| Without Reservations | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Mervyn LeRoy |
| Written by | Andrew Solt |
| Based on | Thanks, God! I'll Take It From Here by Jane Allen Mae Livingston |
| Produced by | Jesse L. Lasky Jr. Walter MacEwen |
| Starring | Claudette Colbert John Wayne Don DeFore |
| Cinematography | Milton R. Krasner |
| Edited by | Jack Ruggiero |
| Music by | Roy Webb |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | RKO Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 107 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1,683,000 (estimated)[1][2] |
| Box office | $3,000,000 (US rentals)[3] |
Without Reservations is a 1946RKO Radio Pictures Americancomedy film directed byMervyn LeRoy and starringClaudette Colbert,John Wayne andDon DeFore. The film was adapted byAndrew Solt from the novelThanks, God! I'll Take It From Here by Jane Allen and Mae Livingston.
Successful author Christopher "Kit" Madden is traveling toLos Angeles to work on the film adaptation of her bestselling bookHere is Tomorrow, which was supposed to starCary Grant as theArmy Air Forces pilot hero Mark Winston. But she receives word that Grant has withdrawn and the producer now wants an unknown actor to play Winston oppositeLana Turner. Kit, on the train to Hollywood, is writing the producer that she'll accept nobody but Grant to star as Winston when she meets two Marine pilots, captain "Rusty" Thomas and first lieutenant "Dink" Watson, and instantly considers Rusty the best choice to play Winston. But he is dismissive of her book and says it is a political allegory, and that he does not believe that Grant would refuse Turner's advances for 400 pages. Unsure how he will react if he discovers that she is a famous writer, Kit keeps her identity secret, saying that her name is Kitty Kloch.
After she is expelled from the train for drunkenness in a remote prairie town, and the two men join her, they trade Rusty's German war souvenir helmet for a car. They are welcomed at the farm of a large Hispanic family whose daughter showers attention on Rusty, but they flee following a misunderstanding which Madden intentionally causes. When Rusty finally learns Kit's true identity after bailing her out of jail for cashing a check which the hotel believed was under a false identity, he thinks that she has been using him just so that he will appear in the film. However, after weeks pass while she tries to make Rusty jealous by appearing in newspapers with other men, Rusty eventually reaches Hollywood and they resolve their differences.
Cast notes:
The film was originally budgeted at $1.1 million and was titledThanks, God! I'll Take it from Here.[4]
The Arrowhead Pictures motion-picture studio shown in the opening shot is the actual RKO Radio Pictures building at 780 Gower Street inHollywood.
The film returned a profit of $342,000.[5]