Connecticut Christmas in July

The primary reason to see this movie is that it is one of Barbara Stanwyck's first comic roles, and she has considerable finesse. The secondary reason to watch this movie is that S.Z. Sakall is adorable.

I was really unfamiliar with the latter actor, although I knew I'd seen him before, so I looked him up on IMDB. He made several dozen movies in Germany and other Eastern European countries; these credits stop in 1936. In 1940, he shows up again, this time in English-speaking roles. This is Carl, the head waiter, in Casablanca. He is a significant cutie who made a lot of movies as people's uncles or fathers or such. In some of his films, he's credited as "S.Z. 'Cuddles' Sakall." I can see that. He is a charming actor with a very nice comic touch.

It would take an incredible leading player to keep this teddy bear from walking off with the picture; fortunately, this film has Stanwyck. (Let's take just a minute for respectful admiration, shall we?) "The tough broad who can dish it out as well as she can take it," a frequent sobriquet I hear about her, applies to comedy as well as to drama. She's hilarious.

The plot to this film is a bit of a handicap--whatever plot is present tends to make our protagonists look as unappealing as possible. Stanwyck is Elizabeth Lane, a hugely popular food writer for a women's magazine--who is utterly incapable of boiling water. She is given recipes by a chef friend of hers, Sakall, who clearly adores her; there are allusions to some mysterious favor she did for him years ago that enabled him to make a living, and he is now forever in her debt. Around these scrumptious recipes, she has woven a beautiful pastoral fable about her husband, baby, and animal friends as they lead blissful lives on her Connecticut farm (which she, of course, writes from her New York City flat, where she is conspicuously alone). Her boss (played by Sydney Greenstreet, also in an unusually light role) essentially steamrolls her into hosting Christmas dinner for a heroic G.I. recovering from his wounds--and, oh, by the way, for himself as well. Boss is a stickler for honesty, and if he knew her whole story was so much baloney, the gig would be up.

And it goes on from there; lie after lie, deceit after deceit, layers of silly misdirection piled up on top of each other in a way we would find utterly odious in real life, but which is quite hilarious in screwball comedies. (Wasn't that little boy a baby girl yesterday?) And, as per expectation, we have Lonely G.I. falling for Unattainable Married Woman--but, of course, she isn't, and he *is* engaged. Sort of. Nobody is who they say they are.

This plot (or lack thereof) has the definite potential to alienate people; everyone is lying to everyone else, and the only thing worse than having people find out that they were lying would have been for them to learn the truth. However, it all worked out perfectly beautifully in the end, a la the screwball comedies, and no one was any worse for the wear.