{"id":15317,"date":"2021-12-24T11:33:02","date_gmt":"2021-12-24T16:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=15317"},"modified":"2024-12-24T16:51:14","modified_gmt":"2024-12-24T21:51:14","slug":"christmas-in-connecticut-1945","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=15317","title":{"rendered":"Christmas in Connecticut-1945"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christmas in Connecticut-1945<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director Peter Godfrey<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #1,211<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed December 24, 2021<\/p>\n

Grade: B+<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christmas in Connecticut (1945) is a flavorful holiday romantic yarn that will please those looking for a snowy, laugh-out-loud experience with zany moments and silly situations, but that works nonetheless.<\/p>\n

Any foodie craving a film that dazzles with showcasing excellent meals will enjoy this treat.<\/p>\n

The film also oozes New York’s sophistication and New England’s atmosphere, creating a cinematic balance between city and country.<\/p>\n

Despite the colorful cover art, Christmas in Connecticut is shot in black and white, which is better.<\/p>\n

The key selling point is the instant chemistry between the leads, Barbara Stanwyck and Dennis Morgan, who carry the film.<\/p>\n

Stanwyck had just made the vastly different Double Indemnity (1944), and Morgan was a singer, allowing him to perform a memorable song.<\/p>\n

Together, they shine.<\/p>\n

Actors like Sydney Greenstreet, S.Z. Sakall and Una O’Connor provide perfect comic timing in their roles, allowing the leads to take the stage in the romance department.<\/p>\n

Not to be missed is the timely release of the film in 1945, the year that World War II ended, and a necessary time for a cheery film like Christmas in Connecticut. The main character is an Army veteran who begins the film injured in a vet hospital, but the film opts not to make it a dreary, real-life experience.<\/p>\n

The action starts in the Atlantic Ocean, where war hero Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan) is stranded on a raft with his mate. He imagines the raft a clean dining room table brimming with delicious food and his mate his waiter.<\/p>\n

Awakened in a hospital, he tricks his nurse, Mary Lee (Joyce Compton), into becoming his fianc\u00e9e so he can be fed steak dinners.<\/p>\n

While recovering, he grows familiar with the “Diary of a Housewife” column written by Elizabeth Lane (Barbara Stanwyck), the Martha Stewart of the 1940s. She provides cooking advice for her readers.<\/p>\n

Mary arranges with Elizabeth’s publisher, Alexander Yardley (Greenstreet), for Jeff to spend the holiday at Elizabeth’s lavish Connecticut farm with her husband and child.<\/p>\n

However, the column is a sham, so Elizabeth arranges to marry her friend, John Sloan (Reginald Gardiner), to make it appear that she is the domestic she claims to be in her columns.<\/p>\n

How she can write popular columns that dole out cooking and housekeeping advice without knowing anything about either subject is ludicrous but part of the fun.<\/p>\n

When she meets Jeff, they fall madly in love at first sight.<\/p>\n

The film is one madhouse situation after another, and while Elizabeth and Jeff will undoubtedly live happily ever after, the main appeal is how they will reach that point.<\/p>\n

From the first scene, when they meet at the Connecticut farm, there is instant chemistry between Stanwyck and Morgan that lasts the entire film.<\/p>\n

Their gazes and glances made me root for them.<\/p>\n

The fun is the situations the pair is put through, mostly Elizabeth. As she pretends she has a baby, she borrows a neighbor’s baby and hastily names him Robert, unaware that the baby is a girl. When Jeff, who is more domestic than Elizabeth, changes the baby’s diaper, he is in for a shock.<\/p>\n

That Elizabeth knows nothing about cooking or a baby is the hilarity of Christmas in Connecticut. She awkwardly tries to flip a flapjack or handle a cow or other situation comedy moments that make the film as good as it is.<\/p>\n

Stanwyck is fantastic as a woman on the verge of being found out.<\/p>\n

Handsome Dennis Morgan portrays a good American man who will make an even better husband, which is a large part of his appeal. We long for Elizabeth and Jeff to be together.<\/p>\n

A bevy of food scenes and references appear. Besides the flapjacks and steak sequences, steaming plates of good food and drink appear in almost every scene.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth’s uncle\/chef and housekeeper, played by Sakall and O’Connor, respectively, light up the screen in comical scenes. I hoped the pair would find their romance together, but this never came to fruition.<\/p>\n

An endearing seasonal nugget, Christmas in Connecticut (1945), will please fans of good-natured romance tinged with physical comedy. It has a heart and a pleasant veneer showcasing hapless misunderstandings that lead to the inevitable and satisfying conclusion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christmas in Connecticut-1945 Director Peter Godfrey Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan Scott’s Review #1,211 Reviewed December 24, 2021 Grade: B+ Christmas in Connecticut (1945) is a flavorful holiday romantic yarn that will please those looking for a snowy, laugh-out-loud experience with zany moments and silly situations, but that works nonetheless. Any foodie craving a film … Continue reading Christmas in Connecticut-1945<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,516,319,49,4061,4060,45,4062],"tags":[90,517,320,252,4064,4063,95,4065],"class_list":["post-15317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1945-films","category-barbara-stanwyck","category-christmas-films","category-comedies","category-dennis-morgan","category-peter-godfrey","category-romcoms","category-sydney-greenstreet","tag-1945-movie-reviews","tag-barbara-stanwyck","tag-christmas-films","tag-comedies","tag-dennis-morgan","tag-peter-godfrey","tag-romantic-comedies","tag-sydney-greenstreet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15317"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20866,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15317\/revisions\/20866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}