Directed by Peter Godfrey
Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, S.Z. Sakall, Syndey Greenstreet, Reginald Gardiner, Robert Shayne, Una O'Connor
Not Rated (G-level; contains nothing likely to offend)
Naughty or Nice?: Nice
Religious or Secular?: Secular
Cynical or Sentimental?: Sentimental
Holiday Relations: Christmas plays a major but mostly incidental part of the plot
OVERALL: 3.5 out of 4
CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT is a very sweet, sentimental softy of the old-fashioned screwball comedy genre. Set in the year of its release in 1945, it is a contemporary film that has matured into a period film, a look back at a sweetened version of what was then a wartime present.
Elizabeth Lane (played by Golden Age hottie, Barbara Stanwyck) is the writer of a highly popular housekeeping column featured regularly in a widely-published magazine. In her article, Mrs. Lane is a model of domesticity, the perfect housewife living on a Connecticut farm with her husband and child, cooking hearty gourmet meals and sharing family anecdotes beloved by housewives across the nation. In her real life, she's Miss Lane, a single and disorganized writer living in a tiny New York City apartment, and anything she knows about cooking is borrowed from her grandfatherly immigrant friend, Felix Bassenak (S.Z. Sakall), who owns a respected bistro that she helped him start. However, events conspire to force her out into the open as the publisher of the magazine that runs her column, Mr. Alexander Yardley, a stern and principled man, announces a publicity stunt in which Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan), a war hero and survivor of a German U-boat attack, is to spend Christmas at Mrs. Lane's Connecticut farm, and while he's at it, Yardley decides that he'd like to spend the holidays there as well. In a panic to hide the truth from Mr. Yardley, who would frown upon the charade, Elizabeth and her nervous editor, Dudley Beecham (Robert Shayne), try to pull together a Connecticut farm or risk losing their jobs. Elizabeth finally says yes to one of many proposals from her pompous architect friend, John Sloan (Reginald Gardiner), who happens to own a Connecticut farm, and she decides might be okay to marry, even though she clearly states that she doesn't love him. They ship out to the Connecticut farm, which conveniently matches the descriptions of Elizabeth's column close enough, with plans to get married while their there. They also have a baby, which the crotchety housemaid Nora (Una O'Connor) babysits for one of the mothers who works at the war plant. Felix comes along as well in order to cook all the country meals and to offer Elizabeth the occasional pearl of wisdom or necessary diversion. Naturally, chaos ensues as Elizabeth bends over backwards to keep the charade going while also falling for her guest of honor.
CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT comes at the end of the original age of 'screwball comedies,' the favorite comedy-type of the Golden Age of Hollywood, where the sexes collide and eventually unite through a series of awkward situations and mistaken identities and intentions. However, while the vast majority of classic screwball comedies, primarily made through the Great Depression before winding down during WWII, were early examples of a pro-gender equality, feminist Hollywood, CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT finds itself leaning in a slighter more conservative direction. Coming in on the tale end of the screwball comedy, released in 1945, very near the end of the war, America was longing for a more traditional, romanticized kind of romantic comedy; a vision of the good ol' days before they even never happened. For this reason, a few critics have been dismissive of screen siren Stanwyck's relegation to the working woman who wants nothing more than to become an actual homemaker who cooks and pops out children. Admittedly, it's not necessarily the most progressive example, but it's a postcard from yesteryear, and an entertaining one. It doesn't bite like Billy Wilder's Stanwyck-starring vehicles; it's a sweet and silly film. Either way, Stanwyck controls the screen with an endearingly warm and hapless personality, and any slack she leaves is quickly drawn up by blustery Hungarian character actor S.Z. Sakall,
A charming, old-fashioned Christmas card from 1945, CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT is an gentle, sugary Christmas comedy, buoyed up by appealing performances.
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