...this is an enjoyable Christmas film all the same.
Keshia Knight Pulliam is at her most adorable and roguish as an angel sent to earth (this isn't a spoiler as it's signaled in the opening scenes) to help the wealthy but fractured Dutton family: businessman Heywood, his wife Frances, their estranged older son Joe (who married a poor Irish girl and is considered persona non grata by dad), their wastrel younger son Neville, and daughter Lindsay. The corrupt chief of police is stoking a feud between Joe, who runs a crusading newspaper, and his father to get himself a promotion--while poor people are going to be evicted from their apartment buildings before Christmas.
I know history, so at first I didn't like this movie because no rich white family in the 1920s would have let a poor Black orphan run around their house--if you can look past that fact this is a nifty little period piece that features a stellar cast (William Daniels as Dutton senior, Rue McClanahan as his wife, and John Rhys-Davies as corrupt Murphy along with Pulliam). The poor people actually look poor and the contrast between the poor and wealthy is striking, plus Irish servants that don't talk all "sure and begorrah."
Keshia Knight Pulliam is at her most adorable and roguish as an angel sent to earth (this isn't a spoiler as it's signaled in the opening scenes) to help the wealthy but fractured Dutton family: businessman Heywood, his wife Frances, their estranged older son Joe (who married a poor Irish girl and is considered persona non grata by dad), their wastrel younger son Neville, and daughter Lindsay. The corrupt chief of police is stoking a feud between Joe, who runs a crusading newspaper, and his father to get himself a promotion--while poor people are going to be evicted from their apartment buildings before Christmas.
I know history, so at first I didn't like this movie because no rich white family in the 1920s would have let a poor Black orphan run around their house--if you can look past that fact this is a nifty little period piece that features a stellar cast (William Daniels as Dutton senior, Rue McClanahan as his wife, and John Rhys-Davies as corrupt Murphy along with Pulliam). The poor people actually look poor and the contrast between the poor and wealthy is striking, plus Irish servants that don't talk all "sure and begorrah."