O. Henry's Full House Reviews

This hearty and entertaining compendium of O. Henry's best stories features some energetic performances and, in a few cases, marvelous direction. The first tale, "The Cop and the Anthem," is about a haughty tramp who, with the onset of winter, tries to get arrested so he can enjoy the warmth of a jail cell. But, try as he might, he simply cannot offend the law. "The Clarion Call" is a terse slice of life in which a decent cop must arrest an old friend. In "The Last Leaf," a dying woman watches autumn leaves wither, and comes to believe that when the last leaf blows away, she, too, will die. Winter comes and the leaves vanish, one by one, until a single leaf remains, stubbornly clinging to the wall and giving the woman hope. There's a laugh a minute in "The Ransom of Red Chief," the story of a boy so bad that his parents couldn't care less when he's kidnapped. The rowdy kid makes life so miserable for his abductors that they bribe the parents to take the insufferable brat back. In the famous "The Gift of the Magi," a pair of impoverished young newlyweds sacrifice their most cherished possessions to buy each other Christmas gifts. The direction and writing in all these sequences are good, and the entire film is a great treat, enhanced by John Steinbeck's narration--an homage to the mysterious O. Henry.