The Raging Moon [Long Ago, Tomorrow] **** (1971, Nanette Newman, Malcolm McDowell) – Classic Movie Review 2429

Co-writer/director Bryan Forbes’s tearjerker 1971 film of Peter Marshall’s novel about a love affair between two handicapped people living in a church-run home for the disabled is moving and involving.

It showcases a pair of rousing and richly enjoyable star performances from Forbes’s wife Nanette Newman and Malcolm McDowell as Jill Matthews and Bruce Pritchard. McDowell’s Bruce is a 24-year-old working-class amateur soccer player suddenly struck down by an incurable degenerative disease and confined for the rest of his life to a wheelchair. Newman’s Jill is a 31-year-old woman from a wealthy family, also confined to a wheelchair through polio. 

The bitter, angry Bruce begins to harbour romantic feelings for Jill but before he can make them known in a letter, she leaves the institution to return home intending to marry her long-time fiancé Geoffrey (Michael Lees).

Despite the odd cliché and hesitation, it tiptoes delicately through this potential minefield and is definitely a notable success, giving the emotions a thorough stirring.

Forbes was in the rare position of being able to green-light his own film as he was head of production for EMI. Some EMI executives did not want it released but Forbes held a successful test screening that secured company support. However, after good reviews, commercially the film flopped when EMI failed to distribute it widely because they had little faith in its commercial possibilities. It was kind of a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The script idea of a romance in wheelchairs was considered unusual at the time because of the sexual nature of the relationship between the disabled characters played by McDowell and Newman. It is probably the first time in which people in wheelchairs are shown in a feature film having sex.

Real-life wheelchair-bound Michael Flanders of the Flanders and Swann comedy team is effective in a cameo as Clarence Marlow. Marshall works with Forbes on the screenplay.

Also in the cast are Bernard Lee (Uncle Bob), Georgia Brown, Gerald Sim (Reverend), Margery Mason (Matron), Barry Jackson, Geoffrey Whitehead, Constance Chapman, Jack Woolgar, Norman Bird, Brook Williams, Geoffrey Bayldon, Sylvia Coleridge, Anne Dyson, Petra Markham, Michael Lees, Michael Nightingale, John Savident, Patsy Smart, Norman Tyrrell, Theresa Watson, Richard Moore, George Hilsdon, Nelly Hanham, Emma Forbes, Sarah Forbes.

It was released in the US as Long Ago, Tomorrow, which is as bewildering and off-putting a title as The Raging Moon, which comes from a phrase in a Dylan Thomas poem. It received Golden Globe nominations for Best Foreign Film (English Language) and Best Song, Long Ago Tomorrow.

Forbes was criticised for directing a film while running the studio, and for starring his wife, though he did not take any extra salary as the director.

Scanned and restored at 2K from the original 35mm negatives and screened at the London Film Festival in 2015. Studio Canal released this new digitally restorated version on DVD and Blu-Ray on November 23 2015.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2429

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