Jim brings home two other friends of him, war veterans with their wives and two children, who also have no place to live.

Jim about to be evicted | Movie title | Mac, already sporting O'Connor's fine clothes, and his dog, Sam

 It doesn’t take long for O’Connor to find his runaway daughter, but Trudy manages to convince the old man not to kick everybody out. In fact, she persuades O’Connor to get a few second hand clothes and pretend to be a panhandler himself, so he can ‘move-in’ in his own house in the same terms as the other ‘guests’ and get to know Jim, whom Trudy claims to be in love with. It is crucial to her that Jim doesn’t discover that she has money so she can be sure that he likes her for her, and not his father’s bank account. 

 Awestruck by what has become of his home with clothes lines across the entrance hall and a complete stranger wearing his clothes, O’Connor is not at all impressed by Jim Bullock, and sets himself to the task of derailing his daughter’s romance. Along with that, Trudy persuades her own mother to become the 11th interloper as a cook, and Jim and his friends struggle to find jobs and a more permanent place to live… After the end of the II World War, Christmas themed films became quite popular, perhaps because stories with happy endings and a general feeling of peace and good-will towards others were in accord with the euphoria that succeeded the end of the bloodiest conflict humankind had ever witnessed. In fact, It Happened on 5th Avenue was released between the giants It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on the 34th street, and in the same year as The Bishop’s Wife, which explains why it has faded away from memory a little bit. It was supposed to be directed by Frank Capra, but Capra chose to work on It’s a Wonderful Life instead. It was even nominated for the Academy Award for Best original story in 1948 (losing to Miracle on the 34th street).

Eventually the script was acquired by Allied Artists Picture, a division of the B-movie studio Monogram Picture. It was an attempt at a more prestigious film, and in fact there are quite a few location scenes and large scenarios, along with a strong cast, none of which kept the movie from fading into obscurity until a very recent re-discovery prompted by youtube and the internet. 

Overall it’s a very light-hearted and enjoyable story, and although there’s barely a Christmas Tree in sight for the majority of the film, the Christmas spirit is ever present throughout the script.



Michael O’Connor in particular is a very tridimensional character. There’s a little bit of an analogy with Ebenezer Scrooge, of course, in the sense that O’Connor too is a wealthy man estranged from family and friends who rediscovers the Christmas Spirit and realizes that in spite of his money he was also quite poor in several important ways. 

 "For to be without friends is a serious form of poverty." 

Be that as it may, O’Connor was never so incorrigible as Ebenezer, and his vulnerability to his daughter (and, as it becomes clear later, his ex-wife, Mary) is evident from the moment the girl convinces him to pose as a simple panhandler and sleep in the servant’s quarters of his own house… 

Scenes in the life of that imprivised family, including the disaster that became of the entrance hall... 

Music doesn’t play a huge part in the story (in spite of the film being marketed as a musical comedy), and the romance between Trudy and Jim feels a little rushed at times, but perhaps it was never meant to be taken very seriously. The moment in which Paul Goldin acts as a waiter trying to level a table while they have a romantic dinner is one of the most amusing scenes in the film. The mentions of Slumgullion Stew makes one wish films could transmit scents as well as images and sounds…

 There is of course the romantic charm of watching the movie for a look at what the world looked like Post World War II. But most of all, It Happened on 5th Avenue has a script that feels very original. It’s a simple idea, but it feels like a breath of fresh air in our times when so many Holiday films feel unremarkable and just the same. The revelation of O’Connor’s true identity for instance is incorporated in the script slowly, and accomplished with humour and taste – the way Mac is to be given the news is particularly noteworthy - and definitely a lesson to modern film writers on how not to rush the resolution of a story.


It happened on 5th Avenue | 1947 | 116’ | Directed by Roy Del Ruth | Script by Everett Freeman, Vick Knight and Ben Markson | Don DeFore, Ann Harding, Charles Ruggles, Victor Moore, Gale Storm | USA