TCM Movie: O. Henry's Full House (1952)

In 1945, Twentieth Century Fox considered many productions involving the late 19th century short story writer O. Henry. A biography of the man himself was suggested in 1943 and in 1945, a full-length "The Gift of the Magi" was optioned to 20th Century Fox. "[Otto] Preminger [was] scheduled to produce and direct... for release in 1946 [...] [and] will be produced on a lavish scale, with an important cast - and in technicolor." (Full Text of "New Dynamo" (April 1945)) Coming off of "Laura" (1944), Preminger had become, what Louella Parsons described as "the white haired boy at 20th, so nobody's saying a word" about his ambitions. (The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger. Fujiwara, Chris. 2009) The Hungarian director was also in negotiations with Leonard Bernstein and Ogden Nash with Jo Swerling as screenwriter. June Haver was set to play the female lead. The project was mysteriously shelved and recent Oscar winning director and actor Henry King ("The Song of Bernadette"(1943)) ended up directing the short story in a rare anthology series known at the time as "O. Henry's Bagdad on the Subway." 

It had many working titles between "The Full House" and just simply "Bagdad on the Subway" before settling on "O. Henry's Full House." With the four miniature short story vignettes, there was plenty of casting news in addition to Henry's most famous "The Gift of the Magi." Screenwriter Nunnally Johnson had Clifton Webb in his mind to play Sam "Slick" Brown for his adaptation of "The Ransom of Red Chief." Unfortunately Webb was already in the middle of "Stars and Stripes Forever" (1952)  and Fred Allen took the role instead. Johnson also had William Demarest in mind, but after the official casting of Oscar Levant, he asked that his credit be removed because he was disappointed in the results.  "Ransom" ended up cut after release. It also didn't help that Howard Hawks brought on Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer to re-write Johnson's script. Philip Dunne was not given his credit as co-author of "The Gift of the Magi" along with Walter Bullock. Joyce McKenzie is also listed in the credits, but her role in "The Cop and the Anthem" was cut before the film's release. Heinie Conklin was also cast in "The Gift of the Magi," but his appearance has not been confirmed. 

"O. Henry's Full House" opened October 16, 1952 at the Trans-Lux Fifty-second Street. "True the style of the author," Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote, "it is a compact and varied entertainment--brisk, direct and trickled with the element of surprise. Naturally some of the surprises that characteristically top off each tale are so familiar to so many people that the impact of them may be lost." He continues on the choice of the narrator John Steinbeck as "unfortunate" and "not as suave as Mr. Maugham. These stories need no introduction. They thoroughly stand on their own."

O. Henry's Full House will air on Turner Classic Movies December 8th, 2019 at 2:45 CST/3:45 ET