There’s Always Tomorrow **** (1956, Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Joan Bennett) – Classic Movie Review 5224

Director Douglas Sirk stars Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray and Joan Bennett in his rich and rather splendid 1956 remake of a melodrama previously filmed in 1934 with Frank Morgan and Binnie Barnes.

Toy manufacturer Clifford Groves (MacMurray) is depressed and bored with wife Marion (Bennett), his kids and his job. But old flame and former employee Norma Miller (Stanwyck) comes back into his life and puts the fire back into Clifford’s humdrum life. Clifford’s son Vinnie (William Reynolds) sees the couple together…

Sirk’s sleek, shimmering and superior soap opera is a rematch of the two stars of Double Indemnity and they reward Sirk with quality performances. Stanwyck and MacMurray are always valuable assets in a movie, but here they are at their best. Scripted by Bernard C Schoenfeld from a story by Ursula Parrott, the swirling melodrama just mesmerises.

Also in the cast are Pat Crowley, Gigi Perreau, Race Gentry, Myrna Hansen, Judy Nugent, Jane Darwell, Paul Smith, Jane Howard, Frances Mercer, Louis Latimer, Louise Lorimer, Helen Kleeb, Sheila Bromley, Dorothy Bruce, Hal Smith, James Rawley and Jack Lomas.

It is the memorable fourth and final pairing of Stanwyck and MacMurray after Remember the Night (1940), Double Indemnity  and The Moonlighter (1953).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5224

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