Christmas in Connecticut (1945) Warner Bros./Comedy RT: 101 minutes No MPAA rating (nothing offensive) Director: Peter Godfrey Screenplay: Lionel Houser and Adele Comandini Music: Frederick Hollander Cinematography: Carl E. Guthrie Release date: August 11, 1945 (US) Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet, Reginald Gardiner, S.Z. Sakall, Robert Shayne, Una O’Connor, Frank Jenks, Joyce Compton, Dick Elliott. Box Office: $3.2M (US)
Rating: *** ½
It’s always a treat seeing a classic old movie for the first time, especially when it’s as good as Christmas in Connecticut, a screwball comedy set around the holidays. I decided to watch it confident in the knowledge that it wouldn’t be one of those crass, mean-spirited comedies that don’t bring joy to the world. You know the ones I mean.
Barbara Stanwyck, hot off the success of playing the femme fatale in the film noir Double Indemnity, plays Elizabeth Lane, a lifestyle writer for a magazine. She pens articles about her life as a homemaker on a farm in Connecticut. She talks about her family and the delicious recipes she cooks for them. She’s like the 40s version of Martha Stewart.
It’s all a crock. Elizabeth is actually a single woman living in an apartment in New York. She doesn’t know a single thing about cooking. Nobody but her editor Dudley (Shayne, Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman) and chef friend Felix (Sakall, That Night in Rio) knows the truth, not even the magazine’s wealthy publisher Alexander Yardley (Greenstreet, The Maltese Falcon).
Elizabeth finds herself in hot water when Yardley informs her that he invited a war hero to spend the Christmas holiday at her farm. Naval officer Jeff Jones (Morgan, My Wild Irish Rose) has been in hospital recovering after spending eighteen days on a raft following the sinking of his ship. The only thing that brings him any joy is reading Lane’s recipes. He longs for a good home-cooked meal instead of the lousy hospital food. The nurse tending to him, Mary Lee (Compton, Who Killed Aunt Maggie?), writes a letter to the magazine about it after he explains he’s never had a real home to go to. She thinks he’s in love her after he butters her up in order to get more preferential treatment as per the advice of shipmate/fellow patient Sinky (Jenks, G.I. Honeymoon).
With no other recourse, Elizabeth accepts the proposal of persistent suitor John Sloan (Gardiner, The Great Dictator) to use his farm in Connecticut in exchange for her hand in marriage. She brings “Uncle Felix” along to do the cooking. Luckily, the maid Norah (O’Connor, The Invisible Man) watches the babies of the women who work at the local factory, so the baby part of her ruse is covered. The first order of business is a quickie wedding which always seems to get interrupted for one reason or another like the early arrival of Jeff and the unexpected arrival of Yardley who wants to see Elizabeth in action in the kitchen. I imagine it goes without saying that Elizabeth and Jeff fall in love with each other at first sight, an added complication to an already complicated situation.
Directed by Brit filmmaker Peter Godfrey (Cry Wolf), Christmas in Connecticut is a legitimately funny movie. It follows formula closely with things going more and more out of control as Elizabeth tries to keep up her charade. On top of that, she’s fallen in love with a guy who’s (a) not her husband-to-be and (b) engaged to be married to a woman he doesn’t really love. I don’t want to give away too much, but it gets pretty crazy in that quaint farmhouse.
Christmas in Connecticut has a sense of innocence to it. To wit, it’s blessedly free of cynicism and commercialism. It’s extremely good-natured. Take the scene where Felix tries to teach Elizabeth how to flip flapjacks. It’s funny without humiliating the lady. It doesn’t try to mine laughs from embarrassing her in some way. Because it was made in 1945, you won’t get any jokes about genitalia or bodily fluids either. It’s what they call good clean fun.
At the same time, Christmas in Connecticut offers up a humorously subversive commentary of conventional gender roles in society. Elizabeth, a career woman with no culinary or maternal skills, does NOT fit the traditional mold of a 1940s woman. It’s Jeff who has to show her how to bathe a baby. He does so with incredible confidence thus challenging the way males were seen at the time. In its own subtle way, it examines how WWII changed the cultural landscape in America with women toiling at jobs usually performed by men while their husbands are off fighting in the war. It’s all fascinating and done with a light touch so it doesn’t weigh down the film.
The whole cast does a great job. Stanwyck is delightfully quirky as Elizabeth. It’s a joy watching her navigate the lifestyle she’s only written about but never experienced. Morgan, a handsome fellow with lots of charm, makes a likable lead. His good looks, along with that amazing singing voice, must have had the ladies swooning in the cinema. Gardiner has some funny moments as the pompous suitor who never lets it bother him that Elizabeth really isn’t all that into him. I never knew Greenstreet had a flair for comedy, but he shows it as the boss always looking to stay on top. When a columnist at a rival magazine announces her pregnancy, he tries to convince John to put another bun in Elizabeth’s oven. Sakall has some great scenes as wise and crafty Uncle Felix.
I see Christmas in Connecticut as a welcome break from contemporary Christmas movies. It’s not about spectacle or scope. It’s about making audiences laugh. Yes, it’s really that simple. It has a sweet love story at its center. The two leads have marvelous chemistry. It’s just a good movie, a very good one at that.
