Christmas in connecticut

How it works

Barbara Stanwyck plays Elizabeth Lane, a columnist whose readers think she runs a perfect farm kitchen in Connecticut. She actually lives in New York and cannot cook. The recipes come from her friend Felix, a chef. Her publisher, played by Sydney Greenstreet, still believes the column. When a war hero, played by Dennis Morgan, is sent to spend Christmas at that imaginary farm, the lie has to grow a house, a husband, a baby, and a meal. Peter Godfrey directed. Warner Bros. released the film in 1945. The running time is about 101 minutes. It is black and white. It is a screwball plot with a Christmas tree in the middle, not a documentary about New England winters.

The title names a place because the column named a place. Connecticut on the map is a real state. The farm in the story is a set. You cannot drive to Elizabeth Lane's kitchen. You can drive to Connecticut and have a real Christmas there, which will be 25 December, with whatever meal the actual household cooks. Do not use the film as proof that every Connecticut housewife in 1945 was a fraud, or that every Connecticut house now is a farm. The joke is one woman and one publisher.

A television remake appeared in 1992, directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, with Dyan Cannon and Kris Kristofferson. It is a separate production with the same premise. If a guide listing says “Christmas in Connecticut” without a year, check which one you are about to start. The 1945 film is the one people mean when they say the Stanwyck Christmas picture.

What you are watching

You are watching a farce about expertise that was never lived. Lane can write a life she cannot perform. Christmas, in this plot, is the deadline that makes the performance public. The war-hero guest has read the column in hospital and wants the table he was promised. The publisher wants to see his star at home. The fiancé-shaped friend has a farm that can be borrowed. The chef can cook. The writer cannot. That gap is the engine. If you want a solemn nativity, this is the wrong reel. If you want Stanwyck playing panic in a perfect apron, it is the right one.

1945 theatrical film, Warner Bros., directed by Peter Godfrey. Leads: Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet. Setup: a fake Connecticut farm Christmas that has to become a real sitting. 1992: a later television remake with the same title and a different cast.

Watch it with the lights down if you like old studio comedy, or with commentary from the sofa if your household talks through films. Either is a holiday use. Pause for food if the running time collides with your own dinner. The characters' meal is not a timer for yours. Their menu is a plot point. Yours is in your kitchen.

Connecticut, the state, and the title

People also search the phrase because they are going to Connecticut for Christmas, or because they live there and want local hours, weather, or events. Those are travel and civic questions. The film will not open a road. Town greens, church services, and restaurant sittings in Connecticut are local notices for the year you are in. The 1945 farm is not on that list. If you are travelling, read the town you mean. If you are watching, read the year on the file.

Connecticut in the title is a columnist's farm that does not exist. The holiday is real. The homestead is copy. When the credits end, you are still wherever you sat down. 25 December is still 25 December. A magazine kitchen you cannot cook in is a good joke to take to your own table, especially if you, too, have published a recipe you have never made. Then cook something you can actually finish, or book a place that can. The film has already done the panic for you.