Tomorrow Is Forever *** (1946, Orson Welles, Claudette Colbert, George Brent, Lucile Watson, Richard Long, Natalie Wood) – Classic Movie Review 6705

The contrived 1946 tear-jerking wartime romantic drama movie Tomorrow Is Forever is all but forgotten, even though it stars the unforgettable Orson Welles and Claudette Colbert.

Director Irving Pichel’s contrived 1946 tear-jerking black-and-white wartime romantic drama film Tomorrow Is Forever, based on the 1943 novel by Gwen Bristow, is an enjoyably over-the-top old-style experience, with the performances as bracing as Max Steiner’s music score. Despite the claims that this ‘great drama of our time’ is a ‘love story that will live with you today, tomorrow and forever’, the movie is all but forgotten, even though it stars the unforgettable Orson Welles and Claudette Colbert.

Orson Welles stars as an American soldier who is disfigured in World War One, so he stays in Austria, where his face is reconstructed by Austrian plastic surgeons. But, 20 years later, the political developments of the Thirties force him home in disguise to Baltimore, where no one recognizes him and he finds out that his wife Elizabeth (Claudette Colbert), supposing herself a widow, has married another man, Lawrence Hamilton (George Brent). Welles then also finds out that his son (Richard Long) is a grown-up young man who wants to join up for World War Two against his mother Colbert’s wishes.

Any serious intent it may have had at the concept stage is lost by the wayside in the production – it is the kind of picture in which Colbert models 18 Jean Louis gowns. It is the very sort of film the serious-minded Welles might have been expected to look down on. Natalie Wood makes an impression in her début, aged just six, as Welles’s adopted daughter, Margaret Ludwig. Richard Long is also making his film debut as Colbert’s son Drew Hamilton, starting his Universal Pictures contract.

Also in the cast are Lucile Watson as Aunt Jessica, Sonny Howe, John Wengraf, Ian Wolfe, Douglas Wood, Joyce MacKenzie, Lane Watson and Michael Ward.

Tomorrow Is Forever is directed by Irving Pichel, runs 105 minutes, is an International Pictures production, is released by RKO Radio Pictures, is written by Lenore J Coffee, is shot in black and white by Joe Valentine [Joseph A Valentine], is produced by David Lewis and scored by Max Steiner.

It was released on 20 February 1946.

It was a hit, costing $1.3 million and earning $3,250,000 in US cinema rentals.

Natalie Wood was too happy to cry at first for her screen test because she was so pleased to see Irving Pichel after working with him on his previous film Happy Land. She had to wear a dental bridge because she lost two of her baby teeth.

Orson Welles devoted five episodes of his ABC radio series Orson Welles Commentaries in July and August 1946 to the brutal attack on Isaac Woodard. Tomorrow Is Forever was then boycotted in Aiken, South Carolina, because Welles mistakenly identified the town as the location of Isaac Woodard’s blinding. Aiken is near Batesburg-Leesville, South Carolina, where the attack occurred.

The cast are Claudette Colbert as Elizabeth Hamilton, Orson Welles as John Andrew MacDonald/ Erik Kessler, George Brent as Lawrence Hamilton, Lucile Watson as Aunt Jessica Hamilton, Richard Long as Drew Hamilton, Natalie Wood as Margaret Ludwig, John Wengraf as Dr Ludwig, Sonny Howe as Brian Hamilton, Michael Ward as the Drew infant, Ian Wolfe as Norton, Joyce MacKenzie as Cherry Davis, Sonny Howe, and Lane Watson.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6705

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