Without Reservations (1946)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Mervyn LeRoy

Writers:

Jane Allen (novel)
Mae Livingston (novel)

Release Date:

13 May 1946 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Tagline:

Transcontinental Romance - Unlimited!!!

Plot:

Kit Madden is traveling to Hollywood, where her best-selling novel is to be filmed. Aboard the train...

Plot Keywords:

Train | Love At First Sight | Orchid | Writing | Beautiful Woman

Cast

Claudette Colbert	...	Christopher 'Kit' Madden
John Wayne	...	Rusty Thomas
Don DeFore	...	1st Lt. Dink Watson
Anne Triola	...	Consuela 'Connie' Callaghan
Phil Brown	...	Soldier
Frank Puglia	...	Ortega
Thurston Hall	...	Henry Baldwin
Dona Drake	...	Dolores Ortega
Fernando Alvarado	...	Mexican boy
Charles Arnt	...	Salesman
Louella Parsons	...	Herself (as Miss Louella Parsons)
Frank Wilcox	...	Jack

Also Known As:

Thanks God, I'll Take It from Here

Runtime:

107 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:G | Iceland:L | Finland:S | USA:Approved (certificate #11262) | UK:U

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Trivia:

The opening shot shows "Arrowhead" Pictures motion picture studio. This is the actual RKO Pictures Studio Building at 780 Gower Street in Hollywood, retouched with "Arrowhead" replacing the RKO signs on the building. It remains a historic structure on the corner to this day.

Goofs:

Continuity: Just before Louella Parsons is seen in the radio studio, an exterior shot shows a building with the name NBC. But when Parsons is at the mic, it is marked ABC.

Movie Connections:

References Gone with the Wind (1939)

Someone likes Preston Sturges

This movie is worth watching just for the chance to see how much of an influence Preston Sturges had on the comedies of the 40's and early 50's. Colbert plays Christopher Madden, on route to Hollywood to rewrite her bestseller as a Hollywood film. As in Palm Beach Story, Colbert ends up an a train without luggage or ticket, engaging in a bizarre class dialogue, this time with Marine John Wayne (who plays the comedy almost as well as Cary Grant, whom Colbert's character wants Wayne's character to replace...interestingly confusing in a film that mocks post-war propaganda and Hollywood). Marines and trains and propaganda -- anyone else love Hail the Conquering Hero?

Colbert's character has outlined a "progressive" post-WWII heroic future for the country which runs counter to everything she experiences in her cross-country journey (and Sullivan's Travels). This may be the first movie to deal with the post-war propaganda era, and it does it pretty well. Colbert's novel is itself a kind of propaganda: "Here is Tomorrow" (she's the progressive doppelganger of Ayn Rand). Interestingly, the movie's war of the sexes casts the ordinary women Madden meets, in the role of reactionaries, just where the establishment in the next decade wanted them to be.

Watch a couple Sturges flicks before you see this one. Smoke em if you've got em.