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 “mirthless slapstick resulting in a "painful attempt to be funny."
Performances by Louise Allbritton, Jon Hall, and Edward Everett Horton are described as “embarrassing,” “worse than terrible,” and “feeble” respectively. Buster Keaton’s cameo as a bus driver makes a “mockery” of the iconic silent film comedian. Crowther ranks the production with “squirrel-nourishment.” [6][7]
Retrospective appraisal
Film critic Barry Chapman of the Toronto Film Society reports that San Diego, I Love You is regarded as the director’s “best film.”[8] LeBorg acknowledged it as his own favorite work.[9]
Chapman reserves high praise for the cast performances, in particular Louise Allbritton, achieving “her top comedian effort to date” and exhibiting “a fine sense of comic timing” that served her well in screwball comedy. [10]
The studio resources provided for San Diego, I Love You appeared to be promising for LeBorg’s prospects as a director, with an “ambitious script” and a budget that reached the threshold for a high production feature.
Though the film was “engaging and deftly handled,” biographer Wheeler Winston Dixon reports that distribution and publicity were lacking, and did not perform to studio expectations.[11] 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.[12] Disappointed, Universal consigned LeBorg to his former low-budget “B” projects.[13][14]
In an April 7, 1988 screening and talk at the University of Nebraska 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 “laughed and applauded” upon viewing the comedy, he cynically insisted that one of his horror films would have garnered a better reception.[15]
^Chapman, 2020: “San Diego, I Love You is patterned on the lines of The More the Merrier and My Sister Eileen...Eileen resemblance is natural since Ruth McKenney, who did that play, co-authored this.”
^Chapman, 2020: “Irene Ryan…achieved her greatest fame as “Granny Clampett” in the television sit-com “The Beverly Hillbillies.” And: “Buster Keaton makes his short bus driver scene a comic highlight…”
^Chapman, 2020: Variety magazine offered a “totally opposing opinion.”
^Chapman, 2020: “Reginald’s best film is considered to be San Diego, I Love You.”
^Dixon, 1992 p. 1: “His favorite film of all his work was the gentle I Love You, San Diego (1944)...” And p. 11: “...his own favorite film…”
^Chapman, 2020: “Miss Allbritton…turning in her top comedian effort to date.” And: Allbritton’s “fine sense of comic timing and her talents worked best in screwball comedy. “
^Dixon, 1992 p. 21-22: See here for failures by his agent and Universal to promote the picture.
^Dixon, 1992 p. 21: Actor Jon Hall was under contract to Universal “and could be gotten cheaply.”
^Dixon, 1992 p. 21: “Universal chalked up the film as a misfire…”
^Chapman, 2020: “Despite his providing background, he never really rose above minor “B” films…”
^Dixon, 1992 p. 15: LeBorg “remained doubtful” as positive audience response… [he] spent more time looking at the audience reaction” that viewing the film.
