Más allá de la vida

Wonderful Christmastime fantasy about three old men getting young, handsome, hunky Richard Carlson to fall in love with sweet, young, beautiful Jean Parker. There's a lot more to it but I don't want to ruin it.

This is VERY low-budget and the story is overly sentimental and more than a little silly--but I have a soft spot in my heart for it. When I was young a local TV station showed this film around Christmastime for years. I haven't seen it for almost 30 years but caught it on TCM. And i STILL love it!

Something about it has always captivated me. The whole movie was somewhat predictable but I kept watching enthralled. The acting was excellent by everybody (Carlson especially--and his singing is GREAT) and the story didn't get too goody-goody or syrupy. And it all ends on a very happy note. And damned if that ending didn't have me crying.

A wonderful Christmas movie--right up there with "A Christmas Story" and "It's a Wonderful Life". This film should really be rediscovered. Well worth seeing.

Unfortunately the print on TCM is in terrible condition. It's faded and jumpy but not unwatchable. Still worth seeing. I heard there's a COLORIZED print of this! Avoid that at all costs.

How is it possible that I have never seen (or heard of) this movie before?! Thanks to TCM I was able to check it out and I must say - this should be a holiday tradition, shown on TV as regularly as "It's A Wonderful Life". Although it's not quite up to that level of classic perfection, "Beyond Tomorrow" gives one a similarly uplifting feeling. The ending makes you feel glad to be alive...and less afraid of death.

I won't give away the story - just watch. Some may say it's naive and sentimental, but I feel sorry for anyone who's such a hard-hearted cynic (and what are you doing watching Christmas movies anyway?) So many movies try to be "heartwarming" and fail, coming off as phoney and emotionally manipulative. It's good to see one as sincere and genuinely moving as this one.

It's a shame the print isn't better quality, despite some recent restoration work. How such a great film could be allowed to deteriorate, I'll never understand. It's especially shameful when you think of how many other, older movies are in better shape. I hope the TCM print gets released on DVD, since it seems to be an improvement over the cheapie DVDs out there. This film deserves to be better known, and should be preserved so that it can be seen...beyond tomorrow.

This takes a simple idea and makes it work rather well, thanks to a good cast and just enough detail to create an atmospheric setting. Director A. Edward Sutherland moves the action along at a slow, deliberate pace, yet most of the time this fits in well with the nature of the characters and the story. The slow pace allows you to think a little more about the characters, and it often gives you a chance to anticipate what comes next, giving the story a feel of inevitability despite its more fanciful aspects.

The movie divides into two major sections. The first part is an upbeat series of vignettes, as the three elderly rich men befriend and help the two young lovers. The second part forms an interesting contrast, as the spirits of the three mentors, from the afterlife, try to help their young friends through some difficulties and trials. The light and ever-hopeful tone of the first half gives way to serious and often anxious drama in the second part.

The casting is a big part of making it work. As the older benefactors, Charles Winninger, C. Aubrey Smith, and Harry Carey form a good trio, working together believably and making for an interesting contrast with one another. Winninger as the happy optimist, Smith as the mellow realist, and Carey as the anguished pessimist all do a good job of bringing their characters to life. Likewise, Richard Carlson and Jean Arthur fill the roles of the young hopefuls sympathetically. Maria Ouspenskaya and Helen Vinson are also good in their parts.

For all that the story is openly sentimental, it generally avoids becoming moralistic or preachy. It just presents the characters for what they are, and allows the story and characters to speak for themselves. It's not one of the very best movies of its kind, but it's not really that easy to make any story like this work without becoming cloying or saccharine. So this is a creditable movie, and one that probably deserves to be a little better known.

Beyond Tomorrow is a film that should be considered a Christmas classic, but sadly is film which has slipped through the cracks. This film began production in 1939 at General Service Studios which was rented out by Academy Productions, Inc. The film was released in May 1940, certainly not during the Christmas season. The film was distributed by RKO. This film was considered to be a second feature, or B picture. The cast, which are excellent in the roles, are all supporting players in other films, but here they are given the lead. This film was known as an "orphan" film. The copyright on this film was allowed to expire when Academy Productions went out of business. Because this film didn't have major stars in it, the film was not widely replayed during the Christmas season, except in smaller local markets. Interestingly, "It's A Wonderful Life" really only became the classic film it is, because it too slipped into the public domain, and repeated TV viewings around the holidays insured that film would become a classic.

In the age of DVDs "Beyond Tomorrow" would soon find a new life, and would appear on any of a number of DVDs from various film studios. Most of these DVDs, regardless of price, would use the same source material, mainly the print stored at the Library of Congress as part of it's copyright deposit collection. The film print that most people are used to is very dark, with cuts and splices throughout.

In 2005 the film was put out in a colorized verison on DVD. The distributer of the film is listed as 20th Century Fox, however the film was colorized by a different company. The colorization, though a major improvement over techniques used in the 1980s, still has its limitations. The color is muddy, very unrealistic, and even distracting. The print that they colorized, while a different print then the ones used on most other DVD releases of this film, was still poor, and that is reflected in the colorized version. Additionally several short scenes were cut from the color verison, but these scenes are included as "deleted scenes" on the DVD. Had these scenes been left in the film the movie would have made a bit better sense.

I found this film when I received a catalog from Alpha Video advertising it. The film (properly called Beyond Tomorrow) sounded interesting, so I ordered it. This is a perfectly charming story from classic Hollywood which explores human emotion on a fairly deep level. Here is an unsung holiday film which is different. A B-list cast to be sure, but the players here are at their best and create unforgettable characters. This will bring a tear to your eye and a lump to your throat unless you are a true Scrooge. The film quality is what you'd expect from Alpha. An unrestored 16mm print, but very viewable and at 84 minutes, it is preferred to the colorized version which is 5 minutes shorter for no reason that makes any sense. I've not seen this version, but the cuts generate some continuity issues from what I've read. This is available very inexpensively from a variety of public-domain companies. If you like classic Hollywood, this belongs in your collection.