Christmas in Connecticut **** (1945, Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet, Reginald Gardner, S Z Sakall, Robert Shayne, Una O’Connor) – Classic Movie Review 8918

The 1945 screwball comedy Christmas in Connecticut is a deliciously sugary and very amusing Yuletide movie, starring Barbara Stanwyck.

Director Peter Godfrey’s 1945 screwball comedy Christmas in Connecticut is a deliciously sugary and very amusing Yuletide movie, starring Barbara Stanwyck as Elizabeth Lane, a newspaper food writer columnist pretend farm mom and expert cook, who is forced to make up a happy domestic Christmas for the readers when she has a World War Two naval hero Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan) and her publisher Alexander Yardley (Sydney Greenstreet) over at her specially rented country place for the Yuletide holidays.

In fact, she is an unmarried New Yorker who cannot boil an egg, let alone cook, so Felix Bassenak (a delightfully dithery, funny S Z Sakall) is imported for the occasion as chef. As she hasn’t got a husband either, she brings in her friend John Sloan (Reginald Gardner).

Christmas in Connecticut has an extremely nice setup, developed smoothly, though with no particular surprises. But it is all very, very sweet, and the splendid star trio plus support cast go to it with a will, kicking out of the park.

Also in the cast are Robert Shayne, Una O’Connor, Frank Jenks, Ernest Truex, Frankiln Pangborn, Harry Hayden, Rod Cameron, Lillian Bronson, Charles Arnt, Fred Kelsey, Jack Mower, Marie Blake, John Dehner, Dick Elliott, Joyce Compton and Olaf Hytten.

Christmas in Connecticut is directed by Peter Godfrey, runs 100 minutes, is made by Warner Bros-First National Pictures, released by Warner Bros, written by Lionel Houser and Adele Comandini, based on a story by Aileen Hamilton, shot in black and white by Carl Guthrie, produced by William Jacobs, and scored by Frederick Hollander and Leo F Forbstein.

Despite its unfathomable release in August rather than for the Yuletide holidays, this grossed an impressive $3 million, and was one of the most successful movies in the post-war bonanza year of 1945.

It is the first of three collaborations by Godfrey and Stanwyck, followed by The Two Mrs Carrolls (1947) and Cry Wolf (1947).

Elizabeth Lane is loosely based on popular Family Circle Magazine columnist Gladys Taber, who lived on Connecticut’s Stillmeadow Farm.

Sakall was born in Budapest and serves several Hungarian-inspired dishes in the film. In real life he hated American food and insisted on eating only Hungarian or European food, getting his wife to cook lunches for him on set.

Warner Bros star Bette Davis was to star, but Paramount star Stanwyck was brought in to replace her in April 1944.

It was remade for TV with Arnold Schwarzenegger, of all people, as director in 1992, and starring Dyan Cannon, Kris Krisofferson and Tony Curtis.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8918

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