Confidentially Connie (1953)

(On Cable TV, July 2022) Meat and family estrangement come together in small-scale domestic comedy Confidentially Connie. Relaying an obsession for red meat that feels very mid-1950s, the film revolves around a husband and a wife expecting their first child—he’s the son of an important Texan rancher who gave up the family ranch to find satisfaction in teaching literature in a northeastern college, whereas she’s trying to put meat on the table while she’s pregnant. Complications arise when the father storms into town and creates a price war at the butcher as a side effect of trying to help his daughter-in-law, with assorted shenanigans regarding tenure for the husband. It’s all quite amusing without being hilarious—the portrait of a small Maine community dominated by its college works as a microcosm of what nutrition was understood to be at the time (especially for pregnant women). Van Johnson and Janet Leigh play the lead couple as likable but rather boring people, while Louis Calhern gets most of the attention as an outsized Texas rancher in a small Maine town. The very definition of a minor comedy, Confidentially Connie works rather well in achieving its modest aims—and the passing of years has added a layer of weirdness that the carnivore-by-default 1950s didn’t quite see.