Christmas in Connecticut

Christmas in Connecticut is a 1945 film starring Barbara Stanwyck (Stella Dallas, Double Indemnity, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Sorry, Wrong Number, The Big Valley tv series, The Thorn Birds miniseries), Sydney Greenstreet (The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca), S.Z. Sakall (Casablanca), Una O'Connor (The Invisible Man, Bride of Frankenstein, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Bells of St. Mary's), Robert Shayne ( Police Inspector Bill Henderson in Adventures of Superman tv show), Joyce Compton (The Best Years of Our Lives) and Dick Elliott (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It's a Wonderful Life, Mayor Pike in The Andy Griffith Show, 3 different characters in episodes of The Adventures of Superman)).

Stanwyck is a lifestyle writer for a magazine, describing her imagined Connecticut farm scenery while looking over drying laundry out of her big city apartment window, mentioning how companionable her non-existent 8-month old baby is, and detailing the delights of kitchen and table while sampling Uncle Felix the chef's culinary inspirations. It's his recipes she publishes; she doesn't cook. All goes well until Greenstreet, the head of the publishing company, insists she take in a wounded sailor for Christmas. She adopts her persistent suitor's Connecticut farm, adopts the suitor as a new fiancee with plans to marry before the guests arrive, temporarily adopts the baby whom the housekeeper babysits to stand-in for the baby her readers think she has, and then -when all seems to ok- begins to fall in love with the sailor. Classic screw-ball comedy.

This is one of The Daughter's favorites, and she came over this morning to watch it and have cherry pie for a late breakfast.

trailer:



DVD Verdict says, "contemporary viewers must swallow a lot of preposterous plotting, even for a screwball comedy". Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 88%.