Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1945)

"Without Love" —continued screenplay which converts a so-so Broadway drama into something filmgoers will be beaming over from here to Christmas. Philip Barry's original play (which also starred Katharine Hepburn, by the way) was mainly a conversation-piece about an intense girl who seeks to replace a tragically ended love with a :tew marriage arrangement in whu-h the matter of love is tabled by mutual consent. Eventually, of course, love talks its way back on the agenda. Donald Ogden Stewart's screenplay brings action, humor, reliable screen "business" and even a dash or so of modern poetry and a background of wartime Washington to the original and makes of its main characters two sincerely appreciable if not always quite believable people. The affair begins when Tracy, as a househunting inventor, shares his Washington cab with a delightfully drunken Keenan Wynn and come morning finds himself immovably established as caretaker in a spacious house which the owner is putting up for sale. The owner turns out to be Hepburn, an all-around case of arrested emotional and scientific development. In what happens from there on, the screenplay quite neatly utilizes Miss Hepburn's stylized personality for every end from moments of truly lofty human sentiment to downright low comedy. Spencer Tracy is his reliable, ruggeil self throughout and Keenan Wynn. set off in a little triangle of his own with Lucille Ball and Patricia Morison. provides precisely the proper leaven for a piece of wedding-cake playwriting which might easily, in less expert hands, have fallen fiat on its pan. NEW YORK JOURNAL-AMERICAN March 23, 1945 "Without Love" Opens At the Music Hall By ROSE l'EI.KWICK THE new Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn film. "Without Love." is one of those glossy conversation pieces that M-G-M does up so handsomely in the matter of sets and backgrounds. It arrived at the Radio City Music Hall yesterday together with a colorful holiday stage show that's optimistically called "Spring Is Here." The picture is based on the Philip Barry play that brought Miss Hepburn to Broadway a few seasons back, but. whether you saw the original or not, it's still the familiar movie plot about hero and heroine who agree to a marriage of convenience and then discover in the last reel — surprise — that they're in love. Though it's all pretty much on the coy and contrived side, the film offers diverting comedy for the Tracy-Hepburn admirers. The setting is wartime Washington, and Mr. Tracy's role is that of a scientist busy working on am oxygen helmet for aviators. When he moves into a large house owned by a scientifically-minded widow, he tells her he's through with love because he's been stood up by a girl in Paris. At which the widow tells him she's through with love because of her husband's tragic death, and they decide to get married on a platonic basis so that she can help him with his scientific experiments. These latter make possible the introduction of elaborate laboratory scenes, and shots of Mr. Tracy twirling gadgets and shots of Miss Hepburn trying on the oxygen helmet for size take up a good bit of footage. At other moments. Mr. Tracy walks in his sleep. Miss Hepburn flutters about and Carl Esmond turns up briefly as~ a suave Continental. Also on hand, but not often enough, are Keenan Wynn and Lucille Ball who give the picture a decided lift whenever they get within camera range. NEW YORK DAILY NEWS March 23, 1945 Hepburn-Tracy Team In Titillating Corned/ ★ ★ ★ By KATE CAMERON PHILIP BARRY'S comedy, "Without Love." has been transferred to the screen by MetroOoldwyn-Mayer as a vahicle for Katharine Hepburn. With Spencer Tracy playing opposite her in the role created by Elliott Nugent on the stage, Miss Hepburn floats across the Music Hall screen with the same lissom grace and blythe charm that distinguished her performance in the Barry comedy when it played on the Broadway stage. The comedy was especially written for her and she herself sold it to Metro. The producers in turn put it into the hands of Donald Ogden Stewart for a onee-over-lightly screen treatment. Dr. Stewart cut out all the political symbolism of the original nlay, added a few smart cracks of his own and whipped it into shape for the screen. The wife-in-name-only theme on which the play is based is handled in a broader and more leering fashion on the screen. The first audience at the Music Hall responded with enthusiasm to Katharine's coy proposal of a loveless marriage and Spencer's shy acceptance of an arrangement that was supposed to be convenient for each of them without encompassing the usual marital obligations. The co-stars complement each other very well on the screen, just as they did in "Woman of the Year" and "Keeper of the Flame," with neither trying to crab the other s special act. They are assisted in the comedy by Lucille Ball and Keenan Wynn, who play their love duet with greater warmth and more of an amusing approach to the subject. Young Wynn, particularly, lights up the first scenes of the story by giving a very funny impression of a torch-bearing drunk. Carl Esmond, Patricia Morison, Felix Bressart and Emily Massey respond to Harold Bucquet's direction with amusing results. NEW YORK SUN March 23, 1945 Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in a Farce, "Without Love." at Music Hall By EILEEN CREELMAN THE Music Hall's new picture is a bedroom farce, with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn as the newly weds who think they can keep their marriage platonic. "Without Love" has a flimsy plot on which to build a motion picture. Based on a Philip Barry play, the movie tries often to become serious. These interludes, unfortunately, are more apt to be silly. When the film is openly farce, "Without Love" is funny and lively. This mixture of moods is not always successful. The picture's dramatic mood is apt io turn pompous, indulging in a good deal of high-flown and meaningless philosophizing. When conversation gives place to comedy, and good old bedroom farce comedy at that, "Without Love" finds something to say. It just says that Mr. Tracy and Miss Hepburn are wasting a lot of time to talk, and not very good talk at that. "Without Love" could do without its serious moments entirely, sticking entirely to Mr. Tracy's sleepwalking scenes and Miss Hepburn's imitations of herself. There is nothing new in the movie, from plot to characterizations. The whole thing burbles along nicely whenever the actors are permitted to forget the story. Mr. Tracy plays an inventor plagued by the. housing shortage in Washington, and Miss Hepburn a widow who hires him as caretaker of her large house. Neither wants ever to fall in love again, the woman because of happy memories, the man because of bitter memories. When they start working together on an oxygen mask for pilots, the couple decide to marry. This will be a marriage merely for convenience, with no romantic overtones. That all works out just as any audience knows it will work out. with a bit of jealousy here, a naughty hint or two there, and a happy ending after all. Mr. Tracy handles a farce scene as competently as he does a good drama. "Without Love" still seems a waste of a fine actor's time. Miss Hepburn caricatures her part, perhaps not always intentionally. It still was as good a way as any to play the neurotic young widow. Lucille Ball and Keenan Wynn are frankly and merrily comic, the happiest notes in the whole production. "PanAmericana" Screen play by Lawrence Kimble, original story by Frederick Kohner ^and John H. Auer, directed and produced by Mr. Auer, photography by Frank Redman, presented by R K O Radio Pictures. NEW YORK JOURNAL-AMERICAN March 23, 1945 At Loew s State By ROSE PELSWICK LIVELY song-and-dance numbers highlight "Pan-Americana." the new attraction at Loew's State Theatre this week. It's a sort of travelogue dotted with exhibitions of the samba. rhumba and other LatinAmerican dances. Threading the musical numbers together is a story of sorts about the staff members of a New York magazine who tour Mexico, Cuba and South, America to take pictures, write pieces and hold beauty contests In each country they visit. Philip Terry. Audrey Long, Eve Arden. Robert Benchley and Marc Cramer are the principals, but the honors go entirely to the singers dancers and bandsmen who contribute authentic Latin-American rhythms. MOTION PICTURE CRITICS' REVIEWS Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes. THE CAST Dan Phillip Terry Jo Anne Audrey Long Charlie Robert Benchley Hoppy Eve Arden Uncle Rudy Ernest Truex Jerry Marc Cramer Lupita Isabelita and Rosario and Antonio. Miguelito Valdes. Harold and Lola, Louise Burnett, Chinita Marin, Chuy Castillon. Padilla Sisters. Chuy Reyes and his orchestra, Nestor Amaral and his samba band. NEW YORK POST March 23, 1945 "Pan-Americana" Rhythmic Package at State and Albee POST MOVIE METER POOR • FAIR • GOOD • EXCELLENT A By IRENE THIRER RHYTHM runs rampant in "Pan-Americana" — which is why the celluloid package of sambas, rhumbas and suchlike, threaded together by one of those fabricated on-again, offagain romances, proves passably pleasing to the cash customers in simultaneous premieres at Loew's State (with vaudeville) and RKO Albee (plus "Murder, My Sweet") Theatres. Discount magazine photographer Phillip Terry's ardent wolf-wooing of his pretty cap Paee 431 Motion Picture Herald, April 7, 1945 Advertisement