Without Love (1945)

Celebrate This Film's First-Time DVD Release, By Gum!

"Without Love" is an often overlooked romantic comedy gem starring the iconic pair of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, who made nine immensely popular films together.

This 1945 black and white film was their third movie, and features witty dialog and almost non-stop flirting by the pair, who were a real-life romantic couple off-screen for decades until Tracy's death in 1967. Tracy, a Catholic, was married and never divorced despite a loveless marriage and his enduring relationship with Hepburn. For her part, Hepburn refused to publicly acknowledge their inspiring love affair until after the death of Tracy's wife, Louise, to spare Mrs. Tracy more pain and embarrassment.

Tracy and Hepburn, both Academy Award winning actors, became one of Hollywood's most recognizable and popular pairs. Hepburn, with her agile mind and distinctive New England accent, complemented Tracy's easy working-class machismo. When Joseph Mankiewicz introduced the two, Hepburn, who was wearing special heels that added several inches to her lanky frame, said, "I'm afraid I'm too tall for you, Mr. Tracy." Mankiewicz retorted, "Don't worry, he'll soon cut you down to size."

As the Daily Telegraph observed in Hepburn's obituary, "Hepburn and Tracy were at their most seductive when their verbal fencing was sharpest: it was hard to say whether they delighted more in the battle or in each other."

"Without Love" certainly underscores that observation. Originally written for Hepburn by her frequent collaborator Philip Barry, "Without Love" had enjoyed a moderately successful run on Broadway from 1942-1943 with Elliott Nugent in the role Tracy played on the screen.

Most of the Tracy-Hepburn films stress the sparks that can fly when a couple try to find an equable balance of power. The sexy sparring over power and control is almost always resolved in an agreement to share-and-share-like. "Without Love" is unusual in that their characters actually marry.

In this film, Tracy portrays dedicated scientist Patrick Jamieson who is working to design a high-altitude oxygen helmet for the war department during World War II.

Jamieson desperately needs someplace to do his work because there is a housing shortage in Washington, D.C., as a result of the war. Invited by a drunken Quintin Ladd (Keenan Wynn), Jamieson - and his dog - move into a mansion belonging to Ladd's cousin, Mrs. Jamie Rowan (Hepburn). It soon appears that Jamie shares Pat's deep distaste for romantic love.

Highly interested in Jamieson's work, and tired of being courted and chased by men, an emboldened Jamie proposes marriage to confirmed bachelor Pat, insisting that theirs would be a union and partnership uncomplicated by love, thus platonic.

Pat readily agrees and their characters marry, "without love." To ensure a chaste wedding night, they implore a friend to stay with them. But, Jamieson ends up in Jamie's bed, blaming somnambulism!

The two settle into a seemingly well-functioning life of shared passion for the oxygen experiments. But when Pat's former girlfriend turns up, portrayed by Patricia Morison, Jamie discovers that she has fallen in love with her new husband after all, and attempts to win his love.

In one of her first comedic roles, the brilliant Lucille Ball played Hepburn's real estate agent, while Gloria Grahame plays a flower girl.

Hepburn gives a mischievous performance as the young woman who really wants to be chased, and Tracy is charmingly acerbic when confronted with her cool or coy wiles. The action chiefly flows from nimble words, spoken with smooth and saucy savour, and in which feats of little patter abound. But, at the core of the film is the remarkably intense -- and real -- smoldering sexual chemistry between Tracy and Hepburn. Also enjoyable are fun bits including Tracy's character sleep walking, and Hepburn's character trying without success to keep her feet warm on long, lonesome winter nights in bed.

"Without Love" became the final film of MGM contract director Harold S. Bouquet, who died of cancer soon after its completion. Ironically, Tracy died of cancer June 10, 1967, 17 days after he and Hepburn completed their last film together, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." Hepburn died June 29, 2003, of natural causes at the age of 96.

"Without Love" is scheduled to be released May 29, by Warner Home Video and Turner Classic Movies honoring the anniversary of Hepburn's 100th birth month. She was born May 12.

The film is scheduled to be simultaneously released separately, as well as in a Hepburn boxed set of other films never-before-released on DVD including, "Morning Glory," "Undercurrent," "Sylvia Scarlett," "Dragon Seed," and "The Corn is Green."

For fans of Tracy and Hepburn, and for anyone who loves wonderful films, this classic is long overdue on DVD and is a must buy! February 28, 2007

LIGHTLY AMUSING.

The wartime housing shortage is the the excuse which brings the legendary duo together in this one: Tracy is a homespun scientist working on a helmet for high-altitude flying, and Hepburn is a widow with a big empty house in Washington D.C....One of the more mediocre films in the Tracy-Hepburn series; it has a rather metallic flavour. Hepburn comes off as being something between an old maid and a tomboy; she's at her most annoyingly cultured and affected here - but she keeps exclaiming "by gum'(!) The direction by Harold S. Bucquet is pedistrian and the dialogue tries to be sophisticated, but it doesn't match the plot maneuvers (such as the one requiring Tracy to be a sleepwalker: in the movies it's almost as tacky as amnesia). Philip Barry fashioned the play for Hepburn when she just barely sqeaked by with it on Broadway in 1942. Donald Ogden Stewart re-wrote much of the material for the screen and the result was a box-office success in 1945. In the second leads, Lucille Ball and Keenan Wynn are, in actuality, much more likable. August 30, 2002

By Gum!

Not Hepburn and Tracy's best, but still a funny, pleasant comedy. Hepburn is Jamie Rowan, a widow living in the past, whose basement scientist Pat Jamieson (Tracy) wants to use to construct a government-commissioned oxygen mask for World War II pilots. The two decide to marry platonically and help each other as partners. But it's only a matter of time before love begins to complicate the marriage...

Though the plot is a little creaky and predictable, Hepburn and Tracy shine, as always. Keenan Wynn and Lucille Ball, however, are the standouts as the second leads. Both hilarious and touching, they add comic zest to the film and make you come away from it thinking it's better than it actually is. June 1, 2001

Tracy & Hepburn marry to help the win World War II

This third pairing of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn is a welcomed return to comedy after the dark anti-fascist effort "Keeper of the Flame." Hepburn plays Jamie Rowan, a widow with a very large house in Washington, D.C. during the war. Tracy is Pat Jamieson, a scientist working on a helmet for high-altitude flying for the military, who desperately needs someplace to do his work since there is such a housing shortage in the capital. The rather contrived solution is that the two of them should have a platonic marriage, hence the title, and although Jamieson is a confirmed bachelor without much use for women, he accepts. Otherwise there would be no movie, right? Of course, Jamie Jamieson (cute, huh?) helps her husband with his work and eventually the two of them notice what all of their friends and the viewers already know: this "without love" thing is not going to work.

"Without Love" is the third Hepburn film based on a stage play by Philip Barry but is certainly quite different from the setting among the snobbish rich that made "Holiday" and "The Philadelphia Story" so unique. The play was adapted to both the screen and the Tracy-Hepburn tandem by Donald Ogden Stewart. The 1945 MGM film was directed by Harold S. Bucquet, who had co-directed Hepburn's previous film, "Dragon Seed."

The storyline is certainly far fetched but everybody has fun, and Tracy proves himself as comfortable with farce as he is with more dramatic roles. Of course, the inevitability of their happily ever after makes the initial lack of chemistry somewhat unbelievable. This approach works much better in "Pat and Mike," but the Tracy-Hepburn team would really reach its heights with MGM when were finally old enough that the courtship part would be jettisoned and we would get right to the husband and wife heavyweight fight (i.e., "Adam's Rib").

Finally, I must comment on the impact this film had on the reputation of Lucille Ball (who had made "Stage Door" with Hepburn before the war) who was then known as the Queen of the B-Movies. It seems that several critics of the day thought she might have a new career for herself in comedy, which only goes to show that not all critics are complete idiots. October 15, 2000

Without Love and With Lucy

I hadn't heard much about this Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn pairing, so I didn't know what to expect. It wound up being a fun movie, if a little unbelievable. Tracy stars as a scientist and Hepburn is the owner of the home where he sets up shop. Both have had difficult experiences with love in the past and have decided they are against it. For convenience sake and since they are compatible, they decide to marry, believing that a marriage without love could work. Since it's Tracy and Hepburn, the viewer obviously suspects something different. The movie is amusing, and apart from the real chemistry of the two leads, it also benefits from a wry performance by Lucille Ball as Hepburn's real estate agent. It may not be the greatest film of Tracy and Hepburn, but it is worth watching nonetheless. June 10, 2000

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