CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT

SYNOPSIS: A young and single New York food writer is forced to prove her infamous culinary talents by hosting Christmas dinner for her ornery boss and a newly stateside soldier. The facts that she can't cook and is supposed to be married prove to cause more than a few logistical problems.

BOTTOM LINE: A romantic and funny holiday film that should be more popular than it is. Stanwyck is perfectly cast as a lonely lady who creates the life of her dreams through her words. She's famous for her exquisitely descriptive articles about the lavish meals she creates for her family on their quiet farm in Connecticut. Her quiet lives are suddenly unbalanced and her active imagination put to the test when her publisher, desperate for a wider subscription base, "requests" that she make a wounded soldiers dream of a perfect Christmas come true. She enlists the help of some friends – one wants to be her husband and pretends that he is to hopefully seal the deal and the other the genius behind the recipes used in her column to do the actual cooking – to pull off the charade. Everything goes pretty well until she falls for the soldier, placing her career and heart on the line. All's well that ends well, but it's a wacky, sweet, funny road to the romantic finish line. Though the supporting cast provides a good deal of the laughs, it's really Stanwyck's flick and she proves just how funny, smart and sexy she can be. Much of the humor comes from her total ineptness as a "wife" and "mother", which I'm sure many modern gals will relate to. The film starts off a bit slow, spending way too much time establishing the rather simple premise, but once the pace picks up, it's a true comic treat.