Before there was Martha Stewart, there was Gladys Taber of Family Circle magazine. A lifestyle columnist, Ms Taber lived on a farm in Connecticut.

In 1945, Warner Bros. released a comedy which wondered what would happen if a food writer for a magazine really couldn’t cook. Barbara Stanwyck played the domestically-challenged writer who must fake her way through a Christmastime while playing hostess to a WWII veteran as part of a publicity stunt.

Dennis Morgan plays the veteran and Sydney Greenstreet portrays Stanwyck’s editor. Neither visitor has any idea she is a single NYC woman who cannot cook, not the Connecticut housewife and mother her column depicts. As she tried to fake her way through the holidays, much merriment ensues, as does romance.

This light, smart comedy was released in summer 1945 just as the war was ending in Europe and winding down in Japan. It was a combination screwball comedy, wartime distraction, and romance. Stanwyck and Greenstreet were better known for dramas. Morgan had started in a series of war-set movies thoughout WWII. This comedy also gave the actors a chance to be a bit more carefree and represented the optimism Americans were feeling as the war was finally ending.