Simply A Masterpiece

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

good back-story, and good acting

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Dizzy excellent and cute. Lucy always a riot. Wynn a perfect, bumbling drunken fool. Tracy, whom I had seen in "San Francisco" (where he has no woman, but Clark Gable gets the woman), with Hepburn is always an interesting character study. Tracy puts Hepburn in the barn, but that is strangely chauvinistic. That Hepburn puts up with it is puzzling.Yes, Dizzy in the luggage and wearing a gas mask and oxygen tank on his back is sort of cute, yet grotesque and cruel. Hope the dog's handler made a lot of money on this film. I did not like, however, how Hepburn and YES Tracy mercilessly ordered Dizzy to get down off the sofa. Reminded me of movie in which Bonita Granville had two huge great danes named "Get Off the Couch" and "You, Too".I still liked this movie, however. People can marry for lots of reasons, and love is not always the reason. These people supposedly did not "love" each other, but when the old GF(wife?) and new BF show up, sparks start flying -- not the romantic type, but the marital jealousy type.Hepburn should have told Tracy to shove it, and run off with the Spanish guy, who at least paid Hepburn the attention she deserved.Regarding Tracy as being said to be a no-nonsense one-take actor, I feel his -Hepburn roles portrayed him as the ultimate dip-sh#t. He was even nicer in "Father of the Bride", with Elizabeth Taylor. He was extremely nice in the aforementioned "San Francisco". I cannot imagine what the real-life Tracy-Hepburn "romance" was all about. I see her pouring him coffee in these movies, and I wonder if their RL personal relationship was all that great. He comes off as a crude, nonromantic individual overall. Hepburn could have done better.All in all, I was interested in seeing this movie and what it was about. Given the times, strong women were expected to somewhat downplay their independence. I was disappointed that Hepburn only wanted to be Tracy's assistant; she should have been his overlord and master. In today's patois, if she had asked him to marry her, I would have expected her to give him a great big honkin' diamond men's engagement ring, lol.10/10

In Wahington during WWII, a scientist and a rich widow enter into a marriage of convenience. Arguably the least well known of the nine films they co-starred in, Tracy and Hepburn are OK here but the script is nothing special. In fact, it's a rather silly affair about him developing a high altitude oxygen mask for fighter pilots and her becoming his assistant. Ball and Wynn provide some humor, and Grahame has a bit role in just her second film. The script is by the team that wrote "The Philadelphia Story," but the inspiration is lacking. It is directed by someone named Bucquet, who suffered an untimely death soon after making this, his last film.

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.

If it wasn't for "Adam's Rib", this film would be my favourite of the Tracy/Hepburn movies. I like the characters they both play, and there's a plus of another plot going on in the background between Lucille Ball and Keenan Wynn. Of course you know what's going to happen by the end but the movie is entertaining and the obviousness doesn't matter. I heard that Tracy wouldn't play in this on stage which seems a shame as he's so good on the screen as the cranky scientist taking up residence in Hepburn's cellar. Hepburn is fabulous as ever and the brittle widow is a perfect part for her. Of course no one who marries in the movies 'without love' stays that way. If they did we wouldn't have had these kind of movies in the golden age of Hollywood!