"John, when you're kissing me, don't talk about plumbing."

I always forget about Christmas in Connecticut, showing now on TCM, and it's such a sweet picture. Barbara Stanwyck is so good at not knowing how to do anything remotely domestic. Plus S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall is in it, fresh from an earlier appearance on TCM this morning in the painful Never Say Goodbye (1946), with Errol Flynn, Eleanor Parker, and the precocious (see "painful") Patti Brady. I confess that I had been confusing him with Gregory Ratoff, Max Fabian from All About Eve, which was a terrible mistake.

No one can convey distaste for a man like Stanwyck. Or desire.

Speaking of which, she's about to pounce on the affable,  eligible Dennis  Morgan so I'm going to cut this short. But first, I've noticed two striking sociological oddities for  the time. First, an African-American restaurant worker defined the word  catastrophe for "Cuddles" Sakall without "dialect" and in an obviously well-educated way. Not bad for 1945. Second, the women who drop off the babies for the ruse are working women, unphased and unapologetic at having their kids looked after while they work at the war plant.

Interesting.

And short lived.