Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
- kbroer
- Dec 20, 2024
- 2 min read
Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, S.Z. Sakall, Sydney Greenstreet
Directed by Peter Godfrey
Available to stream on Prime Video
This week's Christmas movie is a lighthearted comedy featuring another great ensemble of characters, led by Barbara Stanwyck. Stanwyck's character, magazine columnist Elizabeth Lane, spends Christmas entertaining both her boss and a recuperating sailor, while pretending that she has a husband, a baby, and a farm - none of which is true. Complications arise when she starts to fall for the sailor.
Why we love it: Light-weight and fun watching for the Christmas season. Barbara Stanwyck, often seen in dramatic roles, is equally adept at comedy, especially with such a cast of wonderful Hollywood veteran character actors: S.Z. Sakall, Sydney Greenstreet, Reginald Gardiner, Una O'Conner and others. It's a holiday classic!
Fun Facts:
This movie marked a change for Stanwyck who just the previous year had appeared in the dramatic film noir classic Double Indemnity and had been nominated for an Academy Award. Apparently throughout her long career, she liked to alternate between dramatic and comedic roles.
Bette Davis was originally intended for the role of Elizabeth Lane but she was soon replaced by Stanwyck.
The set for the Connecticut farm was also used in Bringing Up Baby (1938).
S.Z. Sakall and Sydney Greenstreet are both recognizable from their appearance in another of our favorite classic movies, Casablanca (1942). Greenstreet usually played more sinister characters so it was a change for audiences to see him in such a lighthearted, jovial role.
This is another Christmas movie, like Miracle on 34th Street (1947), that was released off-season. It premiered in July and was released in August, but it was still quite a hit at the box-office.
According to a review in Modern Screen, the 14-foot Christmas tree had to be replaced at least four times so that it would look fresh in all the scenes.
For more reviews from the time, go to the Fan Magazine Reviews page.
Featured Cocktail:
Rum Flip
Related to egg nog, flips are drinks that include a whole egg, making them rich and frothy, good for cold weather or nightcap. Both Harriett Beecher Stowe and Charles Dickens mention them in novels from the 1860s. Just about any liquor can be used as the base, including brandy, gin, sherry, port, rum, whiskey, etc.
2 oz (60 ml) aged rum
2 tsp (10 ml) sugar or sugar syrup
1 whole fresh egg
Grated nutmeg for garnish
Dry shake (without ice) all ingredients. Add ice and shake again. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with freshly grated nutmeg.
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