I noticed that one reviewer said this film is not on DVD. Perhaps that was true back in 2002, but it is available now and that's how I saw it. The film is an anthology piece of short stories written by O. Henry (the pen name for William Sidney Porter) and it seems like an American answer to the popular British films based on Somerset Maugham stories--such as "Quartet" (1948). Interestingly, the film is introduced by John Steinbeck! They consist of the following stories--each directed by a famous director:THE COP AND THE ANTHEM--Charles Laughton plays a man without money--though he's dressed and behaves like a very successful man. Again and again, however, he tries to get himself arrested because he is without means--and again and again, things happen and the cops don't arrest him. It is a bit funny seeing just how hard it is to get pinched! I don't want to say what's coming next--but it's the sort of irony for which O. Henry was famous for in his stories. Marilyn Monroe appears for about one minute and utters a line or two--so naturally, 20th Century-Fox marketed it as a Monroe film! Despite this dishonestly, it's clever and worth seeing. I'd give this one a 7.THE CLARION CALL--Dale Robertson and Richard Widmark star in this one. Robertson is a cop and Widmark is an old associate--a VERY obnoxious and nasty one. They meet in a bar after many years and soon Robertson realizes the man wanted for a murder is his old 'friend'. He's about to arrest him and bring him in, but there is a twist. As far as Widmark goes, his character is a lot like the one that made him famous in "Kiss of Death"--all laughs and a heart as black as coal. Why he kept calling people 'Clam Head' was beyond me! Not a great segment, but the ending was satisfying. I'd give this one a 6.THE LAST LEAF--Anne Baxter and Jean Peters star in this one. Baxter has a broken heart and pneumonia. Despite her sister's best efforts, she keeps slipping away. She also has this weird obsession with a vine growing outside the window--counting all the leaves as they fall and she believes she'll die when the last leaf hits the ground. How does a failed artist save the day? Tune in. I'd give this one a 5. It's pretty predictable.THE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF--This is one of O. Henry's most famous stories and one that the filmmakers removed from the original release--as they saw it as pretty weak. It has a great cast--with two amazingly funny 1950s raconteurs in the leads--Oscar Levant and Fred Allen. While pretty much forgotten today, these men were both brilliant conversationalists--guys who had a gift with the English language. These two knuckleheads are ex-cons who need money, so they kidnap a completely obnoxious monster of a child. The boy is like an evil version of Dennis the Menace and after a while you feel sorry for the two guys--he's THAT bad! And, although the two men are technically the stars, young Lee Aaker steals the show as the little maniac! All in all, enjoyable--mostly because even though this is a somewhat pedestrian version, it's still a great story. This one gets an 8.THE GIFT OF THE MAGI--Like RED CHIEF, among O. Henry's most famous stories and one frequently read around Christmas each year. This one stars Farley Granger and Jeanne Crain as a very, very poor young couple. They are desperately in love but have no money for Christmas presents. Where this all goes next you probably know, but in case you don't I will end it here. Unlike the others, which are mostly comedies, this one is an ironic and touching love story. Sweet and probably the best of the lot--even if the tale is familiar today. This one gets a 10--and they saved the best for last.Overall, while not all the segments are great, the overall film is quite enjoyable and worth seeing. Very good acting, production values and stories make this one worth seeing.

This is perfect example of the Fox look in the beginning of the fifties, prior to the Scope. Here are the directors, actors and actress, cinematographers,musicians (Alfred Newmann), etc., under contract. Jean Peters, Anne Baxter, Richard Widmark, Jeanne Crain, Marilyn in her beginnings, etc.What a pair of wonderful actresses in the moving "The last leaf", directed by Jean Negulesco with an almost expressionist style! Really, he was an very underrated director with good film as "Three came home", "The mask of Dimitrios", "Humoresque".In "The gift of the magi" Henry King puts grace and gusto in some sweet Christmas commonplaces. This is also a good episode, perhaps a little marred by the overacting of Jeanne Crain.Also very watchable "The clarion call", directed by Henry Hathaway in a dry and concise style.In "The cop and the anthem" we have a memorable line by the lovely Marilyn: "He called me madam!" The Hawks episode is the only drawback in the film, but one can forgive it in front of the other good four. And, above all, the sublime "The last leaf".

Saw this with a childhood friend of mine in the 50's on TV when we were 'sneaking' staying up very late. When it was done, we looked at each other, both having been touched deeply, though we couldn't have described how. Ever after, it has been one of our 'special' memories -- one of us says "remember that movie?" and the other understands perfectly! That's what movies should do! Did anyone else have that experience on first watching it? I remember being very affected by Hitchcock's Saboteur, also, after watching it late one night as a kid. It stirred the same response that later made me a 'movie fan' -- that magical sense of someone (the director) saying something to you in a way that seemed to make life 'bigger' than it had been before.

William Sydney Porter was a citizen of North Carolina who (following the period of Reconstruction) moved to Texas. He married and worked in a bank. His wife became very ill. Now he was charged with embezzlement (presumably for his wife's medical bills). He fled the U.S. to Latin America, and then returned when he heard his wife was dying. After her death he was arrested tried and convicted for embezzlement and got four years in prison. Prison destroys many inmates, but it has occasionally helped some writers. John Bunyan, author of THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, wrote part of it in prison. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was imprisoned for debt and began DON QUIXOTE. Porter wrote some of the prison newspaper, and the chief guard in the prison, Mr. Orrin Henry, persuaded Porter to try writing as a career. Porter did, when he left prison, and proceeded to become one of America's greatest short story writers. In honor to his friend the prison guard, Porter wrote under the still remembered pseudonym, "O. Henry".Porter / "O.Henry" died in 1910. Therefore he really missed the full effect of motion pictures. In his own lifetime only one of his stories, "A RETRIEVED REFORMATION", became dramatized as ALIAS JIMMY VALENTINE. He did not do the dramatization. He was working on a play at the time he died. Also a novel. Given his sharp characterizations, and his fast moving plotting that leads to a surprise ending, we just don't know if he could have done either a play or novel as well as a short story. But we know he was never approached to do a movie script...the films didn't begin talking for seventeen more years until after his death.In the late 1940s another master of the short story, William Somerset Maugham made a three picture deal in which he narrated introductions to a total of ten of his short stories. The three films, QUARTET, TRIO, and ENCORE remain great examples of how real literature can be brought to the screen without loss, and certainly were a hard act to follow for other film makers. There were few contemporary takers (Hemingway and Faulkner just did not seem to be the type to introduce some of their shorter fiction). 20th Century Fox managed to get the only other master writer of the period, John Steinbeck, to do the equivalent introductions that Maugham did.The resulting film, O.HENRY'S FULL HOUSE, was a good one but not as good as the Maugham films. Don't forget, Maugham's introductions were to stories HE wrote, whereas (despite Steinbeck's respectful comments) Steinbeck's introductions were to stories written by someone else. So the impact is a little different. Pity it was not Hemingway (if they could have gotten him) introducing some of his short stories. The five choices are fine. The best ones (to me) are "THE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF", "THE LAST LEAF", "THE COP AND THE ANTHEM" and "THE GIFT OF THE MAGI". Were they the best possible choices? Well, I have always liked "A MUNICIPAL REPORT", which is light-years ahead of it's "Jim Crow" era views on race relations (and by a Southerner, for that matter). It could not get into the film because of Southern distribution. The one failure as an episode is "THE CLARION CALL". One of the other reviewers faults Richard Widmark's giggling 19th Century "Tony Udo" as the cause, but the story is not very exciting to begin with, and for once the trick in the conclusion is rather routine. The two comic episodes are amusing as they prove Bobby Burns' "The best laid plans of mice and men..." (a comment that Steinbeck would be familiar with). In "THE COP AND THE ANTHEM" the hero Soapy is a hobo, determined to spend a month or so on a any charge so he can have a warm place to be (i.e. prison) while avoiding the winter. He keeps failing to get arrested (including one interesting episode with Marilyn Monroe - her only time with Charles Laughton). Then, at it's bleakest moment he hears an anthem coming out of a church, and starts recalling how he heard it as a boy. He softens and begins to consider reforming. Then comes the conclusion. "The Ransom of Red Chief" stars Fred Allen and Oscar Levant, who mistakenly think kidnapping a child is a piece of cake. They learn quickly the word "hellion". Howard Hawks directed that episode, and his touches for farce help it tremendously."THE LAST LEAF" is about two sisters, Anne Baxter and Jean Peters, in a rooming house, living beneath a grumpy artist named Behrman (Gregory Ratoff). Baxter is dying, and Ratoff takes an interest in her health and mental condition. It is late autumn, and the leaves on the trees are falling, and Ratoff hears that Baxter believes she will die when the last, topmost leaf falls off the tree. But the last leaf is still there after a storm rips all the foliage off the tree, and Peters is sure this will give Baxter her grip on living again. Then comes the final, sad surprise."THE GIFT OF THE MAGI" has been reprinted more frequently than most stories (and spoofed - Durwood Kirby and Carol Burnett spoofed it delightfully on the old Gary Moore show once). Farley Granger and Jeanne Crain are happily married, but in straightened circumstances, each with one prize possession. Christmas is coming, and both want to get fitting gifts for each other. They do at tremendous personal cost, but they realize how deep their love is at the conclusion of the story.Not as good as the Maugham films but worthy of being seen.