Arnold Schwarzenegger Only Directed One Movie

The career path of actor turned director is enough of a phenomenon in Hollywood that it became its own axiom, or at least wry joke. It only makes sense that an actor, after they’ve gained enough experience and clout, would wish to take the reins of a production themselves, as the creative life of an actor is, ultimately, one at someone else’s behest. These new directors usually tackle material and genres they’re highly familiar with. That said, it’s not exactly an enormous rarity for an actor-turned-director to wish to branch out, either.

However, while there have been folks like Clint Eastwood, who started with a thriller (instead of a Western), the award for most surprising genre swing by an actor turned director goes to Arnold Schwarzenegger. When he made his feature directorial debut in 1992, it wasn’t anywhere near the action genre which he became famous for as a star. It wasn’t even sci-fi, which he had a long standing relationship with, too. Instead, it was a holiday romantic comedy, “Christmas in Connecticut,” which is a remake of the 1945 film starring Barbara Stanwyck. As if that weren’t odd enough, the movie wasn’t released to theaters. Instead, it premiered on the TNT network in, of all months, April of ’92. To date, it remains Schwarzenegger’s only feature as a director, and is only the second of two projects he ever directed, the other being the 1990 episode of “Tales from the Crypt” entitled “The Switch.” For better or worse (mostly the latter), Schwarzenegger’s “Christmas in Connecticut” lives up to its status as a trivia stumper, as the star’s work behind the camera is proof that he made the right choice to stay in front of it instead.

The original “Christmas in Connecticut,” directed by Peter Godfrey, released in August of 1945 during the final days of World War II. As a result, “Christmas in Connecticut” is a thoroughly contemporary movie, whose events kick off when a war hero, Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan), gets caught in an erroneous marriage proposal to his hospital nurse. She in turn becomes convinced that her new beau will honor his commitment if he experiences domestic bliss, which she believes is best represented by the nationally popular lifestyle writer Elizabeth Lane (Barbara Stanwyck). However, Lane is actually not a Connecticut housewife, but a jaded, single New York City woman who made up her alter ego to boost readership. This all leads to a group of characters descending on a Connecticut farm for the holidays, where mistaken identities collide in farcical fashion.

For his remake, Schwarzenegger and writer Janet Brownell understand that the core elements of the story are its Shakespearean-esque farce and the false identities put forth by the various characters. Yet their attempts to update the 1940s setting to the early ’90s are awkward at best, turning Elizabeth (Dyan Cannon) into a TV cooking show personality (who can’t actually cook), and Jefferson Jones (Kris Kristofferson) into a reclusive mountain man who loses his cabin in a fire while performing a rescue of someone stranded in the woods. The characters of Elizabeth’s blowhard boss and obnoxious suitor are combined into Tony Curtis’ Alexander Yardley, and the whole thing hinges on a Christmas Day live broadcast which goes awry. In essence, the film plays like Schwarzenegger and Brownell gave up on “Christmas in Connecticut” and attempted to emulate John Hughes films and the ending of “Scrooged” instead, a tack change which fails miserably.

The irony of “Christmas in Connecticut” is that, despite its flaws, it still might’ve worked as a calling card for Arnold Schwarzenegger as director if he truly took a back seat to the movie he was making. However, by this point in his career, Arnold was a master of self-promotion and hadn’t yet reached the apex of his hubris, something which happened the very next year with “Last Action Hero.” Thus, while Schwarzenegger doesn’t play a named character in “Christmas in Connecticut,” he peppers himself throughout the film nonetheless. In one scene, the character of Tyler (Gene Lythgow) puts on sunglasses and says “I’ll be back,” a line which Schwarzenegger dutifully overdubs for him. Later, a character is watching “Twins” on TV, a moment which is followed soon after by Arnold turning up as an unnamed PA for Elizabeth’s broadcast in the film. Though Schwarzenegger must have intended these cameos and references as cheeky Easter eggs, they end up as just another distraction in an already distracted movie.

An even further irony to the “Christmas in Connecticut” saga is that Schwarzenegger would eventually end up in a movie which did become a new holiday classic, playing the lead in Brian Levant’s “Jingle All the Way” in 1996. While that counts as a somewhat related victory, it’s still too bad that “Christmas in Connecticut” ended up as Arnold’s only directorial feature effort. Perhaps he could’ve done something special with an action or a sci-fi script, or maybe a holiday or comedy film that wasn’t an awkward remake. As it stands, his “Christmas in Connecticut” is destined to remain a curio, a film whose existence is more interesting than itself.