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 Elizabeth Lane writes a column in a magazine giving America recipes and "homemaking hints", but "she would need a recipe to boil water." Problems ensue when her publisher invites himself and a war hero to her place for an old fashioned Christmas. 1945, 102 minutes, VHS
Two things usually mark Christmas at the MonsterHunter household: someone always ruins it and the present opening lasts longer than Rip Van Winkle's nap. The ruination of the holiday (and generally of all holidays) is covered in our look at The Man Who Came To Dinner , but I found myself reminded of the lengthy de-gifting process that goes on at my house as I watched Barbara Stanwyck valiantly (and vainly) try to get this Christmas-themed screwball comedy out of first gear. Like the last four hour long Christmas session under my tree, I was wondering when this would be over and who thought it was a good idea to drink so much soda before it started (trust me - this movie and opening presents isn't anything you would want to pause).
If you heard the concept of the opening of the presents, you might be deceived into thinking that it would be at least entertaining. After all, everyone sits and watches one person open one gift and then the person who gave it has to chime in with the "story behind the gift" while everyone continues to feign rapt attention. And yes, it would be entertaining if the story was something along the lines of how so and so had to travel to Idaho and engage a blind woodcutter to make Aunt Blabby's peg leg or how Junior's bicycle helmet was really a modified German helmet that Great Grandad pried off a dead Kraut while fighting the Kaiser. But usually, it involves how they had to trample a bunch of people at Wal-Mart at five a.m. to get that twenty-five dollar DVD player or how they had to kick some old lady in the nuts to nab that last blue Care Bear at Target.
The movie is like that, too. The concept appears to be ripe with all sorts of humorous possibilities, but there's nary a laugh to be found (except when you see how ugly the babies in this one are). This is like a cake where you dumped all the right ingredients in it and not only did it not rise, but when you went ahead and tried to eat it anyway, it gave you the runs. Stanwyck plays Elizabeth Lane, a gal who writes a column for a magazine extolling the virtues of a traditional home in the country and who provides recipes and babbles about her family. The funny part (not ha-ha funny of course) is that she lives in the city, has a Hungarian chef named Felix do all the cooking, and doesn't have a family beyond the stuffy architect suitor she loathes. Her editor knows all this, but her publisher (Sydney Greenstreet) doesn't and would fire her in a minute if he ever found out.
But how would he ever find out? He probably won't, so let's just forget all about that for now. The movie actually begins with two sailors on a raft with little food. If you threw a priest and a hooker in there with them, you'd have the makings of a pretty good joke, but as it is, this is merely all set up for Liz's big Christmas problem. There's an inordinate amount of time spent with these sailors in the hospital after they get rescued all so that we can involve Liz with a whacky "hidden identity, fake marriage, fake kid" scheme.
The set up goes like this: sailor pretends to love nurse so he can get good food at the hospital, nurse falls for sailor and wants to marry him, sailor whines that he's leery of that because he never had a real home, nurse writes to Liz's publisher asking for sailor to get a real home cooked dinner at Christmas in hopes that this will somehow trick him into marrying her, publisher tells Liz that she'll be hosting this sailor at her idyllic country home and cooking him dinner, Liz spazs out because she doesn't know how she's going to pull this off and she just bought a mink coat.
A ridiculous beginning to be sure, but at least it had the kind of frantic energy these types of movies require to be successful. When you're telling me a tall tale, you need to keep up the manic pace and jump to the next lie before I can get around to figuring out how dumb the last bit of hooey you told me was. With this movie, any energy that it had completely evaporated once all the plot had been explained and all that remained was for the characters to be put be through their paces. Nothing particularly exciting or unexpected occurred once we received our screwball marching orders and everything was so subdued that the scene with the most tension was when Liz had to flip a flapjack in front of everyone as if that would either prove or disprove her domestic goddess status.
So how does Liz decide to trick her way out of this one? (Because we all know that in these types of movies, simply saying "sorry, I'm out of town" or "no" is never an option when presented with situations that could blow up in your face.) The boring architect that keeps harassing Liz to marry him just happens to have a country home in Connecticut that is precisely the type of place that she would need to host this sailor. Now, I was never sure exactly why Liz and this guy John hung around together since she pretty much tells his snooty bum to get lost and her real pal Fritz the chef didn't like him, but I was even less sure why this whole scheme demanded that she actually marry this guy on Christmas Eve!
Sure, I suppose you could make a case that she was settling for him and that he would be a good provider and fawn all over her (when not bragging about how he put jointed pipes and triple insulation in some house he built), but tell me again why I would give a crap about a character who isn't smart enough to get out of this whole stupid "sailor needs a home cooked meal to decide whether to settle down" plot and who would just kind of throw up her hands and say "okay, I give - I'll marry you and oh by the way, can we use your house and the neighbor's baby to trick my boss and this visiting sailor?" If there's anything I like less than being stupid for stupid's sake, it's being stupid for plot's sake.
Have you guessed by now that once the sailor shows up, he'll be one of those hunky sailors who can play the piano and sing and is a natural with babies and who doesn't talk about plumbing all the time? His and Liz's courtship is rather boring even though it plays out over just two days (Christmas Eve and Christmas) and the "highlight" involves them accidentally stealing a sleigh and getting tossed into jail. Of course, they're promptly released and laugh about it and get home the same day, so it wasn't really worth mentioning except that in the meantime Liz's baby was kidnapped! Except that that was all a mistake because it was really just the publisher seeing the kid's real mother coming to pick her up after her shift down at the factory. 
The supporting cast doesn't do Stanwyck any favors in this one either. You've got the sailor played by some guy we never heard of or even recognize, but that's okay because his role doesn't call for him to have a personality beyond "great guy" and that's exactly what he brings to the role. Sydney Greenstreet's menacing presence and voice as the publisher are used merely to bellow whenever he wanders into scenes and anytime he and John have a scene together things just sort of die.
The only character that comes close to fulfilling his whacky potential is Felix, the guy who can really cook. Felix is one of those screwball characters with an accent. Guys with accents are frequently used in these farces because people that talk funny are one of the great shortcuts in comedy. Of course, when you're doling out all the good lines to Felix, you should probably have his accent not be so thick that I miss half of what he's saying. And he's wasted messing around with this judge that keeps coming by to marry John and Liz (that their wedding keeps getting delayed is supposed to be one of the running jokes, but I think the joke sort of ran away from that gag).
The movie doesn't even manage to rouse itself for the finale when Liz's publisher discovers her deception. There isn't any buildup to him finding out, not much fallout (oh, he fires her, but Felix tricks him into doubling her salary), and we couldn't care less if John finally figured out that Liz loves the sailor what with her hating John all along anyhow. Then, like a kick in the head, that stupid nurse that started it all appears! But that was pointless because she eventually announces that she's married to the other sailor our sailor was on the raft with at the very beginning! The last third of this thing lurched here and there like a stolen sleigh being driven over Sydney Greenstreet. Keep the receipt for this one, because it's going back on the 26th. Only for old fogies who are too senile to know better and for little brats that need to be bored to sleep on Christmas Eve.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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