Stultifying TV-made remake of the 1945 chestnut starring Barbara Stanwyck. As directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger (!), this romantic comedy begins with a terrific bit of television-oriented satire involving Dyan Cannon as the hostess of a popular cooking program. Cannon (vivacious as ever) doesn't know her way around a kitchen, and so has cue cards in front of her and lackeys handing her props out of camera range. It's a wonderfully sly bit of prodding at manufactured show-biz 'magic'...however, once the contrived plot kicks in, the film loses that fresh, funny edge. Dyan has to pretend to be a family-oriented country gal in a publicity stunt which pairs her with recent wilderness hero Kris Kristofferson, and the rest you can write yourself. There isn't a spontaneous or uplifting moment in the mix as our glowing couple grows closer and closer, while she is forced to dislocate herself from the awful truth. A better movie might have been had just by keeping Cannon in the city working on her show, maybe with Kristofferson as her cooking guest. Sadly, the writing here was aiming for Bigger! Better! Funnier! while out-of-his-element Schwarzenegger darts around hoping to exploit every crash for knee-slapping laughs. They fail to arrive.
Review of Christmas in Connecticut
Christmas in Connecticut
(1992 TV Movie)
Chaos and noise where just a little more satire might have sufficed...
1 December 2009