Tomorrow We Live

Somewhat out of the blue this wartime resistance drama has recently surfaced on Movies4Men.It is one of numerous similar films made around the same time of the war eg Flemish Farm,Freedom Radio which purported to show to English audiences what it was like to live in Occupied Europe.One wonders at this remove what their purpose was.Were they just rousing adventure stories or were they meant to show to the English audiences just how beastly the Nazis were and how the occupied nations were resisting them.I suppose the one standout of this film is the performance of Yvonne Arnaud.She is truly head and shoulders above the rest of the cast.This film is reasonably entertaining and worth a viewing

TOMORROW WE LIVE is an odd and obscure little wartime thriller that was made slap bang in the middle of WW2 when an Allied victory was hardly assured. Thus the film serves as something of a propaganda movie particularly in its depiction of the French resistance tirelessly fighting against the Nazi oppressors in occupied France. The movie was made with the cooperation of the Charles de Gaulle government (exiled in London at the time) and thus in itself serves as an important historical document of its time.

It's also a pretty good thriller and as with many resistance thrillers there's plenty of suspense inherent in the proceedings. While the settings and characters might scream 'ALLO 'ALLO a bit, there's an air of authenticity to the proceedings and a cast of actors all of whom give it their best in their roles. John Clements headlines as Jean Baptiste, a man desperately trying to avoid the Nazis and escape to Britain. Greta Gynt bags the most interesting part as the daughter of a loyal mayor with a few dark secrets of her own. The likes of Herbert Lom and Walter Gotell have little early career cameos. TOMORROW WE LIVE is the kind of film that just gets better as it goes on, building to a climax which is equally thrilling and moving.

One's first thoughts are how clichéd this film is. But then you realise, as with Shakespeare, that the characters and situations only became clichés because of the constant copying of the theme in subsequent movies. Whereas things appear to fall into the hero's lap as per usual, the action is, at times, surprisingly realistic. A female collaborator is viciously slapped about by the SS and later gunned down by the Resistance. In turn two German officers are shot in the back without compassion and in retaliation fifty hostages are rounded up and shot. Thankfully off-screen. However in the midst of all of this is a hilarious scene in a cinema when the French clientele,at being subjected to a newsreel of Hitler, begin catcalling and making shadows on the screen. These include a V-sign, a fist punching Hitler in the face, and fingers tugging at the Furher's hair. All in all an enjoyable propaganda film

One of the titles this movie played under is AT DAWN WE DIE; confusingly, another is TOMORROW WE LIVE. It's directed by George King, who made his mark with cheap quota quickies in the 1930s, most notably the Tod Slaughter melodramas; it stars John Clements, the distinguished stage actor-manager, whose best-known movie role was as Harry Faversham in the great 1939 THE FOUR FEATHERS. That was British film making in the War, when the cinematic world turned upside down, and this story of how Clements wandered into town and found himself in the middle of underground operations and sabotage that was invariably forewarned with the Cross of Lorraine (the symbol of the Free French), drives everyone crazy.

It's certainly not a subtle movie on any terms; the mystery, of who was actually in charge of the Resistance in town and who were the collaborators were easy to figure out, simply by assuming this would hit every stereotype of the genre. Yet I found it carried out with such easy confidence in its competent cast, that it rolled right along, as easily as any American movie of the period. If you're in the mood for one of those movies with evil Nazis, freedom-loving Frenchmen who face a firing squad singing "Le Marseillaise" and the inevitable triumph of good over evil, this should fit the bill.

What is striking in this film is the grim realism which makes a very authentic impression. You might object against the outrageous cruelties, and there are no small number of casualties here, but rarher a majority of all the actors. Still there are some breaths of fresh air, some puffs of good humour, some moments of humanity, but we have to remember that 1943 was perhaps the grimmest of the war years, and we who live so long afterwards can have no idea of how it really was, except by films such as this, made in the middle of horrendous crisis; and another idea to cheer it up could be that the leading actor John Clements actually looks like James Stewart, and James Stewart would have been perfect in the role. He never made any French parts except one, which was a failure, but John Clements is perfect as a Frenchman and could be a good replacement for James Stewart.