Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first and only directing effort was a mid-1990s Christmas film that bore all the markers of a Hallmark movie. With conventional values dictating the narrative and over-the-top comedy making the film’s characters a nuisance rather than fun for the audience, the film titled Christmas in Connecticut says something about Arnold Schwarzenegger that we have always been aware of but were never quite able to put a finger on it: that he tries very hard to blend into white picket fence American dream in the purest of forms.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Difficult Rise To Stardom
Even though the possibility of a film, song, painting exhibition, or a concert being an undeniable and total flop looms above an artist as long as they are capable of performing their art form for an audience, a creative endeavor rarely ever comes without a fair share of criticism or judgment. However, that has never stopped an artistically inclined mind from producing their next piece.
For Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bodybuilder-turned-actor’s insistence on trying his hand at directing a film was more like ticking off the next item from his check-off list rather than a work of passion. The Austrian who was born into a lower-middle-class family in a war-ridden land and had an abusive father and an unbelievable dream used the latter as his golden ticket out of poverty and into unlimited success. To a man who used so little to win so much, there was no stopping until he reached stratospheric success.
Winning Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe in bodybuilding, spearheading one of the most successful films of all time and becoming the highest-paid actor in Hollywood despite his lack of mastery over English, and marrying into political royalty aka the Kennedy family was only a functional chronology of his achievements. A directing venture in the midst of all his works was only the next step in his natural progression.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Wants To Erase His Directing Debut
Despite achieving so much over the course of 30 or so years since his arrival in the United States of America, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s dream of becoming the next Reg Park took off incredibly well when he became Arnie, the first of his name. To him, directing the most classic of all American films – a Christmas movie – felt like finally solidifying his status as an all-American hero in a rags-to-riches story.
However, Schwarzenegger couldn’t have possibly imagined how poorly his film would pan out, considering his near-zero knowledge about the intimate workings of a camera crew and the work that went behind a director’s lens. Sudden close-up shots followed by a wide angle shot, a soundstage scene cut to an on-location action, and the abrupt, often wonky, efforts at merging two different shots without any actual segue made Christmas in Connecticut a rollercoaster lesson in what not to do while directing.
In fact, the film turned out to be so bad in its entirety that Christmas in Connecticut was neither mentioned in Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story nor in Arnold, the Netflix documentary that serves as a picture book tell-all of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s truly unbelievable life story. It almost seems as though the actor-turned-politician would rather have his fans and followers forget about his directorial blunder than celebrate it as one of the worst films in modern filmmaking history.
Christmas in Connecticut, the 1992 remake of the 1945 classic, is now available for renting or buying on Prime Video or Apple TV+.
Source: Collider
