Hidden Gems - Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

There’s something about the 1940s and Christmas. Some of the best (or at least most classic) Christmas films were made during that decade, including It’s a Wonderful Life, Holiday Inn, and Miracle on 34th Street. Another one of these films is Christmas in Connecticut, a charming romantic comedy that I think is underrepresented in people’s annual watchlist.

The plot is both somewhat timeless while also being very much of its time during World War II. A sailor (Dennis Morgan) spends eighteen days on a raft and pretends he’s in love with his nurse as a way to get access to real food. Claiming he’s never had a real home as a way to get out of the engagement he finds himself in, the nurse contacts a magazine publisher (Sydney Greenstreet), who decides to have one of his writers, Elizabeth Lane (Barbara Stanwyck), a housewife who lives on a farm with her husband and baby and is an excellent cook, host the sailor for Christmas. The only problem is that none of that is true. She’s single living in the city and gets all of her recipes from her Uncle Felix (S.Z. Sakall) since she can’t cook. Accepting a marriage proposal from a man she doesn’t love but who owns a farm, she tries to create the facade while avoiding getting married, as she instead falls in love with the sailor.

Even though this story has a common formula for romantic comedies, it really works because it has a good script and a terrific cast. The film is very funny, with Uncle Felix being a standout and easily the best character in the film. The movie has a lot of old Hollywood charm to it. It does use the old trope of love at first sight, but it’s used efficiently in the story and leads to great comedy. The comedy also isn’t so awkward that it’s cringe-inducing, which could have been an easy trap for this film to fall into but it doesn’t. The gowns designed by Edith Head are absolutely gorgeous as well. The film does have some flaws. The first act in some ways feels detached from the rest of the movie when the action moves to the titular state. It does promote old ideals of domesticity that are outdated, but it also has an innocence that was common back then but is sorely lacking in modern film. As it was released at the very end of World War II, in some ways it is ahead of its time, since it features a protagonist who’s a single working woman and, while it ends with her one step closer to domesticity, she doesn’t fully embrace it since she still can’t cook by the film’s end. So in that respect, it has made the film age a lot better than a film of its caliber normally would.

Overall, Christmas in Connecticut is a charming movie that I highly recommend you check out his holiday season. It was remade as a TV movie in 1992, but it received negative reviews, and while I haven’t seen it, it doesn’t look like it comes close to the original. The poster for the original movie is currently featured in the temporary Christmas exhibit at Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood right now. The film was also included in TCM’s list of 30 best Christmas movies, and while it may not be quite as Christmas-heavy as some films, it’s a good film to watch during the season.