O. Henry’s Full House (1952) Starring (in alphabetical order): Fred Allen,
Anne Baxter, Jeanne Crain, Farley Granger, Charles Laughton, Oscar Levant, Marilyn
Monroe, Jean Peters, Gregory Ratoff, Dale Robertson, David Wayne, Richard
Widmark. Directed by Henry Koster, Henry Hathaway, Jean Negulesco, Howard Hawks,
Henry King. Screenplay by Richard L. Breen, Walter Bullock, Ivan Goff, Ben
Hecht, Nunnally Johnson, Charles Lederer, Ben Roberts, Lamar Trotti. Based on
the short stories "The Cop and the Anthem" in
New York World (Dec 4, 1904); "The Clarion Call" in New York
World (Oct 29, 1905); "The Last Leaf" in New York World (Oct 15, 1905);
"The Ransom of Red Chief" in The Saturday Evening Post (Jul 6, 1906);
and "The Gift of the Magi" in New York World (Dec 10, 1905) by O.
Henry. Produced by André Hakim. Run
time: 117 minutes. Black and White. USA Comedy, Drama, Anthology, Christmas.
While it wasn’t common practice for studios to make a series
of short stories into movies, 20th Century-Fox thought that the writings
of William Sydney Porter, also known as O.
Henry, were worthy of such a treatment. That is not to say anthology films were
not made; they have been made frequently in India, Italy, and Great Britain, to
name a few. Anthology films had been made prior to this one in Hollywood, most notably
If I Had a Million (1932), produced by Paramount and including a segment
directed by Ernst Lubitsch.
That said, it is thought that three films produced in the UK
were the inspiration for O. Henry’s Full House: Quartet (1948) was based
on stories by Somerset Maugham, who also personally introduced each one.
Quartet was such a success, two sequels were made Trio (1950) and Encore
(1951), also based on Maugham short stories. Paramount picked up the sequels
for distribution in the U.S and the films were both critical and commercial successes.
Seeing as each segment was written, directed and starred different people, we’ll take each segment of the film one at a time.
