Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

Christmas in Connecticut (1945), directed by Peter Godfrey.

A mild mannered romantic comedy with the typical Warner ease and gloss. There really isn't a Christmas message, but apparently a Christmas film is any one that takes place during the holidays. I don't quite agree, but never mind. It's in our Christmas rotation and we see it every few years.

Barbara Stanwyck is a columnist who has fabricated her entire act: that she is an expert cook and lives on an idyllic farm with a husband and a baby. When her jovially tyrannic publisher (Sydney Greenstreet) orders her to host a Navy war hero for the holidays, it's a vast effort to fake the whole setting. Including the husband and baby.

It's a familiar stock cast that includes S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall and Una O'Connor. I don't quite get Dennis Morgan as a leading man; he's affable but a bit bland. Stanwyck's almost carnivorous interest when she first sees him is pretty funny.

I see that a generally unliked remake in 1992 starred Dyan Cannon, Kris Kristofferson and Tony Curtis and was directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.