Saratoga Trunk (1945)

Ingrid Bergman is Clio Dulaine, a beautiful young woman who travels from France to New Orleans with a plan.

She’s the illegitimate daughter of a rich New Orleans businessman and his mistress; she’s determined to live the life of a rich and respected young woman.

Part one of that plan includes exacting revenge against those who did her mother wrong.

The means getting even with the Delaine family for ruining her mother’s name and forcing her to live abroad in exile until she died.

Part two of Clio’s plan includes finding a ridiculously wealthy husband to ensure she doesn’t fall victim to the same fate.

After all, given her beauty, turning men’s heads isn’t difficult. That’s especially true of older, wealthy men.

But her own head is turned when she meets a tall Texan with broad shoulders named Clint Maroon (Gary Cooper).

Maroon has revenge on his mind as well. Railroad tycoons ruined his father, stealing his land.

Both find an opportunity to execute their plans in Saratoga Springs.

Clio sets her sights on a man named Van Steed, who owns the railroad trunk line. It’s worth millions.

But that trunk line needs protecting from railroad tycoons determined to devalue it until they can buy it for a fraction of what it’s worth.

So Clint discovers he can strike back for his father by helping the very man Clio hopes to wed.

Review:

Ingrid Bergman is a clever, vivacious, head-spinning delight; Cooper the perfect foil as the proud Texan whose use of “ain’t” has the pretend countess rolling her eyes.

But while Cooper proclaims that he won’t be ruled by any woman, he sure is taken with this lovely lass, though he does his best to seem unbothered by her determination to marry into money.

Clio has two constant companions: Angelique, who looks like a sorceress, proclaims Clio has the devil in her, but clearly wants no harm to come to her; and Cupidon, a dwarf full of joyous mischief and who appreciates Clint’s company as a way to get out of the company of the two women for a while.

Though set in New Orleans and Saratoga, N.Y., this film somehow, at some point, got classified as a Western in some circles. Beware, you won’t even find much Western-style action.

There is an epic head-on collision between two trains, followed by a large scale brawl for control of the trunk line.

And regardless of the classification, you’ll find Bergman. Her brilliant performance makes this worth a watch. You’re likely to be captivated, just like Clint.

Directed by:
Sam Wood

Cast:
Gary Cooper … Clint Maroon
Ingrid Bergman … Clio Dulaine
Flora Robson … Angelique Buiton
Jerry Austin … Cupidon
John Warburton … Van Steed
Florence Bates … Coventry Bellop
Curt Bois … Augustin Haussy
John Abbott … Roscoe Bean
Ethel Griffies … Clarissa Van Steed
Marla Shelton … Mrs. Porcelain
Helen Freeman … Mrs. Nicholas Dulaine
Sophie Huxley … Charlotte Dulaine
Fred Essier … Monsieur Begue
Louis Payne … Raymond Soule
Sarah Edwards … Miss Diggs
Adrienne D’Ambricourt … Grandmother Dulaine
Jacqueline DeWitt … Guilia Forosini

Runtime: 135 min.

Memorable lines:

Cupidon, as Clio opens the gate to her parents’ old home in New Orleans: “Ghosts in there.”
Clio Dulaine: “If there are, it’s my father. And I’d like to see him.”

Clio Dulaine: “I’ll show them, these pasty-faced aristocrats. I am not my mother, to be sent away and turned into an ugly, broken-hearted woman. Let them find out there’s someone on Rampart Street now who’s not afraid of them. Clio Dulaine, that’s me. I’m as good as they are. I’m better than they are. I’ll be richer than they are. I’ll be grander than they.”

Angelique Buiton, after Clio invites the stranger in a 10-gallon hat to breakfast with her: “Common. Common as dirt.”
Clio Dulaine: “Keep quiet, Angelique. Or I’ll send you away somewhere to starve.”

Clint Maroon: “Where I come from, women are two kinds. They’re good or they’re bad. What kind of woman are you?”
Clio: “Well, on my father’s side, I’m very, very good. Prim, you might say. Very respectable. On my mother’s side … now, how shall I say this for your tender ears?”

Clint Maroon to Clio: “When you think of us — Paris, Texas — it’s downright comical.”

Clio, having convinced the Delaine family to bring her mother’s remains back from Paris, place her in a tomb in New Orleans and have a plague that reads “beloved wife” on her large tombstone: “Yes, that’s done for mamma. Now, let’s see what we can do for little Clio.”

Augustin Haussy, attorney for the Dulaine family, after negotiating a truce with Clio: “You’re very beautiful.”
Clio, smiling wide: “Yes, isn’t that lucky?”

Van Steed, as Clint addresses Clio: “Look here, you can’t address a lady you’ve never met.”
Clint Maroon: “Well, introduce us then and make it legal. I’m aimin’ to help the little lady.”

Clio, as Clint rubs her feet: “Ouch, you’re hurting me.”
Clint: “Sorry, honey, I was thinkin’. My fingers just itch to hold a gun when I think of that pack of varmints sittin’ out there a rockin’ (on the hotel veranda). I bet I could pick one or two of ’em off right here from your window.”

Clio Dulaine, of Angelique: “If you mean to harm me, she’d be likely to kill you. She’d make a little figure like you out of soap, but she’d stick little pins into it, and you’d sicken and die.”
Sophie Bellop: “Not I. I’ve had pins stuck in me all my life and — knives and everything up to pickaxes.”

Clio, about her plans having reached Saratoga Springs: “I’ve thought of the most wonderful things. It’s going to be better and better, all the time.”
Clint: “I don’t give a hang what you do as long as you keep your nose out of my affairs. I can be nagged by women. I can be fooled by women. And I can be coaxed by women. But no woman’s going to run me. Now you just pin back those pretty little ears of yours and take heed to what I’m sayin’.”
Clio: “Clint, I think even when I marry, I’ll always love you best.”
Clint: “Heaven help the man that takes up with you for life.”

Gary Cooper as Clint Maroon, about to be embroiled in a railroad dispute in Saratoga Trunk (1945)

Ingrid Bergman as Clio Dulaine, engaged in another battle of wills with Clint Maroon in Saratoga Trunk (1945)