Saratoga Trunk
Directed by Sam Wood 135 mins (1945)
Gary Cooper – Colonel Clint Maroon
An opportunistic Texas gambler and the exiled Creole daughter of an aristocratic family join forces to achieve justice from the society that has ostracized them.
Also starring Ingrid Bergman, Flora Robson, Jerry Austin, John Warburton and Florence Bates.
Romantic drama based on the novel by Edna Ferber, first published in 1940. The word "trunk" refers to a railroad's main line - a "trunk" line - in this case, between Albany and Binghamton, New York on the Delaware and Hudson.
Due to wartime rationing shortages, most of the vegetables in the New Orleans, Louisiana market scene were fake.
Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress (Flora Robson).
Maria’s Notes
As the chemistry was strong between Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman in Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, it was a natural coupling for them to be paired in the film adaption of Edna Ferber’s best selling novel, Saratoga Trunk. Both movies were directed by Sam Woods but Saratoga Trunk had any number of problems including a lack of directorial vision to make the film come off, costing $1.75 million to make and coming in 42 days behind schedule. Stories don’t always move well from the page to the stage and even though it was a pleasure to watch Cooper and Bergman together on the big screen, it was not at the top of anyone’s must-see list.
As a sidebar - the white Stetson hat that my father wore in Saratoga Trunk is the hat that he gave to Pablo Picasso many years later when we visited the great painter in the South of France. In several of David Douglas Duncan’s fabulous photography books on Picasso, you can find the artist proudly wearing this hat - he carried it off well!
Maria Cooper Janis