San Diego, I Love You is a 1944 American comedy film directed by Reginald Le Borg and starring Jon Hall, Louise Allbritton and Edward Everett Horton.
The screenwriters for the film included Ruth McKenney, author of My Sister Eileen (1938) Silent screen stars Buster Keaton and Irene Ryan, the latter known for her role in the TV sit-com Beverly Hillbillies, appear in supporting roles.
The film was a surprise hit at the box office.
Philip McCooley, a widowed high school teacher in small-town California, believes that he has discovered a new self-inflating life raft. He is persuaded by his elder daughter Virginia to travel to San Diego to apply for funds from a developmental agency, and takes his four young sons along as well. On the train journey they encounter and offend John Thompson Caldwell IV by taking his compartment, little realizing that he is extremely wealthy and the head of the agency that the McCooley's need the support of. With their last savings, the family buy a house in the city, which comes with an unusual butler and a very confused lodger.
After Caldwell dismisses McCooley's invention, his daughter forces herself into his company to convince him otherwise. Although at first he resists her approaches, they gradually fall in love as they both come to appreciate the attractions of San Diego. Caldwell is persuaded to give the invention a second look. While McCooley's life raft ultimately proves to be both useless and dangerous, he has unwittingly invented a very destructive explosive which can be used by the War Department.
Critic Bosley Crowther of the New York Times rebukes Universal Pictures for issuing a "jerry-built latter-day farce," resorting to "screw-ball clichés" and âÂÂmirthless slapstick resulting in a "painful attempt to be funny."
Performances by Louise Allbritton, Jon Hall, and Edward Everett Horton are described as âÂÂembarrassing,â âÂÂworse than terrible,â and âÂÂfeebleâ respectively. Buster Keaton's cameo as a bus driver makes a âÂÂmockeryâ of the iconic silent film comedian. Crowther ranks the production with âÂÂsquirrel-nourishment.âÂÂ
Writing in The Nation in 1944, critic James Agee stated, "San Diego I Love You is a coarse-weft, easygoing little farce... I can't exactly recommend it, but if you see it by accident it will cause no particular pain."
Film critic Barry Chapman of the Toronto Film Society reports that San Diego, I Love You is regarded as the director's âÂÂbest film.â LeBorg acknowledged it as his own favorite work.
Chapman reserves high praise for the cast performances, in particular Louise Allbritton, achieving âÂÂher top comedian effort to dateâ and exhibiting âÂÂa fine sense of comic timingâ that served her well in screwball comedy.
The studio resources provided for San Diego, I Love You appeared to be promising for LeBorg's prospects as a director, with an âÂÂambitious scriptâ and a budget that reached the threshold for a high production feature.
Though the film was âÂÂengaging and deftly handled,â biographer Wheeler Winston Dixon reports that distribution and publicity were lacking, and did not perform to studio expectations. A top-ranked screen star might added luster to the film's prestige and earned higher box office returns - LeBorg had expressed an interest in procuring Cary Grant for the role of John Thompson Caldwell IV. Disappointed, Universal consigned LeBorg to his former low-budget âÂÂBâ projects.
In an April 7, 1988 screening and talk at the University of NebraskaâÂÂLincoln Film Studies Program, LeBorg was skeptical that the 150-person audience, mostly students, would appreciate I Love You, San Diego. Despite the fact that those in attendance âÂÂlaughed and applaudedâ upon viewing the comedy, he cynically insisted that one of his horror films would have garnered a better reception.