No Time for Love

Plot

Mitchell Leisen utilizes his stylistic pizzazz to enliven this romantic comedy that proves the old adage "opposites attract" -- but only after three or four reels. Claudette Colbert is Katherine Grant, an upper-crust fashion photographer who has a gang of admirers snapping at her heels. When her vindictive editor tries to teach her a lesson for her snobbishness by giving her an assignment photographing lower-class workers digging a tunnel, she falls for Jim Ryan (Fred MacMurray). Ryan is also attracted to her, so when she leaves her camera tripod in the tunnel, Ryan obligingly returns it to her. When Ryan returns to the job site, he is ribbed by his co-workers. Ryan loses his head and gets into a fight and is subsequently suspended from his job. Katherine, feeling guilty about Ryan being suspended from his job (and also looking for an excuse to have him around), hires him as her assistant. But in his new job, Ryan starts to put the make on one of Katherine's flirtatious models, Darlene (June Havoc). Katherine must now find a way to overcome her superior attitude and make her true feelings known to Ryan. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Review

Mitchell Leisen deserves new recognition as a comedy director of the first rank. Much has been said about the former set designer's elevated taste and general savoir-faire but in No Time for Love and other latter-day screwball comedies, he brings an almost Lubitschian sensibility to the table. Especially when Paramount allowed the use of such eminent farceurs as Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray, the latter a Leisen favorite. Not that No Time for Love is much more than a sophisticated girl-meets-blue-collar boy romance but Leisen and the players make Claude Binyon's sometimes overly obvious lines positively sparkle. Colbert and MacMurray may be better remembered for attempting to survive the boondocks in The Egg and I (1947) but they seem a lot more at ease among Leisen's (and Hans Dreier's) Academy Award-nominated sets in No Time for Love. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Cast

• Claudette Colbert - Katherine Grant
• Fred MacMurray - Jim Ryan
• Ilka Chase - Happy Grant
• Richard Haydn - Roger
• Paul McGrath - Henry Fulton

June Havoc - Darlene; Marjorie Gateson - Sophie; Bill Goodwin - Christley; Robert Herrick - Kent; Morton Lowry - Dunbar; Rhys Williams - Clancy; John Kelly - Morrisey; Jerome de Nuccio - Leon Brice; Grant Withers - Pete Hanagan; Rod Cameron - Taylor; Willard Robertson - President of Construction Company; Murray Alper - Moran; Faith Brook - Pert Brunette; Ken Christy; George Dolenz; Jack Gardner - Photographer; Robert E. Homans - Pop Murphy; Charles Irwin - O'Conner; Ted Jacques - Sandhog; Fred Kohler, Jr. - Sand Hog; Arthur Loft - Vice-president; Patrick McVey - City Chief Engineer; Frank Moran - Erector tender; Tom Neal - Sandhog; Paul Phillips - Office Worker; Lorin Raker - Sweetzer, Stage Manager; Lillian Randolph - Hilda; Jack Roper - Sandhog; John Shay - Engineer; Mickey Simpson - Doctor; Walter Soderling - Gate Man; Sammy Stein - Sandhog; Woody Strode; Ben Taggart - City Gen'l Mgr.; Pat West - Waiter at Murphy's Place; Alan Hale, Jr. - Union checker; Jack Roberts - Captain of Waiters; Dutch Hendrian; Mitchell Ingraham - City Commissioner; Dave Wengren - Jack Tender; Frederic Henry - Man at Party; Keith Richards - Reporter; Ronnie Rondell

Credit

Hans Dreier - Art Director, Robert Usher - Art Director, Fred Kohlmar - Associate Producer, Edith Head - Costume Designer, Irene - Costume Designer, Mitchell Leisen - Director, Paul Thomas - Director, Alma Macrorie - Editor, Victor Young - Composer (Music Score), Wally Westmore - Makeup, Charles B. Lang - Cinematographer, Mitchell Leisen - Producer, Sam Comer - Set Designer, Farciot Edouart - Special Effects, Gordon Jennings - Special Effects, Robert Lees - Screen Story, Frederic I. Rinaldo - Screen Story, Claude Binyon - Screenwriter, Warren B. Duff - Screenwriter

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