Eleanor Parker and Ronald Reagan star in "The Voice of the Turtle," but shown on TCM as "One for the Book." It's a very straightforward story of GI Ronald on leave with a date to meet a good friend Eve Arden. But, when she has a conflict with another date, she leaves him with friend Eleanor Parker to pass the time with, but not seriously. Eve still wants him on the side. What she didn't plan was Ronnie falling for a sweet and demure Eleanor, who is getting over a relationship with a playwright. (She's an actress in the film.) Passing time with Ronnie, Eleanor and Eve sounds like a pleasant thing to do, but, as much as I like the actors (and I feel bad saying this but), this film is so slow. Nothing much really happens and its stage roots really shows. Its moments of madcap humor help a little. It's not a bad film; but considering the stars, I've seen better.

Ronald Reagan (he's Bill) and Eleanor Parker (she's Sally) are very unsteady in this "comedy/drama" about a soldier and an actress falling in love when circumstances force him to spend the night with her (notorious New York hotels during wartime, you know). Eve Arden (she's Olive) walks away with the acting honors.Mr. Reagan doesn't portray the temptation or love very well.; he does have a good comic scene, moving very smoothly as he hides out in the kitchen from advancing Ms. Arden (who also has her sights on Reagan). Ms. Parker unevenly attempts to add some dimension to her role, with varying success; watch how she takes a sip out of drinks to even them out (I guess).Particularly, watch for the scene where Reagan has to help Parker out of her dress - and imagine what Rock Hudson and Doris Day would have done with the comic overtones obviously intended in the script. That scene serves as good review. Oh, and sometimes it looks like Reagan can't believe her hair, either! "The Voice of the Turtle" aka "One for the Book" is worth a little look. **** The Voice of the Turtle (1947) Irving Rapper ~ Eleanor Parker, Ronald Reagan, Eve Arden

A charming WWII romantic comedy with a likable cast and some witty lines by the great Eve Arden. A "feel-good" movie about taking a second chance on love, and one of Ronald Reagan's best performances. If you enjoy all those Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan movies, you'll love "The Voice of the Turtle."

With snow falling softly over a back-lot Manhattan, and a French boîte where a Benedictine bottle holds the shade for a table lamp, how can anybody resist The Voice of the Turtle (Irving Rapper's adaptation of the John Van Druten stage hit, reissued as One for the Book)? It's a bit of romantic fluff set on the home front during the Second World War that somehow survives into the new millennium with much of its artifice and most of its charm intact.Circumstances throw together struggling young actress Eleanor Parker, on the rebound, and furloughed serviceman Ronald Reagan, who has just been daintily dumped by Eve Arden. Since hotel rooms are hard to come by on rainy nights in wartime, Reagan ends up spending the night on a studio bed in Parker's apartment. And the inevitable happens – they fall in love.That's just about all there is to it, allowing for some excursions into the New York theater world. But the cast, none of whom was on Hollywood's A-list at the time, gives it their best. This was the sort of amiable, easy-going role that Reagan played best, from the movies to the White House. Parker (in a dreadful hairdo) seems a little tense in the ditzy part of an ingenue with a slight obsessive-compulsive disorder, but ultimately she wins us over. Best of all is Arden, for once not a vinegar virgin but a high-fashion woman-about-town who's possessive about the multiple men in her life only when she's about to lose them. All told, The Voice of the Turtle is a somewhat faded sachet that brings back nostalgic memories of a 1940s Manhattan that probably never existed – but makes it fun to daydream that maybe once it did.