The past couple Christmases for Back to the Feature I’ve seen a few ultimately bad seasonal movies. The purpose of this series is to watch and review significant films that I haven’t seen before, but it’s beginning to look like I’ve seen all the good known Christmas movies. And while I can’t say Christmas in Connecticut dispels that notion, it’s certainly a mark above my previous experiences.
Christmas in Connecticut is not a great holiday movie by any means -there are definitely more than a few problems with it, but there is also some decent entertainment to be had in it, if you’re able to look past its’ noticeable shortcomings.
War hero Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan) becomes enamoured with the work of food writer Elizabeth Lane (Barbara Stanwyck) while recuperating in hospital. Lane’s publisher Alexander Yardley (Sydney Greenstreet), on discovering this insists she host Christmas dinner for Jones at her famous Connecticut farmhouse. However Lane doesn’t actually have a farm in Connecticut, or a husband and baby as she purports in her articles, and so she must quickly find a way to cover all this while keeping her job. Which of course will get more complicated once she falls for Jones.
Christmas in Connecticut is pure farce comedy, and I’ll be honest, I like a good farce. This one is adequate, which I’m sure is enough for its audience. It plays with misunderstanding, role reversal, and the liar revealed trope and definitely has fun doing it. The surface premise additionally, is a funny one, even if the movie itself doesn’t entirely live up to the potential. The idea that Elizabeth Lane is being called on her bluff and has to support a complete convoluted backstory she’s given herself is really good. It’s lessened a bit though by how in reach all of these objectives are. Her friend John Sloan, played by Reginald Gardiner as a discount Ronald Colman, happens to own such a farm in Connecticut, and marrying him (who of course is really in love with her while she has no such feelings) seems to be the answer for her fictitious husband. Even for the baby, they look after a neighbours’ kid who practically comes with the place. It all comes too easy and she gets too many people on board with the plan, including her editor played by Robert Shayne, and a chef played by Carl from Casablanca, S.Z. Sakall. And yeah, this food writer can’t even cook; which is another great comedic opportunity largely wasted.
Instead the focus of the farcical elements is in smaller things, like how inept she is at bathing and changing a child, and that she doesn’t know various facets of farm life that could’ve been avoided anyway. There are a couple laughs in these, but generally the story isn’t allowed to be as ludicrous as it should be. That is, until Christmas Day itself when Yardley witnesses the baby’s parent leave with their child and assumes its a kidnapping. Personally, a Raising Arizona style kidnapping would have been funnier if it was on Lane’s end -but this does lead to the misunderstanding stuff and some funny circumstances. However the movie overall is more interested in being a charming romance -that and the Production Code, being what prevents Lane and Sloan from actually marrying before Jones arrives, so as not to accidentally portray adultery in a positive light. And this would be justifiable if there was more romantic chemistry between Stanwyck and Morgan.
That’s not to say either performance is bad, or even necessarily that they have poor chemistry. It’s just not substantial enough. I confess to not having seen much of Stanwyck’s work, but she’s perfectly fine here, though I wonder what an actress like Katharine Hepburn would have brought to it. It feels very much in the style of those screwball comedies she made around this time, and the love triangle angle is pretty reminiscent of The Philadelphia Story. Nevertheless, Stanwyck’s character has personality and is a lot more engaging and funny than Morgan’s, who aside from the minor role reversal of being good with babies and his eventually forgotten interest in food, he isn’t much more than a handsome guy for her to fall for. However, he is a good singer, as in demonstrated in my favourite scene, where on Christmas Eve as snow is falling on the window panes, he plays and sings “O Little Town of Bethlehem” on the piano while Stanwyck decorates the Christmas Tree, consistently distracted by his voice. It’s a really nice Christmas moment, with terrific Christmas imagery, and even in its light comedic interludes, is just pervaded by a sense of Christmas charm. Greenstreet as usual gives an enjoyable performance and adds a touch of class to the whole picture, certainly more than Gardiner’s somewhat foppish stereotype. The rest of the cast, including Una O’Connor as an Irish housekeeper, are serviceable in their parts.
Lastly, it warrants mentioning how white this movie is. Everyone in it is fairly well-off, living privileged New England lives. When they first pull up to the farm it almost looks like the same set from Holiday Inn. There’s a clear celebration here of a very specific kind of Christmas that most viewers today and even back then couldn’t relate to, with very specific traditions and notions attached. The result is the setting and characters not being very identifiable and the stakes pretty non-threatening.
But Christmas in Connecticut is still mostly harmless -not all that good, but mostly harmless. Essentially what it feels like is an episode of I Love Lucy, only without the brilliance of Lucille Ball. Nonetheless, it has its okay moments and a couple really good and funny scenes. It should also be borne in mind that this film had the bad luck to come out one year before It’s a Wonderful Life, and two before Miracle on 34th Street, both of which would vastly eclipse it as holiday greats; and not having any Christmas songs to its name like the Bing Crosby films also hurt its memorability. Perhaps the most interesting thing to come out of Christmas in Connecticut is a 1992 TV movie remake starring Dyan Cannon, Kris Kristofferson, and Tony Curtis, and directed by Arnold Schwarzeneggar of all people! But for the film at hand, I can’t recommend it whole-heartedly, except as an okay, occasionally charming Christmas movie to have on in the background while catching up with loved ones during the greatest time of the year.
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