Actually, Wayne is pretty good in this light-hearted ripoff of "It Happened One night." Claudette Colbert is a famous author of a "cream puff" novel about love. Traveling by train from New York to Hollywood, where her book is to be turned into a movie, she meets Marine aviators Wayne and Don DeFore, to whom she introduces herself as "Miss Klotch." Wayne is the better-known star and the object of Colbert's affections. DeFore ("Dink") is there mainly to trade wisecracks with Wayne, smile approvingly as Wayne and Colbert become closer during the trip, and act as panderer when Wayne leaves Colbert in a huff over the misunderstood identities. DeFore is the guy who is busy fixing the car while Wayne and Colbert make love in the moonlight on a hay stack.
You can tell Wayne is the lead. He's a little taller than DeFore, he outranks him (captain over first lieutenant), and has one more campaign ribbon.
The conflict between Wayne and Colbert is there at the start. When they first meet, they happen to discuss Colbert's successful novel of love and intrigue and doubt. Wayne argues that it doesn't happen that way. "He loves her?" Yes. "She loves him?" Yes. Wayne shrugs, spreads his hands and proposes his own eisegesis: "Then that's IT." Literature bites the dust. But throughout the movie, through ups and downs in their relationship, Wayne sticks to his guns. "You're the one who's always analyzing things." And, "Awww, why don't you quit thinking?" If you've seen "It Happened One Night," which swept the Oscars almost ten years earlier, you have a rough idea of the plot. It's a road movie. Colbert, because she has disguised her real identity, is thrown off the train in Chicago. The Marines nobly follow. Another train, choked with freaky passengers, leaves them in La Junta, Colorado. They scrape together enough money to buy an antique Italian convertible which takes them as far as Raton, New Mexico, before the next contretemps. A happy stereotypical Mexican family is involved there somewhere. Like its model, "Without Reservations" weakens a bit when the lovers are apart, but it all ends happily.
I could understand why, when the trio of travelers are staring out the train's window at the majestic and unspoiled landscape, they dream of the day when the forests will be cleared and the plains plowed under and replaced by farms and housing projects, but frankly it made me wince a little. In 1945, the population of the country was less than 150 million. Now it's about 320 million. That paradisaical future has arrived, and by express.
It's a diverting production though, with some charming moments, and Wayne isn't bad in one of his rare attempts at comedy. DeFore is the mannequin the role calls for and Colbert has been through this before.
You can tell Wayne is the lead. He's a little taller than DeFore, he outranks him (captain over first lieutenant), and has one more campaign ribbon.
The conflict between Wayne and Colbert is there at the start. When they first meet, they happen to discuss Colbert's successful novel of love and intrigue and doubt. Wayne argues that it doesn't happen that way. "He loves her?" Yes. "She loves him?" Yes. Wayne shrugs, spreads his hands and proposes his own eisegesis: "Then that's IT." Literature bites the dust. But throughout the movie, through ups and downs in their relationship, Wayne sticks to his guns. "You're the one who's always analyzing things." And, "Awww, why don't you quit thinking?" If you've seen "It Happened One Night," which swept the Oscars almost ten years earlier, you have a rough idea of the plot. It's a road movie. Colbert, because she has disguised her real identity, is thrown off the train in Chicago. The Marines nobly follow. Another train, choked with freaky passengers, leaves them in La Junta, Colorado. They scrape together enough money to buy an antique Italian convertible which takes them as far as Raton, New Mexico, before the next contretemps. A happy stereotypical Mexican family is involved there somewhere. Like its model, "Without Reservations" weakens a bit when the lovers are apart, but it all ends happily.
I could understand why, when the trio of travelers are staring out the train's window at the majestic and unspoiled landscape, they dream of the day when the forests will be cleared and the plains plowed under and replaced by farms and housing projects, but frankly it made me wince a little. In 1945, the population of the country was less than 150 million. Now it's about 320 million. That paradisaical future has arrived, and by express.
It's a diverting production though, with some charming moments, and Wayne isn't bad in one of his rare attempts at comedy. DeFore is the mannequin the role calls for and Colbert has been through this before.