Robert Altman Study Part 2: Christmas Eve & Bodyguard

Discussions of Robert Altman’s career usually begin in general with Countdown in 1968 and in earnest with M*A*S*H the following year. But his career actually began more than two decades earlier, when he teamed with producer George W. George and sold story ideas for two long (and largely justifiably) forgotten cheapies. George was the son of cartoonist Rube Goldberg and the nephew of journeyman director Edward L. Marin, who directed the first of the two, Christmas Eve (1947).

Christmas Eve (aka Sinners Holiday) is a curious holiday picture that has almost nothing to do with the holiday, a hybrid of an anthology film and a lackluster tearjerker. It involves the three “wards” of an eccentric elderly woman who have all gone off to make their own way in the world - George Raft as a fugitive nightclub owner, George Brent as a check-bouncing ladies’ man, and Randolph Scott as an alcoholic rodeo rider.

Altman’s and George’s names appear nowhere in the completed film, so their story credit on Bodyguard (1948) is a step up. Richard Fleischer was always a workmanlike filmmaker, and his direction on Bodyguard, one of his earliest features, is especially rudimentary. The by-the-numbers crime drama (it doesn’t really earn its usual noir tag) clocks in at barely over an hour and feels perfectly at home on the small screen. It stars Lawrence Tierney as a cop bumped off the force who reluctantly becomes a bodyguard for an elderly female meat-packing magnate.

It’s impossible to divine exactly what Altman’s contribution to either film ultimately is. Neither is of particular interest on their own merits or even as insight into the director’s early career, but there are elements of both that seem in line with his biography or later work. In Bodyguard, the meat-packing industry backdrop harkens back to Altman’s beginnings in Kansas City, and the scene where Tierney’s Girl Friday leaves clues on a record-your-own vinyl record anticipates his lifelong fascination with audio gadgetry.

The three stars of Christmas Eve all play lovable rogues whose maverick streaks ultimately make them rough-hewn heroes in opposition to the crooked dealings of the seemingly upright business community. And both films feature independent women in positions of power, an aspect which will recur throughout his career. But none of this is directly ascribable to Altman, whose contributions to both films were early and minimal, not even extending into the screenplay stage in either case.