Confidentially Connie is a 1953 American romantic comedy film directed by Edward Buzzell. It stars Van Johnson as a dedicated but poorly paid college professor, Janet Leigh as his pregnant wife, and Louis Calhern as Johnson's father, whose schemes to get his son to return to the family ranch in Texas widen the previously existing gulf between father and son when they deprive him of a desirable promotion and a much needed raise. Plot Maine housewife Connie Bedloe is pregnant, but the family's limited income from her husband Joe's college teaching job means that they can't buy the meat her obstetrician recommends. Connie gives up smoking to be able to afford lamb chops. Joe does not buy her explanation that she is doing this because she is pregnant, because the obstetrician's office is “like a forest fire.” He is not providing for her: He talks about going back to his father's cattle ranch, the “second biggest in Texas,” despite his father's interfering ways. The daughter of a teacher, Connie knew what she was getting into. However, she does want the apolitical Joe to lobby for a new job opening. He makes a mess of it, and they begin an ongoing debate: Go to the ranch, or stay in the home they love and raise a child without the security money can bring. Joe's father, Opie, comes to visit, determined to persuade Joe to move the family back to the ranch. A dedicated and inspiring teacher, Joe is wounded by his father's contempt for his work. (Teaching is fit only for women who can't find husbands.) He eloquently defends the work of American teachers, asking, rhetorically, why teachers are paid less than TV repairmen. Opie is delighted to learn that Connie is pregnant and horrified to see her eating fish. Believing that pregnant women “gotta have meat,” he arranges for the local butcher, Spangenberg, to cut his prices in half, to 69 cents a pound, (with Opie paying the difference) so that Connie can have the meat she needs. Connie sees through Opie immediately, but gives in, using a gigantic steak to impress the Dean and others. At the party, the guests find out that the butcher sold the steak to Opie at half price. The next day, they all head to Spangenberg's: A price war ensues in town. Seeing the way the faculty react—one professor says he has not seen