Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
Retro Review #12: A solid screwball romcom delivers clever Christmas comedy in the Constitution State.
Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
+ Feature film, bw, 1h 41m
+ 1️⃣/5 works in Christmas in Connecticut multiverse 🔜⭐
A >
Grade: A > (12.0) / HOF: 30
EQ 👍? | 📖? 👥? 📽️? 🎼? (Coming soon upon re-review)
DW 😎🕶️🚫?.? | 🌚? 🌝? (Coming soon upon re-review)
POPCAP 💯n/a 🍿n/a 🧢n/a
L-R 💻⬆️⬇️? 👀⬆️⬇️? 🛐⬆️⬇️? (Coming soon upon re-review)
This film tells a story of a World War Two sailor who spent three weeks lost at sea on a raft in the ocean. He’s been dreaming of food for the whole time (can you blame him?), and that’s his driving motivation when he returns home to America. Not much of a plot summary for me to give you, but any more than that would require spoiler alerts.
Interestingly, the film was first released on July 4, 1945, roughly a month after the Allies achieved victory in Europe and roughly two months before Japan surrendered.
Knowing that, and knowing this film is a romantic comedy, and adding to that the down-home Americana title, you might be expecting this to be a sweet patriotic “over-the-river-and-through-the-woods” sort of story, timed by the film studio to appeal to the mood of the country.
You’d only be a little bit correct.
That may have been the marketing appeal, but there’s really no flag waving. So forget the patriotic angle. There’s a decent amount of the rustic pastoral feeling and a few cute scenes that might be called sweet.
But none of that is why this movie made eight of ten all-time best Christmas movie lists.
In fact, if you were wondering if this is a good family movie, the answer is no. It’s black-and-white and has a lot more dialogue than action. Younger kids will be bored as will modern teens—it’s no TikTok. The film takes a while to really get going too, so if your kids did start out watching with you, they’d be gone soon!
And maybe that’s a good thing. Because there are some adult innuendos you might not want them to clue in on. And you certainly wouldn’t want your kids to copy the behavior in this film. Most of the characters lie and deceive to get what they want, with no negative consequences. Many of the characters also fall on the greedy side of the scale, with the one character who does value honesty being the greediest.
Deception and avarice however can make for great comedy and that’s where this film shines. Yes, it starts off slowly. But a few smiles here and there will increase in frequency and by mid-movie you’ll be laughing out loud.
It’s one of those comedies with characters being rushed off into another room so they won’t learn the truth, popping back in at awkward moments, and even some of those who are in the know about some things being completely clueless about other things.
Lots of comedies have used that formula over the years, because it usually delivers the laughs, but this one does it much better than most. That and a strong performance by lead actress Barbara Stanwyck combine to help Christmas in Connecticut earn well its excellent reputation.
Onwards!
+ viewed 2024-12-04, HDX7, 1.37, 1D
+ 🎈⛄🎄🎅🪖🥰💘🥸🤪
+ ✅❌? Approved (Coming soon upon re-review)
+ 😡? 😵💫+? 🤬+? 🤭+? 🫣+? (Coming soon upon re-review)
+ 👀 (Coming soon upon re-review)
+ ✝️ (Coming soon upon re-review)
+ ✡️ (Coming soon upon re-review)
+ 🗽 (Coming soon upon re-review)
Originally posted to text group 2024-12-05
Last updated 2025-04-14
Note: This work is in the public domain, but I have not found a good recording on YouTube. Let me know in the comments if you find one to link here.
Please do not include spoilers in the comments.
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