California Express

Claudette Colbert plays a best-selling novelist on her way to Hollywood, where her book is being made into a movie. On the train she meets two Marines (John Wayne, Don DeFore). She immediately sees Wayne as the ideal man to play the lead character from her novel. Unfortunately for her, Wayne's read the novel and hates it, so she keeps her identity a secret as she travels with the two men to California.

Colbert is right at home playing a role similar to ones she had played a few times before. So it's no surprise she is good here. Nor is it a surprise that Don DeFore is good as Wayne's sidekick. But what may come as a surprise for many watching this is just how good John Wayne is at a light comedy role. Anne Triola is also lots of fun as Consuela Callaghan, described as a "beetle" by Wayne & DeFore. For what they mean by that you'll have to watch and see. Beautiful Dona Drake has a small part but she's always stunning to look at. Several celebrity cameos, including Cary Grant. The only time John Wayne and Cary Grant appeared in the same film, albeit not in the same scene. Very charming and funny romantic comedy, the second half of which is in the It Happened One Night vein.

Claudette Colbert and John Wayne star in this lightweight comedy about an authoress who may not know enough about men to write about them. Her first book is a smash hit, but John Wayne scrutinizes it a bit, when he meets Claudette, not knowing she wrote it. He and his pal Don DeFore make a nice pair of guys to hang out with, and he and Claudette have good chemistry and repartee, but somehow the last 30 minutes goes off course and keeps this from being a very fulfilling movie experience. They're all good company and they have quite a few madcap escapades together, but things just don't fall into place as they should and the film tends to wander and go on too long. But if you get a chance to see Without Reservations, it's enjoyable and undemanding entertainment for almost two hours.

Cute comedy about a novelist (Claudette Colbert) who meets a soldier (John Wayne) and realizes she loves him. There's more to it than that, but that's the bare bones of the plot. The movie moves quickly, is VERY funny and who knew John Wayne could do comedy so well? Colbert beautiful and charming (as always). There's also a few appearances from stars of that era. Bright, breezy...well worth seeing.

Most of these reviewers are pretty spot-on, so I can just add my observations: It was a complete surprise to see a John Wayne character deliver a book critique. I was off my pins for a while until he went into his "Why don't you just stop thinking." Movie was like a collision between Ayn Rand and Frank Capra. Still, very breezy, and we enjoyed the contemporary stock location footage of Chicago... with the cute cameo by Jack Benny (taking train back up to Waukegan, no doubt). Also, it presented an interesting peek, though filtered through Hollywood's cockeyed optimism, of a question that was surely on many people's minds. We've saved the world, now how shall we remake it in our image. Surely there were many Kit Masterson writing about what we should do, My theory has long been that the postwar world was most shaped by the GI Bill of Rights, which put a college education and new home within reach of millions of veterans, and created the American middle class, for good or bad. Having lived through the crises of our new century, it's interesting to see people who realized they were standing at other crossroads in history.

Claudette Colbert chases a soldier "Without Reservations" in this 1946 film which also stars John Wayne, Don DeFore, and Ann Triola, with cameos by Louella Parsons, Cary Grant, Jack Benny, and Delores Moran as themselves.

Colbert plays a best-selling author, Christopher Madden, who has written a book about the world post-war - it looks to be a combination of "Gone with the Wind" and "Atlas Shrugged." En route by train to Hollywood to do the screenplay, she is extremely distressed to learn that Cary Grant will not be available to do the movie version.

She is writing a telegram to the producer when she comes face to face with her fictional hero in the flesh. He's a soldier named Rusty (Wayne) going to San Diego with his pal, Dink (DeFore). She doesn't tell them her identity, giving her name as Kit Klatch.

Kit decides she has to have Rusty star in the film so instead of boarding the train that will take her to L.A., she gets on the train going to San Diego. This leads to all sorts of adventures for the threesome, and it's obvious that Kit and Rusty, despite very opposing political views, have fallen in love.

Colbert is delightful as usual, and DeFore, kind of a Jack Carson type, is always pleasant to watch. The surprise for some will be John Wayne who's not riding a horse or wearing a cowboy hat. Frankly, this writer has always preferred him that way. I'm not a particular fan of westerns, and the plainclothes Wayne seems handsomer and less stiff somehow.

Here, he's playing the role of someone whose beliefs are close to his own in real life, i.e., somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan, while the Colbert character is a socialist. Tall and handsome, he does the romantic scenes well; one wishes he'd stayed out of the saddle more often.

This is a light, fun comedy that takes place in a world that, like Kit, doesn't quite know which direction to take post-World War II. Seventy-four years later, we still haven't figured it out, and "Without Reservations" remains an entertaining film.