Tomorrow Is Forever

This is a lot more than a simple melodrama. It has elements of fantasy like "It's a Wonderful Life" or "A Matter of Life and Death". Although the drama on the surface is possible, the coincidences are so improbable that one senses a moving hand and that things are not as they seem. The film takes on the sheen of a lucid dream. There are allegorical elements, for example, the little girl made an orphan by the Nazis and forced to flee. She stands for all suffering Europe in the shadow of that terrible war, which had just ended. One can simply accept the surface story, or dig deeper for its meaning. One thing is certain, there is no way a simple melodrama would carry such a feeling of emotional weight and genuine pathos, in the Greek sense. The acting is wonderful. Orson Welles gives one of his great performances. It is so strange that one never hears of this film. I just happened to catch it on TCM and to say I was startled, would be an understatement. This is why we love movies.

Enjoyed this great classic film from 1946 starring Claudette Colbert as Elizabeth Hamilton who was a young woman very much in love with her husband, Orson Wells, (John MacDonald/Erik Kessler). John MacDonald decides to go into the Army and fight in World War II and is killed in action and his wife Elizabeth is completely heart broken. However, she finds a man, Lawrence Hamilton, (George Brent) who loves her very much because she works for his father's firm and he asks her to marry him after many years. Elizabeth has a son from her first husband and then a second from Lawrence. It just so happens that Elizabeth's first husband is not killed and has been severally wounded and finally returns to America with a little girl named Margaret Ludwig, (Natalie Wood). As you can see this story gets very complicated and there are many secrets that are finally revealed which turn this love story into a great masterpiece with all great actors. Enjoy.

the film is a wonderful example of the over-the-top-sentimental'40s weeper and always worth watching. but it's hard to believe she doesn't recognize him from the get-go, even with the German accent and horrible age makeup (you can see the drawn-in lines in closeup). He was, after all, the love of her life--and he doesn't look all that different. and then there's that inimitable voice. i realize it requires suspension of disbelief and i'll go along with that. but it might've been more effective had we not seen him face-on in the 1918 flashback. the ending seems abrupt--as if there had been some hasty editing. Colbert never really reacts to his death beyond hugging natalie wood--in fact, there's no real moment of realization--she seems oddly impassive in a film so heavy with emotion and sentiment.

This is a deeply moving story with superb acting although I didn't reach for the Kleenex. I would call it a very difficult lesson in life to be learned, about letting go of the past and thinking of present values and the future instead - reaching forward to the positive in life and releasing the past - something not everyone is prepared to do. It is of a young couple, Elizabeth and John (Claudette Colbert and Orson Welles), who are abruptly parted by the duty of John's service in the First War. He is injured badly, and while wrapped in facial bandages in hospital he makes the decision not to notify next of kin and drop out of his young wife's life because he feels he could never be the same man again, at least to her. So he is presumed dead. Meanwhile back home she has been notified of this tragic news and manages to deal with it bravely even though she is going to have his child. Lawrence (George Brent) steps into her life to assist then eventually they marry and create a reasonably happy life together. A weakness in the film that challenges us is that John's features were not altered so very much in the movie after his war injuries and the required facial surgery. I think more could have been done on this point to give the film greater credibility. Basically a beard was added and graying hair to camouflage his appearance but ... I mean, if you've known someone so well, it's well-nigh impossible to mistake their tone of voice or expression of the eyes ... so I had trouble getting over this shortcoming. Twenty years later in the unfolding story it becomes indeed a razor's edge on which to tread when former wife Elizabeth again encounters John, who is now known as Erik Kessler, middle aged, graying, and has difficulty getting around. He has re-entered her life as an Austrian chemist brought to America to advise the firm which her husband operates! Small world at times, no? However, that's the story. There is a great deal of reminiscing done by Elizabeth as she recalls touching moments from her time with John, and shows us how easy it is to look back longingly at memories of the past. But now, after nineteen years of their estrangement, reality has set in for both: Elizabeth has a family to care for, a present obligation which takes precedence, and John too has the responsibility of a young adopted daughter, Margaret (Natalie Wood). So while every ensuing meeting brings them closer to the truth of their former relationship, it is a very thin line indeed that separates them from the possibility of true recognition of each other and the memories of bygone days. Each encounter seems to bring more remembrance that neither of them can fully accept but for different reasons. I found the dialog most intriguing on several levels. It reminded me of the scales of Justice which are finely weighed for both sides yet never truly balanced. John, now known as the elderly Erik Kessler, talked of the future's promise that lay ahead for Elizabeth, of how she had a good life in the present and was needed by others. Here again he nobly steps aside so that she will have a more fulfilling life although he won't be part of it as he has so little to offer, or so he reasons. He points out to her that the memories of the past she holds are really of the good times and can never be recreated in the present for life has changed them both. Interestingly, it really does show us that living in the past is somehow a negative phase which never can be changed, and that we must take hold of Life in the present and look to the future where there is promise - for tomorrow is "forever", the past is "never". This film expresses some very fine sentiments. Have ordered the book and hope to gain more by giving it a serious reading as well.

Family secrets at wartime, condensed into tidy soaper: Orson Welles plays Scottish-American soldier in WWI who is badly disfigured while in Germany and undergoes plastic surgery; back home in the States, pregnant wife Claudette Colbert is informed her husband was killed and she quickly remarries--but after many years pass, the two meet again. Well-upholstered weeper begins well but is sluggishly paced and eventually loses steam. The scenario, full of secrets and revelations, just becomes a nuisance, with everyone getting hysterical. Welles isn't especially well-cast in his role (he's too menacing for soft-sell material like this) but he probably does as well by the part as anyone could. Tiny, blonde Natalie Wood is wonderful as a youngster whom Welles has adopted; Richard Long (also quite young) plays Welles' and Colbert's son. ** from ****

Contains Spoiler!! "When you speak the name Orson Welles," Marlene Dietrich proclaimed, "You should kneel and make the sign of the cross!" Nowadays, few would disagree with paying such homage to Filmdom's only true genius; but in 1945 Welles' name was anathema in Hollywood, having run RKO into the red with his production of "The Magnificent Ambersons" and offending the Hearst empire's emperor, William Randolph Hearst, by his near slanderous portrayal of him as Charles Foster Kane in "Citizen Kane." For the rest of his career Welles would be relegated to supporting roles, voiceover narrations, and finally hitting rock-bottom by touting cheap wine on television commercials, thundering "We shall sell no wine before it's time!" - doing anything, ANYTHING!, to raise enough funds in order to bequeath us such masterpieces as "Othello," "Macbeth," and "Chimes at Midnight." "I subsidize myself," Welles said, receiving the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award. "In other words, I'm crazy!" 1945's four-hanky weeper is a good example of just what rubbish Welles was willing to appear in to raise those funds. Welles portrays John MacDonald, who dashes off to WWI, leaving behind his wife, Elizabeth (a teary Claudette Colbert). John is declared MIA and Elizabeth announces to her employer, Lawrence Hamilton (the upstanding George Brent), that she is pregnant with John's child; however, this is 1945, so we can't say "pregnant." Naturally, Lawrence falls in love with Elizabeth, they marry, she has first John's child and then a child by Lawrence, but we don't see all that because the scene immediately shifts forward 20 years to find them all at the breakfast table. Meanwhile, John is now living in Austria under the assumed name of Erik Kessler and for some unknown reason, speaking English with a preposterous meittel-Europa accent. He has also been horribly disfigured during the War, but in 1945, horrible disfigurement was suggested by rubbing black cork beneath Welles' eyelids. He's been wounded elsewhere (a la Jake Barnes in Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises," but again, this is 1945 and we can't touch THAT situation with a ten foot pole). He also has a child in tow, Margaret (6-year old Natalie Wood in her screen debut, hair dyed blonde), the daughter of John's doctor who was sent to a concentration camp by the Nazis. John and Margaret seek passage to America and he finds work as a research scientist - guess where??? - in Lawrence Hamilton's company. Of course John and Elizabeth meet - the script says they have to - and it remains unclear who recognizes whom and when. Meanwhile, back at the manse, with war clouds gathering, Elizabeth's son Drew (Richard Long, looking amazingly like the young Orson Welles and doing a pretty good impersonation of Welles' mellifluous baritone) wants to join up and do his bit. Elizabeth gets all teary and so do we. Indeed, Colbert spends so much screen time in tears that we wonder, was she a good enough actress to pull this off? Or did they spray her eyes with irritant before each scene? Time to wrap it up. John dies suddenly, taking his secret that Drew is his son to the grave, and tossing into the lit fireplace a letter that would have explained it all to Drew. Unfortunately, Welles didn't have time to toss the script into the fireplace with it. I give this stinker a BOMB rating - and indeed, if you see it, kneel and make the sign of the cross - and whisper a prayer for a film, and a brilliant career, in Purgatory.

I tried to see this film before because I remember the very beginning, but I guess I was interrupted. This time I saw it through and realized I was watching greatness. This film has outstanding dialog and a very nuanced script. Oh if people today could only write like that....it is no wonder I watch old movies. This film is a clinic on dialog. The acting was great across the board but the direction, story, script and casting were especially good. It was a tightly woven story and an unusual one at that. Wells put in his best performance. Could it have been better, maybe but the way he delivered those heart rending lines...........well maybe it couldn't have been much better. His deep rich voice together with the tenderness, wisdom, and compassion. Well it doesn't get much better. People who didn't appreciate that have not actually experienced life yet. Do not miss this when it comes around again, I know I won't. How good was it? Well this is the first time I felt compelled to comment on any films here.

WWI newlyweds Claudette Colbert and Orson Welles meet heartbreak when he goes missing in action and is written off as dead. Pregnant with Welles' child, she ultimately marries her boss, industrialist George Brent. Twenty years pass; war clouds are once more gathering over Europe. Brent brings over to work in his firm a Viennese chemist who turns out to be -- Orson Welles, bringing in tow a blonde, very young (her debut, in fact) Natalie Wood, speaking German. Ever the gemutlich gentleman, Welles keeps his cards close to his vest, even when talking about the "situation overseas" with the strapping lad he now realizes is his son, who wants to enlist in the Canadian Air Force. Colbert, however, is deeply conflicted. She comes to resent Welles' presence while nonetheless suspecting that he may in fact be.... Tomorrow Is Forever addresses the dislocations and disruptions of wartime in a manner unusual for American movies of this era. Somewhat far-fetched and sentimental, it's a well cast topical weeper that manages, paradoxically, to maintain a tone of high seriousness while nevertheless skirting most of the issues it raises. Long on emotion, it falls short of real insight.

"Tomorrow Is Forever" is a great movie. I think Claudette Colbert and Orson Welles are great together. And even though Orson Welles rarely played the romantic lead, he's wonderful. I cried during most of the movie the first time I saw it. There are also wonderful performances by George Brent and young Natalie Wood. "Tomorrow Is Forever" is a movie you need to see at least once! It's great!

Rather unsung, but worthwhile, this tear-jerking wartime drama will entrance some viewers while unintentionally amusing others. Colbert plays a young newlywed whose husband (Welles) goes off to fight in WWI. He is severely injured, refuses to come home to her (or even give his name to authorities) and is presumed dead. Pregnant and alone, she relies on her employer (Brent) and his aunt (Watson) and before long agrees to wed Brent, who is very much in love with her. Flash-forward twenty years and Colbert and Brent have two sons, the first one actually Welles', though this is kept secret. Welles, crippled, aged, bearded, wearing thick glasses and sporting an even thicker accent comes to town to work for Brent, never dreaming that his former wife is now Brent's spouse. Just as Colbert has finally found a degree of happiness and has nearly forgotten Welles, whom she loved deeply, WWII threatens to break out and her eldest son (Long) is eager to go and fight! The film details the questions, mysteries and miseries of Welles and Colbert as they encounter each other again after two decades. Unabashedly sentimental and heart-tugging, it is likely to please fans of tear-jerkers while causing the eyes of pragmatists to roll feverishly. Colbert is lovely and exceedingly good in her role. It's always distracting, in hindsight, to view Colbert's films and observe the way she refuses to allow herself to be shot from her right side, but she's not as bad about that here as in some other films. Welles is mercilessly hammy and is buried under some truly horrendous age makeup. He goes way overboard in virtually every area, yet somehow it works to the film's benefit! Brent, already one of the most wooden of actors, is made even more so by the presence of Welles, but it's a nice contrast. Long has a particularly good early role (even if he hadn't quite grown into his nose at this point!) He is given a strong, sizable role for an actor his age. The always-reliable and entertaining Watson gives solid support. One of the greatest things about the film, however, is the utterly adorable and memorably adept presence of Wood as Welles' adopted daughter. Impossibly articulate, inhumanly precious and achingly touching in her role as a war orphan, she is a thorough delight. It was her first major role and she handles it with surprising poise and assurance. Her older sister instructed her on how to cry during the film, suggesting that she recall a ghastly accident she had witnessed involving her dog being hit by a car. It's very poignant to see her dainty little fingers helping Welles unbutton his vest, knowing that her life would later end so tragically. Working alongside Welles no doubt helped prep her for her famed role opposite Edmund Gwenn in "Miracle of 34th Street" one year later.