Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

 Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

An article writer’s life (Barbara Stanwyck, whose entire career is based on fiction-passing-as-reality) is turned topsy-turvy when her publisher-boss (Sydney Greenstreet) request she accommodate a shipwrecked Navy man to her (nonexistent) farm to spend the holidays with her (also nonexistent) husband and baby and to a sumptuous Christmas dinner, (alas, she can’t cook!)

Since he prides on always publishing the truth, revealing the sad truth to him would result in her losing her career.

Things aren’t even as simple as that in this already complex Comedy of Errors:

The sailor (Dennis Morgan) became engaged to his nurse only to procure decent meals at the hospital with no intention to follow thru. The invitation to the Connecticut farm is the result of the nurse asking a favor of the publisher, (who’s the grandfather of a former patient.)

The writer has an aspiring boyfriend she decides to marry in a moment of desperation in order to get access to a farm and present him as her husband, (the missing baby is still unaccounted for.)

To complicate matters, her boss invited himself to the farm; an uncle who’s a chef (and who will provide the meals) needs to be brought along; and a marrying judge must be constantly hidden at the most inopportune times so the plan won’t be discovered and a maid (Una O'Connor) disapproves of all this immoral nonsense.

A very funny film, carefully crafted with little (classic) jokes and (surprisingly) many risqué double entendres, and sexy misunderstandings, (a joke about Stanwick's firm behind, might be an odd fit in a different movie, but here it manages to fit quite well with all the other present naughtiness):

The sailor thinks he’s falling in love with a married woman, (much to her amusement, but also, she can’t reveal the truth without endangering her position); she in turn must attempt to fool people into thinking she is married, with a child, and living in a farm despite not knowing the first thing about childcare, (or even the name and sex of the baby they are able to get,) or being unfamiliar even the farm’s basics, (other characters better remember her articles than she does!); the boring architect boyfriend’s efforts to get the judge to marry them are constantly foiled, (largely in part to S.Z. Sakall, the very funny uncle); the boss suspects his employee is cheating on her (fake) husband, later he will think the baby was born out of wedlock; etc. etc. etc.

If there is a flaw here it might be, despite good chemistry between the leads, that she falls in love immediately at first glance. No real chance is given to the relationship to develop, but Barbara Stanwyck is so good, it almost works, (after all, she does not really want to marry her architect!) More time will be spent with the two characters so that the relationship could have been eased into, not that I’m really complaining.

By the end, all pretense at any sort of realism is dropped and issues quickly get resolved towards a happy ending even when, as established, it’s clear many characters are acting at odds of how they were established, (the boss ceases to care about his moral principles, the architect does not mind losing the love of his life for the sake of a publishing contract, etc.) even when their final actions still serve their own interests.

Despite seemingly propagating a conservative ideology (a woman is willing to give up her career for marriage) this is the type of movie with a hidden feminist message: No one is given more agency than Stanwick’s character.

I’m not sure if this one is considered a Screwball Comedy, but it has all the necessary elements (including baby kidnapping!) almost to Shakespearean extremes.

Excellent cast all around.