Imagine you’re Jack Warner. As the head of your own studio, you call the shots. One day late in 1944, you head to the commissary for your traditional pastrami-on-rye, and you notice several of your contract players idly playing cards and smoking cigars while on the clock. Your secretary has just informed you that Barbara Stanwyck, Hollywood’s hottest property, is available. You call writer’s row and give them forty-eight hours to come up with a working script befitting such talent. This off-the-shelf concoction puts the idle characters to work, is a box-office success - despite being released in July, and becomes the minor holiday classic, “Christmas in Connecticut”.
As an avid reader of every available Hollywood biography and studio history as a kid, this was the scenario I envisioned the first time I saw this film. Produced during the closing days of World War II, the opening scenes show an American destroyer being torpedoed by a German U-boat - hardly the stuff of light screwball comedy. As sailor Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan;
Kitty Foyle, God is My Co-Pilot) and his buddy spend fifteen days on a raft at sea, he dreams of home and solid food. At the uncommonly up-beat Veteran’s hospital where he recuperates, his nurse Mary (Joyce Compton) becomes smitten with the handsome sailor, and figures a little taste of domestic holiday bliss could make him the marrying kind.
After dashing off a letter to magazine publishing tycoon Alexander Yardley (Sydney Greenstreet;
The Maltese Falcon),the old goat sees the opportunity to boost the circulation of
Smart Housekeeping, with the help of his star food and family columnist Elizabeth Lane (Barbara Stanwyck ). As a publicity stunt, he invites the wounded sailor to a home-cooked Christmas dinner with Lane and her family at her Connecticut farm. What her boss doesn’t know is that she is single, lives in a New York city apartment, and buys fur coats on the installment plan - her life depicted in her column is a complete fabrication - and she can’t cook for beans, to boot. With the help of her agent (Robert Shayne), and persistent suitor, architect John Sloan (Reginald Gardiner;
The Great Dictator), they hatch a plan to save their respective jobs. Layering on more deception using Sloan’s convenient Connecticut farm, they will play-out the holiday visit as husband and wife. When Yardley gets a look at his doctor’s recommended Christmas dinner menu (prune whip and creamed turnip!), he invites himself to the festivities, insuring further complications.
The song-and-dance appeal of other holiday classics such as “White Christmas” is replaced here with fast and funny dialogue, and revolving-door style misadventures, as the various levels of deception intersect. Although there is no mistaking the holiday theme, there is a noticeable absence of Christmas music, with singer-songwriter Morgan delivering one tune at the piano during a tree-trimming scene with Stanwyck. Fans of the 1938 RKO Howard Hawks classic “Bringing Up Baby” will recognize the sets used for the Connecticut farm location, done up convincingly winter-like with tons of fake snow. Adding to the timeless quality of the film, all the guests arrive by horse-drawn sleigh - the only automobiles involved appear toward the end of the film.
As a comedic performer, Barbara Stanwyck was unparalleled. Beautifully costumed by designer Edith Head, her timing and delivery of the often hectic dialogue is perfect, and her ability to steal a scene is legendary. Even more impressive is the fact that she does this amongst the likes of Sidney Greenstreet and S.Z. Sakall (
Ball of Fire, Casablanca). As restaurant owner “Uncle” Felix, Sakall is enlisted to cover for the cooking-challenged hostess, as he humorously butchers the English language to high art, and battles for kitchen dominance with the stoic and stork-like Irish cook Norah (Una O’Connor;
The Invisible Man, Bride of Frankenstein).
The scenes between Sakall and Greenstreet are priceless, with the two old pros - Greenstreet’s bellicose blowhard, and Sakall’s animated matchmaker having great and effortless fun with the non-demanding material. The early scenes between Stanwyck’s fast-talking Lane, and Greenstreet’s equally fast-talking Yardley are a very impressive study in pace and timing reminiscent of “His Girl Friday”, as the two talk over each other with remarkable skill and clarity. Several other small parts are filled by character actors familiar to film fans of the period.
Director Peter Godfrey (who would direct Stanwyck and Bogart in 1947's
The Two Mrs. Carrolls) keeps a tight rein on what is essentially a frantic stage-play, and the efforts of Cinematographer Carl Guthrie do justice to the sumptuous sets and gorgeous leading lady. There is some wobble and bounce with a couple of rolling close-ups, but not bad considering the heavy and primitive technology of the times.
The Warner Home Video DVD is of excellent quality - crisp and clear with no evidence of debris or deterioration. Extras include a theatrical trailer, and a Warner Bros. produced two-reeler from 1945 entitled “Star In The Night”. This contemporary piece, with its “no room at the inn” Christmas theme is a shining example of the lost art of the theatrical short-subject. This occasionally jaded reviewer was moved by the simple message of the 22 minute film, which won the 1945 Academy Award in the category of best two-reel short-subject. Not a bad first effort for Don Siegel (
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Dirty Harry) in his directorial debut.
As my favorite holiday film, “Christmas in Connecticut” rates a personal 5 stars, though the existence of films such as “White Christmas” and “Miracle on 34th Street” may warrant a more realistic 4 star rating. However, the pairing of these two particular holiday films, and the overall excellent quality of the DVD rates a deserved 4.5 stars, rounded to an Epinions
benefit-of-the-doubt 5 star holiday treat for fans of such seasonal fare.
More Barbara Stanwyck:
Ball Of Fire
The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers
Christmas In Connecticut (1945)
Producer: William Jacobs
Story: Aileen Hamilton
Screenplay: Lionel Houser, Adele Comandini
Director: Peter Godfrey
A Warner Bros. - First National Picture
DVD: Warner Home Video (2005)
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