Without Love (film)
- Spencer Tracy: Pat Jamieson
- Katharine Hepburn: Jamie Rowan
- Lucille Ball: Kitty Trimble
- Keenan Wynn: Quentin Ladd
- Carl Esmond: Paul Carrell
- Patricia Morison: Edwina Collins
- Felix Bressart: Prof. Ginza
- Emily Massey: Anna
- Gloria Grahame: Flower Seller
- George Davis: Caretaker
- George Chandler: Elevator Boy
- Clancy Cooper: Sergeant
Too clever for love (Original Title: Without Love ) is an American film comedy with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in 1945 as a literary model used was the stage play Without Love (1942 ) by Philip Barry. .
Action
During the Second World War in 1944 the scientist Pat Jamieson Chicago travels to Washington DC to work on a secret project. On behalf of the War Department, he should develop an oxygen mask for combat pilots, which allows the fly at altitudes up to 12,000 feet. Pat is a stranger in Washington and looking for an apartment. In the evening he brings his little Cairn terrier a drunken man named Quentin Ladd home. Quentin lets him stay in the house of his widowed cousin Jamie, who wants to rent the house with the inventory. Jamie's basement is the perfect place to set up a secret laboratory. When Jamie arrives the next morning, Pat pretends to be her new caretaker. Later, Jamie learns that Pat is a scientist and his father was a friend of her father. Therefore, he must remain for the time being.
In the following night, Pat walks through her house. His dog runs after him and wakes him up. Pat sits down at a piano and plays Debussy's Clair de Lune. Jamie hears him play and is moved to tears. It makes him company and they tell each other about their lives. Jamie's husband died in a riding accident. She still loves him so much that they can not imagine, to marry another man. Pat had once fallen in love with Paris in a girl who turned out to be extremely selfish. He will therefore never fall in love again. Although their real estate agent Kitty Trimble found in Paul Carrell a prospective tenant for the property, Jamie, Pat can stay with him during her absence. As luck would have it, Paul is an old friend of Pat Unlike his sober friend Paul leaves no flirting from.
When Jamie returns, she persuaded Pat to a marriage of convenience. So they could live together and do research without feelings would interfere with each other. They already spend their wedding day together in the basement to test Pats oxygen mask in an air pressure chamber. When they want to go to bed at night, Pat barricaded himself in his bedroom. However, sleepwalking, he leaves the room and ends up in Jamie's bed while these fetches something to drink. When Jamie noticed him, she falls off the bed in shock. It calms down only when Pat assures her that he is a sleepwalker. The next day Jamie makes Paul a trip in a carriage. Paul is convinced that her husband does not love Jamie, and finally gives her a kiss. Jamie rejects him and confesses her feelings for Pat.
In Chicago, Pat will present his oxygen mask for the first time publicly. Jamie decides to travel with him. On the train, they share a sleeping compartment and Jamie tried to be female give than usual They also told him that Paul had kissed her. In her hotel in Chicago Jamie wants to celebrate her birthday with Pat. Through a misunderstanding Jamie is jealous and travels prematurely again. Pat remains in Chicago and leads before scientists through a successful test of his invention. Jamie meets meanwhile with Paul. In a restaurant where Quentin Kitty makes a marriage proposal and his fiancee Edwina are jilted, met Jamie Pats old flame know. When Pat returns to Washington, he seeks to Paul in his apartment. Jealous he searched the apartment after Jamie. However, it is only the broken heel of a shoe and woman returns home. Here Jamie tries to seductively in a fancy dress, to bewitch him, but what Pat does not like. Jamie confesses to him that she almost cheated on him with Paul. While both are talking about divorce best, they look a how much they love each other. From divorce is no more talk.
Background
After the successful screwball comedy The woman, of whom you are speaking ( Woman of the Year, 1942) and the melodrama The Whole Truth ( Keeper of the Flame, 1942), which turned out to be a flop, was to smart for the love of the third common film of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Philip Barry's template Without Love premiered on Broadway in 1942 with Hepburn and Elliott Nugent in the lead roles. Barry had the piece written exclusively for Hepburn, as he had already done it with his stage success The Philadelphia Story, which was as the night before the wedding ( The Philadelphia Story, 1940) with Hepburn, Cary Grant and James Stewart also filmed successfully. MGM bought the rights to Without Love for $ 265,000, followed by Donald Ogden Stewart as already adapted the play The night before the wedding for the screen. Supporting Actor Keenan Wynn had previously been mainly in New York on stage. Hepburn and Tracy knew him from theater performances and ultimately ensured that he got the role of Hepburn's film cousin. Lucille Ball, which can be seen in the film as Hepburn's quick-witted real estate agent Kitty had already in Hepburn's RKO film Stage Door ( Stage Door, 1937) played a minor role. Later she was taken from MGM contract, but turned first rather insignificant films.
Filming took place from mid-October to mid-December 1944 in the studios of MGM instead. Actually, they should start already in November 1943, but Hepburn and director Harold S. Bucquet realized with Dragon Seed that time already another project. Too smart for the love Bucquets director should be the last film. He died in 1946 from cancer.
On March 22, 1945 to celebrate wisely for love in New York 's premiere. The reviews were generally good, but not euphoric. The film was in the United States but one of the most successful films of the year. In Germany, the comedy film was first shown on 18 October 1987 by the ARD television. In 2007, she appeared on DVD.
Reviews
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times had " so many gaps and weakness " of the film back. In particular, the action of Without Love flowed mainly to " quick-witted words " and would be " compacted only by quickly borrowed links "; the "nervous " scenic transitions are often abrupt and striking. It should nevertheless be wise to for love " very amusing ", meaning " the two great protagonists " lie primarily at.
For the lexicon of international film was to clever for love with a " precise dialogue wit intimate play like a staged comedy about the transformation of Sanity to love marriages". The two main characters were " excellent to each other is playing [t ] " and had " charming entertainment" made together with the " grumpy [n ] minor characters and pleasantly restrained [n ] gags " from the film, which offers " room for contemplative moments ." " Spencer Tracy [ ... ] plays here as lively as rare," was cinema.