Mervyn LeRoy’s Without Reservations is a formulaic example of 1940s Hollywood romance, but there is a slight twist in placing John Wayne at the core of the whirlwind and letting politics slightly enter the fray. Of course, there’s nothing overly political about Without Reservations and the romance is pure glitzy cop-out, offering little by way of innovation or entertainment.
LeRoy’s picture is Hollywood fluff, utilizing the conception of Hollywood to stand in contrast with that of the military or working culture. We essentially are given soft archetypes to play with, as character complexities are tossed aside for blanket generalizations and interesting relationships that appear to be based on mere physical attraction. It’s hard, in other words, to find much to care about with such shallow characters.
Wayne stars as Capt. ‘Rusty’ Thomas, a Marine travelling with his friend Dink (Don DeFore). They meet a woman, Christopher ‘Kit’ Madden (Claudette Colbert), on the train and have no idea that she’s the famous author of a best-selling novel that America is swooning over. Of course, Rusty doesn’t think much of the novel and tells Kit so, again without realizing that she’s the author of the liberal trash he hates so much. See, Rusty’s America isn’t about handouts; it’s about being rugged, being manly, and making sure women don’t talk too much.
Now naturally Kit, the artist behind such a great progressive novel, shows not one sign of disgust or concern over Rusty’s point of view. More to it, in fact, she falls in love with the guy! Through a strange set of “funny” circumstances, Kit begins to travel with Rusty and Dink and, of course, the romance blossoms. She still hides her true identity, but has Rusty in mind to play the role of her novel’s hero in a film adaptation. As one might expect from such a glossy picture, everything somehow works out in the end.
The idea of two ideological opposites butting heads over the details is an interesting one, but Without Reservations largely drops out on any possible conflict in favour of presenting Kit as a clueless girl who seems to lack the intelligence and charisma to have penned such a remarkable book. Colbert doesn’t give us any indication that Kit is a powerful, intelligent, interesting woman. She is, instead, more of a clumsy damsel in distress gifted with the ability to use her fame to get by.
Rusty is also a far from attractive male lead, as his chauvinistic attitudes, while reflective of a large part of American culture, makes him less an interesting leading man and more a slouchy, boorish jerk. But, like Kit, I’m sure we’re all supposed to be swept up in his eyes or his Marine uniform or some other such garbage.
This is typical romantic misunderstanding stuff and it all plays out with a rather sluggish pace and nonsensical character developments. Kit readily drops many of her deeply-held philosophies with such ease that one doubts she ever held any personal ideals in the first place. It’s too bad that early Hollywood felt the need to forcefeed such blandness to audiences with Without Reservations, as the promise of an intelligent female lead character with backbone and progressive views must have simply been too much for The Duke to handle.
There’s also a perplexing sequence involving an immigrant family that, quite frankly, just makes no sense. LeRoy’s Without Reservations isn’t an awful motion picture, surprisingly, and it does contain a few chuckles, but there’s really nothing to see here save a rare performance by The Duke in a leading romantic role and an utterly submissive, boring turn by Colbert.
2.2/10
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