Wow! A movie with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn! But don't too excited! Who directed? Harold S. Bucquet, no less. Bucquet started off as an assistant director way back in 1922, then graduated to shorts in 1935 and finally to features with Young Dr. Kildare in 1938. He died on February 13, 1946, so Without Love was his last fling. At its best, Without Love is moderately entertaining, but, alas, it's at its least interesting when Tracy and Hepburn are on screen – thanks partly to Bucquet's rigorously dull direction with its long, static takes. And partly to a rather odd screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewart which delivers all its brightest and most lively lines to the support cast, particularly Lucille Ball and Keenan Wynn! Admittedly, Tracy does deliver a few bright comebacks. But that's about all we can say on the plus side. Production values are rigorously "B"-grade and it's hard to believe that Karl Freund was in charge of photography. To sum up: Without Love is an "A" feature with "B" production values.
Review of Without Love
