Tomorrow is Forever

Orson Welles and Natalie Wood

Irving Pichel's Tomorrow is Forever is an entropic melodrama from 1946. A woman's (Claudette Colbert) husband (Orson Welles) supposedly dies in World War 1, but returns twenty years later to work for her second husband (George Brent). Complications ensue. Pichel was never a very dynamic or distinctive director, but the pacing lumbers. There are too many two shots of people conversing on patio chairs. Pichel displays more animation heralding the invasion of Poland as an offscreen radio announcer than he does directing here.

In his pan in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther noted that the plot of Gwen Bristow's source novel was a rehash of Longfellow's "Enoch Arden". Of course, the central conceit goes back further, in ballads like "John Riley" all the way back to Homer. I am afraid Ms. Bristow is solely responsible for such leaden retorts as "You are not only a man, you are mankind" or "We must live for tomorrow (long Wellesian pause) because tomorrow is forever". I'm not sure even Douglas Sirk could have redeemed a film with lines like these. However, there are consolations amidst the clunkers.

I was fairly pleased with two contributors who I'm usually nonplussed about. Max Steiner's score is solid schmaltz without too much Mickey Mousing or gloop. George Brent's hairpiece sits upon his head like an ill-fitting crown, but he assays a thankless role with ease. 

This was the first screen appearance of Richard Long, a mainstay on television in my youth. He is adequate which is more than I can say of Colbert. She was more at ease in light comedy than melodrama. The role seems more tailored to Stanwyck or even Jane Wyman. Her chemistry with Welles is zilch, but that was always a dicey proposition when dealing with the wunderkind from Kenosha. What leading lady did have chemistry with Welles?  Hayworth is more object than equal in The Lady from Shanghai. Only when Welles could dominate, as in Jane Eyre, was the Romantic torch lit. The grand exception, which Welles milked, was with Micheal Mac Liammoir as his secret sharer in Othello.

Natalie Wood, relaxed and offering a passable Germanic accent as Welles' daughter, has much better chemistry with him. Indeed, there scenes together are the highlight of the film. This was Wood's first credited screen appearance. She had appeared uncredited in Pichel's The Moon is Down and liked the director, so this might help explain her facility here. Crowther thought Welles guilty of a "studied display of overacting", but he was always an easy target. I actually think this is one of his more restrained foreign accent aided performances. He is the best reason to examine this middling fare.