Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

There's some things I certainly love about Christmas In Connecticut, but Barbara Stanwyck really isn't at the top of the list. I've always found Ms. Stanwyck to be a bit too cold to be sweet, a bit too melodramatic to be truly vulnerable to the point of one burning to save her, and polarizing in her beauty which, to me at any rate, was different from either a classic beauty or the girl next door. But, Ms. Stanwyck was without doubt a good actress that could make you watch even if you didn't particularly think she was the lead you wished for. I guess that puts her in a kind of "rare-air" actress league?Anyway, this is a simple story with good parts played by an all-round decent cast. It's suppose to be a romantic comedy, but it is light on both the romance and the comedy. Neither gets particularly showcased, but it isn't for lack of trying. A war hero spends weeks on a raft and is celebrated upon coming home. A single-minded magazine business magnate sees an opportunity. His star columnist is a kind of Martha Stewart of the day. Only thing Elizabeth Lane, the columnist, isn't a homemaker, she's just a fine writer of "fiction" you might say as she weaves her life to be the consummate cook, homemaker, and mother, none of which is true. It sells a lot of magazines however.This sets up our main story which is the magazine owner insists Mrs. Lane entertains the war hero, Jefferson James played by Dennis Morgan, over a long Holiday weekend. Mr. James will be treated to life with the nation's top homemaker for festive eats, entertainment, and a taste of the American Dream he's fighting for. Well, it's a major predicament and to pull it off Ms. Lane will go to some lengths which include borrowing several infants of different sex, hair color, and size to stand in for her one child. The Christmas element here is kind of incidental in providing a vehicle and it really isn't a movie that celebrates the season too awfully much. I like old movies from this era and as much as anything this is why I like Christmas In Connecticut. The other reason is the always fun to watch Sydney Greenstreet and S.Z Sakall who steal most every scene they appear in. I'm surprised this movie is rated as high as 7.5 (circa late 2016), I feel it's more modest and only as good as a 6.5 because of not the story, but the cast. Not a must see of the Christmas Season, but a nice one for fans of 40's comedies.

It was interesting to watch a holiday movie in August. I do think these stories should air year round and not just in December. I had never seen Christmas IN CONNECTICUT all the way through. Well, now, I finally have. I found myself focusing on S.Z. Sakall's performance as Felix the cook-- you know, the guy who says "everything is hunky-dunky!" But in addition to Sakall, the rest of the cast shines too-- and it's obvious they were all having fun making this film. There's a lot of screwball comedy here, and the dialogue is just so intentionally silly in spots that you can't help but love it. Sakall's scenes with Stanwyck are quite good, but his scenes with Greenstreet are even better. And there's a scene at his restaurant early in the film where he walks around and doesn't have dialogue. If you watch that part carefully, you will see a great bit of improvisation. Truly one of the best character actors in Hollywood during the 1940s.

No need to wait until Christmas to watch this laugh a minute film. In this film a War Hero is invited to a life style magazine writer who is a Martha Stewart before there was a Martha Stewart. She makes all her meals look like fine dinning. Her articles talk about her private life which includes her marriage and her child. The problem is that she is lying. She is not married and can't cook. When her boss demands that she take in the war hero she is up the creek. Other problems include that she doesn't have a child. It is a very funny film that you should see! This is the film that many situation comedy show have stolen from.

Spunky, fun Christmastime balderdash has popular magazine article writer Barbara Stanwyck stuck in the predicament of hosting a faux Christmas Eve/Day homemaking extravaganza for her boss (Sydney Greenstreet) and a war hero (Dennis Morgan) who survived (along with a fellow soldier/pal) on a raft on the ocean for several days without food…the problem is she isn't the amazing cook, sensational mother, and superb farm-marm that leaps from the pages of her articles. The real cook with all the gourmet dishes isn't Stanwyck but SZ Sakall from Budapest who is fortunate enough to benefit from her fame. Sakall will accompany her to a farm supplied by architect Reginald Gardiner (he is always habitually asking Stanwyck to marry him) if Stanwyck will marry him. Reluctantly, she will but her betrothal to Gardiner keeps getting delayed by Sakall who knows she doesn't love him. The child is brought by to be babysat by a mother who works at the war factory (female one day, but the next is a different worker with a male baby!), so Stanwyck (who doesn't know a thing about being a mother) must wing it, aided (much to her delight) by Morgan (he grew up with children and knows how to bath and feed them). The problem that arises for Stanwyck is that she falls head-over-heels for Morgan and must somehow steer her affections/lust for him away and focus on successfully fooling Greenstreet into believing she is actually exactly as she claims. The whole comic angle is Stanwyck masterminding this grand charade even as her behavior and heart yearn for Morgan. Greenstreet expects what he reads in her articles to be articulated in person and Stanwyck must find ways to escape. This is designed like a screwball comedy or something you might see from Preston Sturges. There's constant activity, evasive maneuvers, close-calls, daunting tasks demanding think-on-your-feet (or just plain luck) responses, lots of wooing and romanticizing, and unexpected developments (baby is "kidnapped" by his actual mom much to Greenstreet's dismay; the male-female baby change; Greenstreet expecting Stanwyck to "skillet a flapjack" in his presence; the "theft" of a horse carriage that lands Morgan and Stanwyck temporarily under arrest) that complicate matters further. Stanwyck had a magnetic screen presence even in films like this that feel like holiday, feel-good fodder, perhaps considered a notch or two behind the Lady Eves and Ball of Fires, but I thought "Christmas in Connecticut" would be easy to go down with some eggnog and cookies. It has that holiday atmosphere (the farm is idyllic and snowy, the house is elegant, there's the decoration of the gigantic Christmas tree, the piano-played carol, and the cast are breezy and fun to watch). When you are needing something Christmassy for a night in December, this is as entertaining a film as I could recommend…it has all the ingredients without schmaltz or melodramatics.