As the movie’s reporter, Colbert made headlines.

The 1940 film Arise My Love was set at the start of World War II, with a woman reporter rescuing an American flier from a firing squad as the Spanish Civil War ended, just before the larger war began. The title is from a Song of Solomon prayer the fighter pilot recites on take-off.

Radio adapted the romantic-adventure film story twice, but apparently could not enlist star Claudette Colbert to play her enterprising reporter role again, just her co-star Ray Milland as the pilot who has been fighting Spanish fascists and wants to get a shot at Germany next. Lux Radio Theater paired Loretta Young with Milland in its June 1942 version above. It was one of the first movie-adaptations actually broadcast to American forces overseas, as noted by producer Cecil B. DeMille at the start of the program.

In the opening scene, Young’s reporter Augusta Nash, nicknamed “Gusto,” has an ulterior motive for her daring exploit, posing as the wife of the American flier to secure his pardon from the Spanish authorities. In addition to his escape, she plans to make an escape of her own — to prove herself as a reporter, escape her fashion column in Paris, and do serious journalism covering what looks like an approaching European war.

That approach turns out to be remarkably fast. Her first assignment will be Berlin, and she’s quickly reading Mein Kampf on the train! Meanwhile, the pilot has volunteered for the Polish Air Force and is on the same train. Will they get to their destinations before Hitler invades Poland?

What a time to start an “Arise my love and come away with me” romance! Falling in love almost convinces them to abandon their professional and patriotic adventures and head for home. But they’re back in Paris when the Germans march into the city, and there are a couple of plot twists before the rousing “It’s not over!” patriotic message from the flier and the correspondent at the end… and another from the cast and producer in their curtain-call interview with DeMille.

Young: “Playing a war correspondent was certainly a novelty.”
Milland: “War reporting is one of the last male strongholds, C.B.; what would Richard Harding Davis and Floyd Gibbons have thought of it?”
DeMille: “Well I knew both of them, and they’d probably ask whether the lady in question was a good reporter.”

“Well, there’s some very good reporting being done by women in this war,” Young replies, and offers a list starting with Claire Booth writing from China, Burma and India in Life magazine, while Milland comments that while reporters are telling the stories of American war heroes, their own heroism may not be recognized until later. And DeMille mentions that radio as well as the press already had its reporter-heroes in this war.

In fact, the “Arise My Love” mixture of romantic-comedy and patriotic war movie got mixed reviews as a film, but won an Academy Award for its original story, and judging by the laughter and applause, the live Lux Radio audience apparently enjoyed it.

Four years later, with the war over, Academy Award Theater gave Milland star billing when it presented “Arise My Love” again, but did not even name his co-star in its compressed half-hour adaptation. In addition to the film story winning its 1941 Oscar, Milland had more recently won the 1945 Oscar for best actor in “The Lost Weekend.” Reprising his role in “Arise My Love” one more time with its truncated script might have felt a bit like a war hangover. But, here it is, thanks to the Old Time Radio Researchers collection of “Academy Award” recordings.

For more about the movie, including the censorship considerations because the U.S. had not yet entered the war, the Turner Classic Movies background essay is fascinating.