Themes: Opposites Attract, Marriages of Convenience, Death of a Partner
Main Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Keenan Wynn, Gloria Grahame, Carl Esmond, Patricia Morison, Lucille Ball
Release Year: 1945
Country: US
Run Time: 113 minutes
Plot
In their third film together, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn created one of the box-office sensations of 1945, a sparklingly witty wartime comedy about a marriage entered on the theory that love only gums up a relationship. Invited by a drunken Quintin Ladd (Keenan Wynn), devoted scientist Patrick Jamieson (Tracy) moves into the Washington mansion belonging to Ladd's cousin Mrs. Jamie Rowan (Hepburn), a widow, who, it soon appears, shares Pat's distaste of romantic love. Highly interested in the scientist's attempt to develop a high-altitude oxygen helmet for the war department, and tired of being hit on by men, an emboldened Jamie proposes marriage to Pat, insisting that theirs should be a union uncomplicated by love. Pat readily agrees and the two settle into a seemingly well-functioning life of shared passion for the oxygen experiments. But when Pat's former girlfriend turns up, Jamie discovers that she has fallen in love with her husband after all and attempts to win him back. The ploy, however, seems to backfire -- or does it? Originally written for Katharine Hepburn by her frequent collaborator Philip Barry, Without Love had enjoyed a moderately successful run on Broadway from 1942-1943 with Elliott Nugent as the scientist. The much more successful screen version became the final film of MGM contract director Harold S. Bouquet, who died of cancer soon after. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Review
Katharine Hepburn says "by gum" several times in Without Love and "jiminy cricket" at least once. She says many other things, mostly clever, in this comedy written for her by Philip Barry, the elegant playwright who had rescued her from the doldrums with The Philadelphia Story back in 1939. And Love's Jamie Rowan is almost like the dowdy cousin of Philadelphia's Tracy Lord. Both women had loved and lost and become hardened by the experience. But where Tracy is about to throw herself into a new and obviously doomed relationship with a stiff socialite, Jamie has the good fortune of meeting Spencer Tracy. And no one was more reliable than Tracy. He may not have realized it at first -- he never did, did he? -- but Hepburn's high-minded shrews always needed his taming, whether she was a globe-trotting reporter, as in The Woman of the Year (1942), or, like Jamie, a rather lost soul no longer sure of her place in life. It is difficult to believe that Tracy wasn't Philip Barry's inspiration for the no-nonsense, somnambulistic Pat Jamieson, but when Barry wrote the play, Tracy and Hepburn had yet to become a team. Needless to say, they are letter perfect in Without Love, which also benefits from the presence of two of the screen's best second bananas, Keenan Wynn and Lucille Ball, the latter playing Hepburn's cynical secretary. Despite the brevity of her part -- less than 30 seconds -- Gloria Grahame earns ninth billing as a flower seller suffering from hay fever. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Cedric Gibbons - Art Director, Harry McAfee - Art Director, Irene - Costume Designer, Marion Herwood Keyes - Costume Designer, Earl McEvoy - First Assistant Director, Harold S. Bucquet - Director, Frank Sullivan - Editor, Bronislau Kaper - Composer (Music Score), Jack Dawn - Makeup, Karl W. Freund - Cinematographer, Lawrence Weingarten - Producer, Edwin B. Willis - Set Designer, Arnold A. Gillespie - Special Effects, Daniel Hall - Special Effects, Donald Ogden Stewart - Screenwriter, Philip Barry - Play Author
Lonely widow Jamie Rowan (Katharine Hepburn) helps the war effort by marrying a military research scientist, Patrick Jamieson (Spencer Tracy on film, Elliott Nugent on the stage), who has set up his lab in her house. Patrick has had all the worst of love and Jamie, all the best. They both believe that a marriage could be a success without love, as it reduces the chances of jealousy and bickering and all the other marital disadvantages. But as the film progresses, the inevitable happens as they begin to fall in love with each other.
The original Philip Barry stage play debuted on Broadway at the St. James Theatre in 1942. Katharine Hepburn starred as Jamie Rowan with actor/writer/director Elliott Nugent as Patrick Jamieson, the role Spencer Tracy would take in the film. Audrey Christie played the Lucille Ball role of Kitty Trimble, and the cast included Royal Beal and Lauren Gilbert.
Barry wrote the part expressly for Hepburn[1], as he had previously done with The Philadelphia Story, a major Broadway hit for Hepburn which she turned into her 1940 comeback film, co-starring Cary Grant and James Stewart, and also adapted for the screen by Donald Ogden Stewart. Hepburn and Grant's 1938 film Holiday—which had already been a 1930 film—was based on a 1929 Barry play.
Without Love was the third film to co-star Hepburn and Tracy, and it would be the last film directed by Bouquet before his death. Lucille Ball would turn to this film's cinematographer, Karl Freund, six years later in her struggle to launch a filmed television show, unheard of at the time.
