Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

The problem I have with this movie as well as a few other Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy pairings is how she knuckles under his chauvinism. Sure, it was the way it was back in the day but this is the pants- wearing feminist Katharine Hepburn. Her personality is as big as her talent and in such movies, the two just don't mesh. As such, try as I might to look past it, I can't appreciate some of her movies as much as I want to.Without Love is otherwise a pleasant enough movie with a similar plot to The Mirror Has Two Faces, in which two people marry for convenience and wind up falling for each other (though of course the woman has secretly loved the man all along). But unlike the latter movie, the man doesn't come crawling back once he realizes he's lost the woman he loves. Tracy somewhat ambles back and it's a whole lot less satisfying than Jeff Bridges standing below Barbra Streisand's apartment building yelling how much he loves her. Lucille Ball's in this movie too but she doesn't get too much screen time, naturally, though at least she gets to wisecrack a bit.It's a little sad when I realize that Tracy's pet dog was the best thing in this movie. Asta the terrier from The Thin Man was cute too but in that movie he served as a foil to the ace pairing of William Powell and Myrna Loy.

The first 95% of this film was excellent. In particular, the dialog was first-rate--especially the very suggestive and smart-alecky lines given to supporting actress, Lucille Ball, though the rest of the cast all had some wonderful zingers scattered throughout the film. And the main idea of the plot--two people who marry out of convenience but come to love each other is marvelous. However, there is one small gripe and one big one about the film. The small one is that Katherine Hepburn's marriage proposal just seems to come out of thin air--with no indication WHY she would do this (other than the fact it was in the script, of course). But the biggest problem was that this film SHOULD have gotten a score of 8, but the ending was such a dud--a major letdown! Suddenly, the smart acting and hip dialog degenerated to a sickly sweet and annoying conclusion. It's a real shame, because with a smoother ending, this might have been among the best of the Tracy-Hepburn films.A final note--I think it was probably an inside joke and done intentionally, but when Katherine Hepburn is making faces in the mirror at herself, the reflection isn't totally in sync--especially at the very end. Watch the scene carefully and you'll see what I mean.

WITHOUT LOVE is such an uneven film--some of it is quite inspired--but it's safe to say that there are a few scenes that make it worth watching even if it is a bit overlong in getting to its inevitable conclusion. Hepburn and Tracy are at their most polished as romantic partners. The subplot is handled with skill by Lucille Ball and Keenan Wynn (who does a great drunken bit) and fans of Tracy and Hepburn won't be disappointed in their handling of rather unusual roles.Hepburn has never been one of my particular favorites--I find her mannerisms are a turn-off by the time any film starring her has gone beyond fifteen minutes--but here she is actually showing a warmth, tenderness and vulnerability that she seldom really showed in any of her more well-known comedy roles. And Tracy is so natural, you forget he is just acting.The plot has two unlikely people who have given up love for opposite reasons actually finding out that they truly do love each other--but not until the last reel. All of their scenes are enhanced by the added device of having a dog who looks just like Toto (from the 'Wizard of Oz') steal many a scene. For added measure, Lucille Ball pops up in a brief but delightful supporting role opposite Keenan Wynn.Hepburn is more appealing here than she was as the stuck-up heroine of THE PHILADELPHIA STORY and the story, although predictable, has some very unusual touches that make it well worth watching, especially if you're fans of Hepburn or Tracy.Patricia Morison has a thankless supporting role and Gloria Grahame has a brief bit as a flower girl allergic to flowers in a nightclub scene.

Spencer Tracy is Patrick Jamieson, a hard-headed scientist whose heart gave up on love a long time ago and which now takes refuge in facts and only facts. Katharine Hepburn is Jamie Rowan, a young widow who, having had her perfect first love and husband die in a riding accident, has closed herself off to love and life, believing she should--and could--never love again. So, from this common ground and the respect they share for the sciences, Pat and Jamie decide to get married: how perfect, how *convenient* a marriage without love can be! No jealousy, no bickering, just companionship.Well, that's the *idea* anyway... the viewer knows with pretty much any Hepburn/Tracy vehicle that the two leads are going to wind up together, and very happily so, in the end. The thrill in coming to a film of theirs fresh is seeing how their characters get there. It's a pretty fun ride in WITHOUT LOVE: Hepburn is pitch-perfect as a widow set on becoming a spinster, and Tracy has his slightly bemused, man-(sorta)-above-the-fray character down to a T. The love story is given a lot of care in this film, so that you really can believe that eventually, love--or more importantly, the *lack* of love--can get in the way of a marriage. You watch Pat getting used to Jamie, beginning to find her indispensable; you see Jamie opening up, smiling, even longing for love again. Jamie's loneliness within their self-declared 'loveless' marriage is especially well-handled, because it is *her* heartache, at the loss of a perfect husband and true love, that seems so insurmountable and must be overcome first. Of course, it can't hurt to have the main characters played by Hepburn and Tracy--already there's a built-in audience waiting and expecting these two to get together! But the script also had quite a part to play in that, by the end of the film, I was definitely willing Pat and Jamie to discover their love for each other, and to voice it out loud instead of pretending that their marriage 'without love' hadn't already turned into one full of love. The final scene between Pat and Jamie is startlingly sweet: the roundabout way in which Pat admits his love for Jamie is both heartfelt and true to the relationship between the characters.All this having been said, WITHOUT LOVE, along with the two melodramas KEEPER OF THE FLAME and THE SEA OF GRASS (and perhaps also Frank Capra's THE STATE OF THE UNION), still remains one of the forgotten--or at the very least, much lesser-known--movies of the nine collaborations between those immortal screen (and real-life) lovers. There probably is a reason for this--the film is entertaining (witness the scene where Pat quite literally sleepwalks into Jamie's bed!), with a clever script ("Are you trying to be vulgar?"/"It takes no effort.") and a great cast (Hepburn and Tracy, of course, but Lucille Ball and Keenan Wynn also shine and charm in their small roles to great effect). However, WITHOUT LOVE (also based on a Philip Barry play) is quite simply *not* THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. The script just doesn't have the same zing or exuberance (though you can tell Barry has tried his hardest), and the actors don't share and feed off that same electric current that charged Hepburn's acting against Cary Grant and James Stewart. It can't have been too difficult to figure out, given the greatly contrasting Broadway runs the two plays (both starring Hepburn in the role she originated on stage) had--one smooth and receiving tumultuous welcome wherever it went, the other... well, not *quite* so joyously received.Still, how often *does* a film like THE PHILADELPHIA STORY come along? Surely while waiting between classics, it couldn't hurt to watch a few solid, sweet and thoroughly engaging films like WITHOUT LOVE. And this film has bonuses as well--Pat and Jamie are more truly equals than any of the characters I've seen Hepburn and Tracy play so far... no 'slapping down' of the Hepburn character by the big gruff bear-paw of the Tracy character. Hepburn fans also get to see her sing (in French!) and totter around in the most alarming feathery get-up (that ending scene is really a hoot!). Keenan Wynn plays a delightful Philip Barry drunk--which means that he's wittier and more lucid than the rest of us, even when we're sober on a good day!--and Lucille Ball is luminous in her small role as Kitty Trimble.So why not give WITHOUT LOVE a chance to put a smile on your face? With any luck, it'll do that and much, much more...!