After Tomorrow

In Frank Borzage's monumental -and absolutely extraordinary- filmography,"After tomorrow" is the follow up to "Young America" and with hindsight,it made sense.The 1931 work dealt with the wall between the kids and the adults;"After tomorrow" deals with the problems of a young couple whose mothers are either selfish (the girl) or over possessive (the boy).It's the generation gap all over again.

Sid's mother feels that that time is passing her by:the first time we've seen it,she yells "don't call me mother!" .She can't stand her daughter anymore,which is the living proof that she's getting old ;leaving her old husband the day her daughter marries does not make feel her ill-at-ease .This scene when papa refuses the dough is thoroughly Borzagesque.

Peter's momma is afraid of the dark,and she needs her dear one to sleep the sleep of the just.She's not really nasty but her soon-to-be daughter-in-law is an enemy .Her presence is almost a comic relief,in a story which verges on dramatic.

Marian Nixon and Charles Farell ,Borzage's favorite actor manage to stay very natural,which was not that easy in the years following the silent age.They are wonderful in the scene of the hat after the job interview.

One of Borzage's finest movies?Probably not,but even the "OK" movies of this great man are so much better than so many other directors' best.

This was Borzage's next project after his superb BAD GIRL and a year before his masterpiece: MAN'S CASTLE. It had the same theme he used in most of his pictures: young love surviving in the face of adversity and like in those two, that adversity is The Depression.

Having a very similar story to BAD GIRL with the same director, same mood and same production feel I was really disappointed that this wasn't as good. The script and the realistic dialogue seems equally as natural. The characters, these very ordinary characters are acted with such authenticity that they're just as believable. It's just a personal opinion but as genuine and naturalistic as this feels, I found it perhaps a bit too ordinary.

Typical of Frank Borzage's pictures, he focuses on the relationships between the protagonists rather than what's happening around them. Ostensibly this has a look of 1931's (stagey and massively over-rated in my opinion) STREET SCENE but the difference is that whereas Vidor's picture gives a snapshot panoramic panoply, giving us the impression and atmosphere of the whole community, Borzage almost ignores what's happening outside their four walls, he forgets about the Depression happening elsewhere. This is just about the two young love birds.....two very normal, very ordinary young love birds....and it hurts me to say: very normal, very ordinary and not very interesting love birds?

This is so unlike those stagey over-acted pictures which were so prevalent in the early thirties. This blends that grimy authentic world of the 1930s with a surprisingly modern style of acting. That the two leads are virtually unknown today makes this movie less like a star vehicle and more like a fly on the wall glimpse into someone's life.

Although it's not particularly exciting, you can't help but be impressed by the naturalness of the acting. As much as the dad is superb - in a likeable sort of way, the two mothers are brilliantly horrendous - especially Peter's insanely possessive, over-protective and obsessive mother - she's virtually the Mother in the Pink Floyd song on THE WALL... Mama's gonna check out all your girlfriends for you - Mama won't let anyone dirty get through - Mama's gonna wait up 'til you get in....

This is representative of the pictures Borzage was making during the early to mid thirties, mining deep his rich golden seam of creativity creating engrossing blends of fairytale romance with intense cutting social criticism. It does however lack the spark of emotion which his others have.... MAN'S CASTLE is outstanding, this is a wee bit on the slow side.

This is an intimate portrayal of ordinary people during the Depression struggling against lack of money, wayward and selfish parents, inability to get married (waiting for four years to have enough money), and many vicissitudes of everyday life which are often extremely harrowing. The characters are all 'extraordinarily ordinary', meaning that there is nothing at all remarkable about any of them, none is particularly bright, none has much ambition, and the heroine's one aim in life is to get married to her totally uninteresting boyfriend, who never takes his hat off when he is engaging in intimate conversations with her and has nothing to recommend him, not even a bit of charm. Marian Nixon is a frail, squeaky-voiced but delightfully innocent actress who plays the heroine. She has eyes too wide apart, but she loves her man, loves her man, loves her man. It is very touching because she really means it. Her performance is entirely convincing. Her mother, played by Minna Gombell, is embittered, hard, selfish, and disloyal, but Marian is such a goodie goodie she never even notices. William Collier Senior is an excellent father for Marian, gentle, loving, but hopeless because he has lost all initiative. This is not a film to see to cheer oneself up, but it is an honest and sensitive social drama which is well made and of great interest as a period piece. It is remarkably lacking in any trace of affectation, and being pre-code, it is unrestrained by the ludicrous restrictions soon to be placed on dialogue and action in Hollywood. The title 'after tomorrow' refers to the fact that everything is being deferred to tomorrow because of poverty, and 'after tomorrow' is the dream when it all might have happened. The script has a lot of wit. The direction is good. Charles Farrell plays the boyfriend, and he is really so uninteresting in every respect, looks, character, aspirations, that how anyone could be in love with him is a mystery. So maybe this is a new kind of mystery film: how people who are so ordinary that making a film about them seems an impossibility nevertheless make us want to watch them enacting their difficult lives. Probably the best performance in the film is by Josephine Hull, whose well-rounded portrayal of an infinitely exasperating and despicably selfish and self-indulgent mother of the boyfriend is a triumph of the dramatic art. The rapid oscillations in her moods, her alternating endearments and curses, her rudderless cascade of self obsession, are portrayed with the finesse of a lace maker.

"Back Street" brought down to roaches, clinging 'n swinging moms and basement cold water flats! Depression Dirge Tune: "All the world will smile again. Dialogue punctuated by the "Aw! Gees! and "Swells" vocabulary of that inchoate time. Grace notes: Clinging mom's Wedding Gift: a bra wafted aloft. Silver plated wedding gift (for 4) from co-workers. Nostalgic Notes: Doctor conveniently across tenement street. No Radio! No fans!No fridge! Surprises: Anti-smoking message and barely chaste lovers. Ending: Erotic Niagara Falls. Better than North by Northwest but in the tradition of "Our Daily Bread", the"Crowd" and "Beggars of Life".

I didn't expect much since Charles Farrell and Marian Nixon are the stars but this is a fine little domestic drama (from a Broadway play) about two Depression-Era young people trying to save enough money to get married. The film is directed by Frank Borzage.

The opening scenes take place in the newly complete Empire State Building as the couple looks out over the night-lit city, their future seeming to be as limitless as the view.

Then we get back to their Street Scene tenement neighborhood where the realities of life close in on them and stifle their future. Farrell lives with a grasping widowed mother (Josephine Hull) while Nixon lives were her unhappy parents (William Collier, Minna Gombell).

Gombell is planning to run off with another man; Collier is a failed salesman recovering from a heart attack. The young couple keeps squeezing nickels and dimes into their marriage account but something always comes up to rob them of their savings. Will they ever marry? Farrell (not a fave) is actually good here as the serious young man trying to get ahead; Nixon (substituting for Janet Gaynor) is terrific as the sweet girl trying to keep everyone happy. Collier is excellent as the loving failure of a dad. Gombell and Hull play 2 of the most unsympathetic mothers you'll ever see. Gombell feels she's been robbed of her youth; Hull is a smothering mother who can't let go of her son.

Borzage keeps the film moving and does a good job with the material. Hull is especially interesting here, long before her movie successes in Arsenic and Old Lace and Harvey. She's the only member of the Broadway cast to make it to the film.