MRMOVIESETC
REVIEWS:
“Make Way For
Tomorrow” (1937)
"I just want to tell you, it's been lovely, every bit of it, the whole fifty years.
I'd sooner have been your wife, Bark, than anyone else on Earth."
As an undying fan of the Criterion Collection platform, one
of my favorite things that the studio does - obviously outside of the physical
media - are these little episodes that are shot inside the “Criterion Closet”.
Other than being a torturous glimpse into Heaven on Earth, what the episodes
consist of are various directors, screenwriters, producers, and actors that get
invited into Criterion’s vault of inventory with full permission to take as many
titles as desired.
I really, really HATE those people. Thank you for the
cinematic blue balls, jerks.
In all seriousness, though, the great thing about this is
seeing filmmakers get just as giddy as any other movie nerd about classic and
contemporary film from some of the medium’s greatest minds. One such walkthrough that really caught my
attention featured Phil Rosenthal, whom most would know as the creator of the “Everybody
Loves Raymond” television series. After skimming through various titles, he
came across a film called “Make Way For Tomorrow” which, up until that point,
neither Phil nor I had previously heard about. It was when he inquired about it
that a woman’s voice from behind the camera stated that it is “the saddest
movie you’ll ever see.” Phil ultimately passed on it (not in the mood), but
from the moment I heard that, I was hooked. Personally, I love and am fascinated
by sad films. For one thing, it’s one of the few genres that can invoke such an
emotion in a vast variety of ways; on the other hand, it helps me remember that
I am not dead inside and/or have been filled with mechanical parts in my sleep.
Fair warning – this review may contain Minor Spoilers.
The story of “Make Way For Tomorrow” plays it nakedly straight forward, though,
so it doesn’t really have anything to hide.
Barkley (Victor Moore) and Lucy (Beulah Bondi) are a
married couple in their Golden Years during the Great Depression. For a number
of years now Barkley has been unable to work, and as a result, all of their
savings are depleted and they can no longer pay for the family home. With
nowhere else to go, the couple asks their four now fully adult children (a
fifth lives across the country) if they can live with them on a temporary basis
until Barkley can find steady employment again. Unfortunately, only one of them,
Nellie (Minna Gombell), has enough room to house both mother and father, but she
immediately passes off the hospitality due to the fear of her husband not being
at all for the idea. It is then decided that the two will have to split up,
with Lucy going with their son, George (Thomas Mitchell), and Barkley off with
their daughter, Cora (Elisabeth Risdon), whom live about three hundred miles
apart.
On Lucy’s side, the arrangement isn’t too bad at first.
George seems to have a good deal of respect for his mother, and she is
well-liked enough by his wife and teenage daughter. Once some friction starts
to form between Lucy and her daughter-in-law, however, George caves rather
easily and starts to casually assert that perhaps it would be in Lucy’s best
interest to be with “friends her own age” at a retirement home up state – a scheme
Lucy discovers but passes it off as her own idea to George since she does not want
to be burden.
Barkley’s experience is a little different in that Cora
is clearly not at all on board with his stay. She’s not brutal by any means,
but when Barkley falls ill, her control freak nature comes out and it is
none-too-pretty. She also seizes the opportunity to blame the brutal winter
weather for her father falling sick and insists that he must move to a warmer
climate – in California where Barkley’s daughter Addie lives.
Without a position to bargain, Barkley and Lucy pull
strings so that can spend one afternoon together before Barkley’s train leaves
town for cross country travel to last a stretch of time that is anybody’s
guess.
I think what makes this film so brilliant and effective
is how Director Leo McCarey kept the story as this present moment in time
without deviating to expository backstory monologues or using flashbacks. The
satisfaction of the journey comes from the no-frills screenplay and seeing the
buried pain of separation on the faces of Barkley and Lucy whom no more want to
be stuck apart in their children’s homes any more than the kids want them
there. Then, he uses the current happenings of the Second and Third Act as a means
of going back in time to really throw the sucker punch that the audience will
see coming a mile away, but still stings nonetheless. There’s even a
particularly potent moment where Lucy talks about how much happiness a person
must truly be afforded during one’s lifetime, and it may not come at the same
period as somebody else; yet, now being in their 70s and paying their dues, the
viewer cannot help but feel like this should be their time and they’re being
robbed of it. This is truly a moving screenplay that still resonates even over
seventy years later.
Okay, yes, could these circumstances be considered
extreme regardless of time period? Absolutely. A majority of grown offspring
are not so narrow-sighted as to allow their parents to be harshly torn apart.
Even if one were to play Devil’s Advocate and argue to the contrary, every
generation is guilty of it at one point or another as a side effect of the
imperfect human condition. In fact, that may be as good of an explanation as
any as to how McCarey made this picture so sobering. We as human beings are
often keenly aware of our shortcomings, and somehow we still let them happen
for our perceived betterment.
Make no mistake, McCarey should get a lot of credit here
for his craftsmanship, but he did have help. While both Victor Moore and Beulah
Bondi were both excellent as the lead roles in the highest regard, I feel it
was truly Bondi whom was the big star of the show here. The reason for that is
Moore was around sixty years old when “Tomorrow” was released; Bondi was only
in her late forties – something I did not know prior to this review and
something I absolutely could not and did not guess while watching the film.
Proper dues should go out to the makeup artists and costumer designers, of
course, but Bondi sold her role so flawlessly that I’m still kind of amazed by
it. Hell, this might be subtle proof that High Definition technology in modern
film can be more of a curse than a blessing because a film these days can
rarely pull off such a convincing age transformation.
That’s really I can and should say about “Tomorrow”
before leaving it off for you to see and experience on your own should you
choose to do so. It’s so simple in its style, execution, and intentions, that
it cannot help but be anything other than perfection. Maybe some could and
would be willing to nitpick down to a cellular level to find a flaw or two – sometimes
I am that person – but that’s not needed here. The film does its job incredibly
well, and I for one am never going to forget it nor pass up many opportunities
to see it again in the future.
“Make Way For Tomorrow”: 10/10
Phil Rosenthal’s Criterion Closet episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkS1CpXhv9c
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