Save your money for something good and enjoyable

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

According to IMDB, "Confidentially Connie" lost a ton of money for MGM and I can understand why...the story was just plain strange. Not so much bad as weird and hard to imagine WHY they'd do a story like this! Apparently, some of the IMDB reviewers REALLY hated it. All I know is that it was a pleasant and weird time-passer.The film begins back East. Joe Bedloe (Van Johnson) is a professor at a small college where they seem to pay their faculty very, very little...so little that his wife Connie (Janet Leigh) has to make a lot of cutbacks. One cutback is meat...something they've learned to do without. But when Joe's dad, Opie (Louis Calhern) visits, he's shocked...and worried because Connie is pregnant and he KNOWS women need lots and lots of meat when they are pregnant! So, he conspires with Connie and the local butcher to provide meat at half price. But when the other professors families learn that the Bedloes are getting a great deal on meat, Opie is forced to pay for EVERYONE'S discount meat...otherwise Joe will find out about his father's interfering. To me, however, I just thought Joe was a jerk and should have been grateful for the help.Was there some sort of meat crisis of 1953?? I was very confused by the film and its notion that many folks couldn't afford meat back in the day. Regardless, the idea of Opie giving his daughter-in-law his meat is a strange notion in a film. Not bad...just odd overall...mostly because the cast did a nice job with the thin material they were given.

The dated "Confidentially Connie" represents the era when people viewed meat as one of the healthiest foods, and also portrays a nuclear family (husband's the breadwinner, wife stays home and cooks). I think that the movie wants to see itself as a satire on the desire for success at any cost, but it comes across as a "Leave It to Beaver"-style story. True, the price war was funny, but now that we know that red meat causes heart disease and colon cancer (from which the carnivorous John Wayne probably would have died had he not smoked himself to death).Basically, it's a hokey movie. And personally, having been to Texas but never Maine, I can say that I'd never trade Maine for Texas.PS: Hayden Rorke, who played Simmonds, is best known as Dr. Bellows on "I Dream of Jeannie".

This is very possibly the worst movie I ever watched. But my wife and I sat through it, remarking later that it was as riveting as a slow-motion train wreck. This movie is so bad, we wondered how it was ever put on film. From initial premise to final scene, everything about this movie is the pits.The premise of the movie is that the faculty at a small Maine college (symbolizing small colleges, in general) is so underpaid that putting red meat of any kind on the table is an extreme luxury, and a real budget-buster. On the other hand, they have money to eat plenty of fish and pay for loads of vitamins. The economics of this film also permit sacrificing cigarettes in order to eat lamb chops. In 1950 how much did cigarettes cost - 20 cents a pack? Whew, that seems like a lot of foregone smoking!The meddlesome parent of a newlywed couple is hardly an original idea for comedy, but here it never generates a smile. The young couple are portrayed by Janet Leigh and Van Johnson. After his initial appearance, Van Johnson portrays his character as Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, in the deepest of tragedies. Meanwhile, Louis Calhern, Johnson's "Pop" up from Texas, is hamming it up as a wealthy cattleman. Janet Leigh, somewhere in between, seems to think she is June Cleaver before giving birth to Wally. The director never seems to have any of them pulling in the same direction at the same time, consequently the boat just goes 'round and 'round and eventually capsizes.The preoccupation with meat makes for one of the most bizarre plots ever made into a picture by a Hollywood studio. It was so freaky that I admit to never paying attention to whether the lines, themselves, if delivered by other actors under the direction of another director might have been funny. Let me think... NAAAAH, No Way! But, if you are a movie junkie and want to see a historically bad film - and I don't mean cheesy, like some B sci-fi flick - check this one out. You'll be puzzled hours after you watched it - "Just what hit me?"

This picture had some great stuff going for it, based on a story by Max Shulman and Herman Wouk and a screenplay by Shulman and a load of great character actors as backup. Sadly it fails because of bad casting. This is a vehicle that was made for wisecracking actors like Jack Carson and Eve Arden. With the Shulman one liners coming a mile a minute Van Johnson and Janet Leigh just seem to dodge out of the way rather than play into the witty remarks. The lazy direction by Edward Buzzell doesn't help either. And it's not like there's anything the matter with the performances, just the use of the wrong talent on material better suited to actors with a Powell/Loy characterization. Come to think of it, this was in 53 and Powell and Loy were still under contract to MGM. That might have been a fitting farewell to the Nick and Nora team.