Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

It was interesting to watch a holiday movie in August. I do think these stories should air year round and not just in December. I had never seen Christmas IN CONNECTICUT all the way through. Well, now, I finally have. I found myself focusing on S.Z. Sakall's performance as Felix the cook-- you know, the guy who says "everything is hunky-dunky!" But in addition to Sakall, the rest of the cast shines too-- and it's obvious they were all having fun making this film. There's a lot of screwball comedy here, and the dialogue is just so intentionally silly in spots that you can't help but love it. Sakall's scenes with Stanwyck are quite good, but his scenes with Greenstreet are even better. And there's a scene at his restaurant early in the film where he walks around and doesn't have dialogue. If you watch that part carefully, you will see a great bit of improvisation. Truly one of the best character actors in Hollywood during the 1940s.

Let's hear it for serendipity: In a shop specializing in Region 1 dvds I stumbled across one of those pantechnicon boxed sets, this one featuring four Christmas-themed movies. The selling point in my case was The Shop Around The Corner, which I have seen several times on TV but never owned and the set also boasted three other titles that were either new to me (It Happened on Fifth Avenue) or titles of which I'd heard of but hadn't seen, like this one. Okay the leading man was something of an acting joke, wooden as both Punch and Judy combined, but Barbara Stanwych seldom lets you down and if she was having an off-day here (she wasn't) Sydney Greenstreet, S. Z. Zackall, Regineld Gardiner and Una O'Connor were running interference and there was no way they could all be lousy at the same time. The premise was that Stanwyck plays a character based loosely upon Gladys Taber who, for several decades wrote a column in Family Circle in which she did little more than chat in a homely way - and/or dispensed 'Butternut Wisdom' about her farm in Connecticut, lacing the text with recipes, gardening tips etc. The twist in the film is that Stanwyck writes her column from Manhattan, couldn't boil water without burning it, would require an illustrated recipe to make toast and relies on the expertise of restaurateur Zackall to provide the cooking tips/recipes. She's doing all right if anybody asks you until the owner of the magazine, Greenstreet, decides not only to spend Christmas on the fictitious Stanwyck farm but also to bring war hero Morgan to supply the human interest angle. Luckily Regineld Gardiner, who has been pursuing Stanwyck unsuccessfully for years, just happens to have a farm in Connecticut which he is prepared to 'lend' Stanwyck should she agree to marry him, and naturally there is room also for Zackall to do the cooking. Now, of course, it's just a matter of waiting to see how long Stanwyck can keep the balls in the air, or how many near-misses she can survive. There's a lot of charm at work here and it's sobering to think that in 1945 this could have easily got lost in the shuffle at a time when they were churning out stuff like this at the rate of half a dozen a year whilst today it beckons like an oasis in a desert of mediocrity. Highly recommended.

The first half of the 1940's was marked by well known performers from other film genres stepping out of character to star in what may be the last wave of remembered Hollywood screwball comedies still marketed for home viewing and seasonally aired on television. Barbara Stanwyck does her usual professional job as the hard as nails career woman fudging a domestic column for a magazine whose bluff is called in thirties type screwball involving a runaway horse and cow, mixed up babies, Cuddles Szakall stealing the show at every turn with his comic flair and a rural farmhouse which lacks the central iconic focus of every movie advertising the charm of a rural farmhouse - the welcoming, party sized period kitchen. The storyboard is a nonsensical enough fantasy to work yet the editing takes most of the true comic flair out of the film. It seems to me most of the way through a decent musical with at least Dennis Morgan singing once but not truly a top flight comedy.

This is a film that truly and nostalgically shows us the America of the 1940's, even as the two great supporting actors, Sydney Greenstreet and S. Z. Sakall hailed from Europe, and the screenplay co-author's parents had gone through Ellis Island. Now for a detail or two. The address of Felix's restaurant was carefully presented as was often the norm at that time: 1. The 300 block is too far away from Fifth avenue. 2. We are not shown if this is East or West from Fifth avenue. 3. The better restaurants are usually in the 50's, not the 40's. That way, you might not be forlornly looking for it. Later on, perhaps for financial reasons, Barbara Stanwyck appeared in a TV western, whatever it was, and so younger viewers may not always know what a great actress she was during the 1940's, the golden age. After seeing this, you might even be wondering, why don't we occasionally have horses and buggies anymore?