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| WITHOUT LOVE (1945) |
A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Picture
B&W, 111 minutes
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CAST
Pat Jamieson: Spencer Tracy
Jamie Rowan: Katharine Hepburn
Kitty Trimble: Lucille Ball
Quentin Ladd: Keenan Wynn
Paul Carrell: Carl Esmond
Edwina Collins: Patricia Morison
Professor Grinza: Felix Bressart
Anna: Emily Massey
Flower Girl: Gloria Grahame
Caretaker: George Davis
Elevator Boy: George Chandler
Sergeant: Clancy Cooper
Professor Thompson: Wallis Clark
Professor Ellis: Donald Curtis
Colonel Braden: Charles Arnt
Driver: Eddie Acuff
Porter: Clarence Muse
Headwaiter: Franco Corsaro
Pageboy: Ralph Brooks
Doctor: William Forrest
Soldier: Garry Owen
Soldier: Joe Devlin
Soldier: William Newell
Sergeant: James Flavin
Girl on Elevator: Hazel Brooks
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CREDITS
Director: Harold S. Bucquet
Producer: Lawrence A. Weingarten
Scenarist: Donald Ogden Stewart
Based on the Play by: Philip Barry
As Produced on the Stage by: The Theatre Guild Inc.
Photographer: Karl Freund
Art Director: Cedric Gibbons
Associate Art Director: Harry McAfee
Set Decorator: Edwin B. Willis
Associate Set Decorator: McLean Nisbet
Editor: Frank Sullivan
Sound Recorder: Douglas Shearer
Musical Score: Bronislau Kaper
Costume Supervision: Irene
Associate Costumer: Marion Herwood Keyes
Special Effects: A. Arnold Gillespie, Danny Hall
Montage: Peter Ballbusch
Assistant Director: Earl McEvoy
Makeup Artist: Jack Dawn
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SYNOPSIS
Jamie Rowan, an attractive widow, has a large house in wartime Washington, D.C. Pat Jamieson, a scientist who is having difficulties with the housing shortage in the capital, desperately needs a place where he can conduct his experiments. Jamie proposes a "platonic" marriage and the woman-hating bachelor accepts.
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CRITIQUES
"Without Love is a satiny translation of a Philip Barry play; I like it all right and have very little to say for or against it. Unlike Mr. Barry, I don't find the expression 'by gum' charming on lips which use it for charm's sake, and enjoy even less the heroine's recalling, of her dying husband, that he 'grinned that grin of his.' But a good deal of the dialogue is happy to hear and happier in its skill; Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are exactly right for their jobs; (and) it is good to see Lucille Ball doing so well with a kind of role new to her."
- James Agee, The Nation, 1945
"One of the dreariest films in the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy series; it has a metallic flavor. Philip Barry had shaped the play for Hepburn, but it had never worked and she just barely squeaked by with it on Broadway in 1942; for the movie, the material was extensively rewritten by Donald Ogden Stewart and it still didn't work, though the picture was a box-office success anyway. Tracy is a homespun scientist working on a helmet for high-altitude flying, and Hepburn is a widow with a big house in Washington. The wartime housing shortage is the plot excuse for his moving in with her, on the understanding that they'll have a platonic marriage. And guess what happens. Hepburn comes off as a weird cross between an old maid and a tomboy; she's at her most cultured and affected, yet she keeps exclaiming 'By gum!' The dialogue tries to be sophisticated; it doesn't match the desperate plot maneuvers, such as the one requiring Tracy to be a sleepwalker. Sleepwalking in movies is almost as tacky as amnesia, and with the sturdy Tracy there's not enough difference between awake and asleep. Keenan Wynn and Lucille Ball, who play a second pair of lovers, are much more likable than the stars."
- Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
"This 1944 Hepburn-Tracy pairing is so undistinguished that it's nearly dropped out of the history books. It covers the ground of
The More the Merrier, with scientist Spence moving in with widow Kate during the wartime housing shortage in Washington, though the sexual tension never turns into anything meaningful. Amazingly, it represents a collaboration of two of the finest artificers of romantic comedy: Philip Barry (Holiday) wrote the original play, Donald Ogden Stewart (Love Affair) adapted it to the screen. The weak link, plainly, is Harold Bucquet, a dreary director up from MGM's B unit (The Secret of Dr. Kildare)."
- Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
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COMMENTARY TRACK
"As always, Kate was 'into' everything on Without Love. I remember one charming experience. We were building the sets and dressing them when the set decorator, Ed Willis, came up to me in a fury and said, 'I quit.' I asked him, 'What's the matter?' He said, 'She doesn't like the set - she wants it like it was on the stage.' I said, 'Oh, come on, now, calm down.' Kate came in that night - she used to come in all the time - I used to say to her, 'Even looking at photos of you makes me tired!' I didn't know what to do to resolve the problem. I couldn't say to her, 'Keep your nose out of this, it's not your business.' As she was leaving, late at night, after sniffing her disapproval of everything down to the cushions, I said to her, 'Kate, if you've got time before you go, go down and see Buddy Gillespie in Special Effects to see how the miniatures are coming along.' She got the message. She didn't interfere any more. People always said to me, 'She's trying to do everything.' And my reply was, 'The thing I'm afraid of, and you should be afraid of, is that she can do everything.' Producer, director, cameraman! That's what she was! Her idea of everything was always better than you could ever have envisioned."
- Lawrence Weingarten
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HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
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NTSC Standard:
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Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn
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Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn
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On the set: Katharine Hepburn
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