Josh Bell
It’s appropriate that Christmas in Connecticut was released 80 years ago this week, at the height of summer, and not anywhere near the holiday season. The 1945 romantic comedy treats Christmas almost as an afterthought, just one more element of the fake domestic tranquility that writer Elizabeth Lane (Barbara Stanwyck) has invented as part of the persona for her “Diary of a Housewife” column.
Elizabeth isn’t married, doesn’t have children, doesn’t live on a farm in Connecticut, and doesn’t know how to cook, and she’s not trimming a tree and placing presents under it, either. As she types up her latest dispatch from her imagined life as a homemaker, reading along out loud, director Peter Godfrey pans across her New York City apartment, which looks more appropriate for the 1940s version of Carrie Bradshaw. Elizabeth isn’t looking for a husband — she’s far more enthused about the delivery of a luxurious new fur coat than she is about the arrival of her determined suitor John Sloan (Reginald Gardiner), a prominent architect. “The things a girl will do for a mink coat,” she muses, not particularly concerned with the ruse that she’s putting over on her millions of readers.
That sounds like the set-up for a domesticating romance, which is the expected outcome for holiday rom-coms from classic Hollywood all the way to Hallmark. It seems like Elizabeth will have to give herself an instant housewife makeover when her blowhard publisher Alexander Yardley (Sydney Greenstreet) insists that she host decorated World War II veteran Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan) for Christmas. Yardley doesn’t know that Elizabeth fabricates the details of her home life and gets all her recipes from the restaurant down the street, run by boisterous Hungarian chef Felix Bassenak (S.Z. Sakall). Like all of the men in the movie, he projects his image of feminine virtue onto her, and he isn’t interested in anything that might contradict it.
It’s the men in her life who cajole Elizabeth into creating an elaborate hoax for the sake of good-hearted Jefferson. Her editor, Dudley Beecham (Robert Shayne), who helped her concoct her false biography, begs her not to expose the truth and get him fired. John spots an opening to renew his frequently rejected marriage proposal, and he agrees to let Elizabeth use his Connecticut estate as her supposed family home. Since she’s likely to soon be unemployed, he offers her the “job” of becoming his wife, and without any other prospects, she grudgingly accepts.
Even Yardley, who assumes that Elizabeth is the real deal, inserts himself into the holiday plans without asking, since his own daughter and grandchildren aren’t able to visit. Elizabeth may be a modern career woman, but these men can see her only as some variation on the idealized fiction that she depicts in print every month. Jefferson is no different, really, presenting her with the same rocking chair that nearly 40 other fans have sent her after an offhand mention in a recent column.
That could make for a lopsided romance, and the blandly handsome Morgan is no match for the fiery Stanwyck. That turns into part of the movie’s charm, though, since Elizabeth is so blatantly horny for Jefferson the moment she lays eyes on him. She knows that she isn’t actually married, but she toys with his obvious attraction to a woman he thinks is taken, brazenly flirting in a way that’s acceptable to the Production Code but still carries a charge of forbidden sexual energy.
Elizabeth is drawn to Jefferson’s purity and sweetness, but she’s also clearly ready to devour him as soon as she gets the chance. The filmmakers put plenty of obstacles in her way, and Christmas in Connecticut is a genial farce, with a house full of strong personalities who have various competing agendas. There’s no outright villain, even if John is snooty and Yardley is overbearing, and Godfrey balances the screwball comedy with gentle holiday cheer. There’s an enormous Christmas tree — which looms almost ominously over Elizabeth in the movie’s most striking image — along with idyllic small-town yuletide activities, including sleigh rides and a community dance.
Unlike a Hallmark heroine, Elizabeth isn’t necessarily won over by the virtues of country living. She doesn’t exactly embrace the traditional identity that the men thrust upon her, either. “Where did you get it?” she asks John when he presents a neighbor’s baby as a stand-in for the child she’s written about having, and she keeps referring to the baby (and its subsequent replacement) as “it.” Stuck in the position of bathing and changing the baby, she’s delighted to hand the duties over to Jefferson, who is already an expert thanks to helping out with his sister’s kids. He can handle the childcare; she’s a writer.
That doesn’t mean she can’t fall in love, of course, and all of the intricate machinations eventually fall away so that she can have her moment of blissful connection with Jefferson. As Felix would say, everything is “hunky dunky,” and Elizabeth makes sure to get a raise while getting her man. It’s a Christmas miracle — not that anyone is paying much attention to the holiday.
“Christmas in Connecticut” is available for digital rental or purchase.
