WITHOUT RESERVATIONS

US, 1946, 101 minutes, Black and white.
Claudette Colbert, John Wayne, Don Defore.
Directed by Mervyn Le Roy.

Without Reservations is a pleasant comedy of its immediate post war period. It is a '40s throwback to the style of screwball comedies, especially It Happened One Night, with the star Claudette Colbert.

The film shows the enthusiasm of the post-war period - with a touch of satirical realism. Claudette Colbert is a celebrated author of a book which everybody reads, with great hopes for the post-war period. John Wayne is a returning airman who seems suitable to fill the screen role of the hero - but who has a lot of down to earth comments about the novel and the film. It is also a trip across America, a case of mistaken identities and oddball adventures. There is also the presentation of Hollywood in the form of producers and, in a guest role, Louella Parsons and her radio programmes of gossip. At one stage Jack Benny asks Claudette Colbert for an autograph. The planned film is to star Cary Grant and Lana Turner, about whom there is a great deal of talk - with Cary Grant eventually turning up in a restaurant to dance with Claudette Colbert.

Claudette Colbert and John Wayne work easily with one another and Don Defore is the amiable buddy. Direction is by Mervyn Le Roy, a director of a great number of genre films from gangster films like Little Caesar in the '30s to Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon vehicles in the '40s to rather more big-budget long epic treatment of films in the '50s and '60s - A Majority of One, Mary Mary.

1.Pleasant comedy, of its time, Americana? Hollywood?

2.Black and white photography? The American locations? The stars, the guests? Musical score?

3.The screwball tradition of the '30s? Madcap adventures, misunderstandings, concealed identities, oddball adventures? The appeal? Now?

4.The post-war period and its ethos: `Here is tomorrow' and its popularity? The newsreel collage opening the film, patriotism, quotations, Hollywood, ballyhoo? Hopes, change, building, idealism, theory? All the people reading the book, autograph-seekers?

5.Claudette Colbert as Christopher Madden: success, Hollywood deals, her own ideals? The plan for the film? Cary Grant not available? The telegram, the discovery of Rusty on the train? Their talk, his critique, going for drinks, sharing, friendship with Dink, arrival at Chicago? Using her influence as Christopher Madden to get them some whiskey? Changing trains, travelling with them, talk, sharing ideas, falling in love? Off the train and missing it? The adventures, the car, at the Ortegas, Rusty and the girl, telling her tall story and getting out? Albuquerque and the hotel, the manager and her secrecy, the reporter, the police - in jail? Getting out, the ladies waiting to meet her? The truth? To Los Angeles, Rusty's anger? Dink and the correspondence? Dating in Hollywood, dancing with Cary Grant? Having learnt from the girl on the train - techniques, luring Rusty? The happy ending?

6.John Wayne and his style as Rusty: in the service, Dink as a buddy, their comment on girls and beetles? The critique of the book, red-blooded men responding to Lana Turner? Idealism? The adventures of the trip, knowing Christopher as Kit? Getting off the train, the adventures, falling in love? The truth and his anger? At work in San Diego, not reading the letters, but secretly reading them? His anger, knowing she was making him jealous? Going to Hollywood?

7.Dink, the good-natured buddy, the adventures, his theory about beetles? His letters to Kit, the weekends with her, leading Rusty on?

8.The girl on the train, the beetle, her talk and whistling, the men following her, the dining car, the advice to Kit on the train? Working in San Diego - and quitting to write a book?

9.The Hollywood types, the producers, the yes-men? Social milieu?

10.Louella Parsons, her gossip, radio programmes, influence?

11.An optimistic comedy with the mood of the period?