No Time For Love (1943)

When a sophisticated magazine photographer (Claudette Colbert) unwittingly causes a burly construction worker (Fred MacMurray) to lose his job, she hires him to be her assistant out of guilt but also because she finds herself attracted to him. The film adheres to the standard screwball comedy formula and Colbert and MacMurray breezily waltz through it as if they didn't notice that the material just isn't there. The differences between the elegant Colbert and her effete cocktail crowd versus the coarse cockiness of MacMurray's hard hat "corned beef and cabbage" crowd are played up for laughs but they're few and far between. There is a wonderful tunnel cave in during the film's last twenty minutes or so (this is where Victor Young's score really kicks in) that stands out and Colbert never looked so fetching as when covered in mud. Directed by Mitchell Leisen. The Oscar nominated art direction is by Hans Dreier, Robert Usher and Sam Comer. With June Havoc, Richard Haydn, Ilka Chase, Rhys Williams, Rod Cameron and Lillian Randolph.