Review of Christmas in Connecticut (1945) by Davey M — 18 Dec 2013

The beautiful, radiant, vital Barbara Stanwyck (along with the excellent supporting cast--folks like Sydney Greenstreet and S. Z. Sakall) deserves better than this mess of a script, working its way through a series of ramshackle plot machinations and problematic post-war gender ideology.

It's a fascinating historical document, dealing with women's place in America as the men return home from the war, and there's some real warmth and humor in the execution, particularly thanks to Stanwyck's extraordinary level of commitment to some extraordinarily subpar material, but, ultimately, the weaknesses in the script kind of sink the thing.

Still, Sydney Greenstreet's goofy giggle at the end. "What a Christmas!".