Monday Morning Foreign-Region DVD Report: "Make Way For Tomorrow" ("Place aux Jeunes")"

First, the bad news: as the above screen capture testifies, the image is soft. Sometimes softer than this. Acceptable, but soft, most likely from the source. Also, the French subtitles are not removable.

So. That's the bad news. And, on the other hand, this is an entirely watchable DVD of one of the most underseen classics of golden age American cinema, a movie that is as unusual today as it was on its 1937 debut, arguably the most perfect jewel in the auteur crown of the great Leo McCarey. Not to mention one of the most emotionally devastating films you are likely to see, ever. I'll admit that shortly after the playful moment recorded in the screen cap above—in which soon-to-separate couple Barkley "Pa" Cooper (Victor Moore) and Lucy "Ma" Cooper (Beulah Bondi) make to kiss, but demur because, it seems, of the camera's gaze—I started bawling like a baby and didn't stop until the end title some fifteen minutes later. And I've already seen the picture a couple of times.

McCarey—working, as was often the case in Hollywood at the time, from a second-generation adaptation (Vina Delmar's script is from a play by Henry Leary and Noah Leary, which in turn was from a novel by Josephine Lawrence—a novel that bears, incidentally, almost zero resemblance to this film)—treats two themes here: enduring love and the callousness of the young to their elders. The setup is as simple as death: Bark and Lucy, having made some missteps on the road to retirement, now have to abandon their home. They turn to their adult children (Thomas Mitchell, Ray Mayer and Minnie Gombell among them); they are first incredulous, later put-upon. Mitchell, in one of his best, most nuanced performances, gives oldest child George a lip-biting ambivalence; he wants to do the right thing, and takes in mother Lucy while the other children half-heartedly ponder arrangements for the ailing Bark, who's taking up the back room of a small grocery store in his home town.

McCarey doesn't soft-soap just how awkward a fit the somewhat doddering (or so it seems) Lucy is in the Manhattan household of George and his social-status-conscious wife and restless teen daughter. The viewer's slight irritation with Lucy only serves to amplify the empathy and affection that comes to take its place. The instances of callouness, missed communication, and self-delusion on the part of almost all of the characters build up to an inexorable conclusion: after fifty years of marriage, Bark and Lucy will be forced to live out the remainder of their lives without each other.

But this is unthinkable! And yet—well, I said the film was underseen, so if you haven't yet seen it, I don't want to, as they say, spoil it. By the same token, the writing, the acting, the directing all combine with such force that even were I to lay out everything that happened in prose, the actual impact of the film would not be mitigated by your knowledge. Orson Welles was right when he said this picture could make a stone cry.

But hey, everybody talks about that. But what makes Tomorrow such a resonantly human work is that it also brims with humor, as in the little meta-moment above. And there's also a great bit at the beginning. Lucy and her granddaughter Rhoda (Barbara Read) go to the pictures together, but Rhoda sneaks out for a date. She then returns to the theater and asks an usherette to summarize the picture for her so she can cover her tracks.

The usherette (Kitty McHugh, the sister of Frank—see the resemblance?) gives her the lowdown: "It’s the old gag about the guy that takes the blame for a job his pal done. The pal’s a rat and lets the nice guy go to the pen. But when he’s dying and the rat confesses and the boy and girl wind up…" She crosses her fingers. Rhoda asks, "Well...is it sad in any place?" The usherette considers. "Some of 'em cry when his dog dies." Rhoda rushes out, the usherette shouting after her, "There's a newsreel and Betty Boop!"

T'was ever thus.

This movie still awaits its definitive video version. In the meantime, this, available via French Amazon, will do.

Comments

[Nathan Duke]

This is one of the saddest films I've seen and that scene where Ma rocks in her chair during the social gathering held by her son's wife is pretty hard to sit through. Also, I wonder how much, if at all, this film influenced Ozu's "Tokyo Story."

[Marilyn]

This is indeed the saddest, most devastating film I've ever seen - and that includes documentaries. I don't think I could bear to watch it again, but I do think everyone should see it if they get an opportunity. This is real life and what many people face when their parents get old, especially if they are still raising children.

[Sam Adams]

DVDBeaver has notes for the tech-inclined on how to reburn DVDs w/o forced subtitles (linked, if memory serves, to the French editions of several early Hitchcock films). Wish there were some place to order French dvds that didn't charge an arm and a leg for shipping. L'horreur!

[Alison]

I was lucky enough to see this in Boston about 3 weeks ago, and it was everything I hoped it would be. I think you nailed it about the awkwardness of the apartment scenes; I felt irritation while Lucy while remaining sympathetic to her problems. It's a heartbreaking film.

As for its influence on Tokyo Story, I remember reading that while Ozu never saw this film, his screenwriter Noda Kogo has seen it and liked it. Does anyone have more information about that?

[Miguel Marías]

This is certainly good news - for anyone who has never seen "Make Way for Tomorrow" (by the way, you can find now as well, through Amazon.fr, "Ruggles of Red Gap", another great McCarey film). However, I'd try to find out whether Criterion or whoever owns now the film is going to transfer it on DVD, because unfortunately it has been published in France not by Carlotta or some reliable company, but by BAC, which is unfortunately the only or best source wherever of old Soviet movies (Barnet and others), but very carelessly made: unrestored or incomplete prints, utter disrespect for the frame ratio (they usually are cut on all four sides). So it might be wiser to continue waiting, specially at a cost of US$ 30+
Miguel Marías

[pm]

I was also at that Boston screening. Another local who was at the screening wrote a fine blog post on it versus Tokyo Story here http://listeningear.blogspot.com/2008/06/honor-thy-father-and-mother.html

According to Bordwell's book on Ozu, you're right that Ozu didn't see the film but Noda had. Ozu's more direct influences from America appear to have been, in the prewar, Chaplin, Lubitsch, and Harold Lloyd. I remember reading that, while stationed somewhere during the war (Singapore?), Ozu came across some recent American films, at which time he and a few other filmmakers (some his collaborators?) saw some late-30s Ford, such as How Green Is My Valley and Stagecoach...

[bill]

Is this the movie that Orson Welles gushes over to Bogdonavich in the audio version of "This is Orson Welles"? At no point in that series of interviews does Welles show more enthusiasm for a film. He's positively giddy.

[jakob]

@ Miguel Marias.
Please note that BAC is not Bachfilms (who brought us those lefthanded copies of russian/soviet cinema). So this may not be the finest edition, but their series of Paramount Classics is generally reliable.

[Miguel Marías]

Thanks, Jakob, you're right, it's BAC and not Bach Films. So that both French DVDs of McCarey in the '30s become a must.
Miguel Marías

[Con]

Criterion is supposedly releasing this soon. Check the Criterion forum