Christmas Holiday (novel) explained

Christmas Holiday is a novel by the British writer Somerset Maugham, first published in 1939 by Heinemann. Just before the outbreak of the Second World War a naïve young Englishman travels to Paris to broaden his mind. There he meets a White Russian émigré Lydia, now working as a prostitute. She tells him both of the death of her father during the Russian Revolution and her subsequent marriage in Paris to a man who then murdered his own friend. Despite knowing of his guilt she secretly sends money to him on the prison island in French Guiana because she loves him.^[1]

Film adaptation

In 1944 it was adapted into the American film of the same title often classified as a film noir, directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly.^{[2] [3]} While the original story takes place in pre-war Europe, the adaptation shifts the setting to wartime New Orleans in Louisiana.

Bibliography

• Calder, Robin. Somerset Maugham and the Cinema. University of Wisconsin Press, 2024.
• Goble, Alan. The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. Walter de Gruyter, 1999.
• Schwartz, Ronald. Houses of Noir: Dark Visions from Thirteen Film Studios. McFarland, 2013.

Notes and References

1. Calder p.181-82
2. Goble p.313
3. Schwartz p. 153