Mañana es otro día

Tomorrow is Another Day from 1951 stars Ruth Roman, Steve Cochran, Lurene Tuttle, and Ray Teal.

Bill Clark (Cochran) went to prison as a teenager and is released 18 years later, having had little to no life experience. Due to being exposed in the newspaper where he lives, he gets out of town and goes to New York City.

Desperate for human companionship, he enters a dime a dance joint and becomes interested in Cathy (Ruth Roman in a horrible blond wig reminiscent of Stanwyck's in Double Indemnity). She's as tough as they come, doesn't really want Bill around, and tells him he has to buy her presents to impress her. He buys her a watch.

Cathy has a touch of vulnerability - and Bill is pathetic - so she agrees to take him around New York and show him the sights. When they arrive back at her apartment, her Sugar Daddy Connover, a cop in plain clothes, is waiting for her. Bill and Connover fight; Bill is knocked out. Cathy gets the gun and shoots Connover.

When Bill regains consciousness, she leads him to believe that he shot the police lieutenant. They wind up on the run together.

Some time must pass, though it's not shown, because it's obvious the two become lovers, and Cathy has softened quite a bit. She's also back to looking like Ruth Roman. Eventually, changing their names, they join farm workers picking lettuce.

I really liked this film. I do feel like Ruth Roman turned into a housewife awfully fast. However, she does both personalities very well. Cochran was terrific, awkward, shy, not like the Steve Cochran I've seen in other films. Tuttle and Teal play husband and wife farm workers who befriend the couple.

Very good.

Tomorrow Is Another Day is NOT the sequel to Gone with the Wind but a lovers-on-the-lam story, and a surprisingly alert and moving one as well. For a supposed hack relegated to B-minus features like The Devil Thumbs A Ride, Felix Feist proves adept at filling his work with unexpected, inventive details. Steve Cochran leaves prison after 18 years for killing his brutal father when he was only 13, and now he's still a tentative, gawky pubescent operating inside a man's hulky frame. Lonesome, he visits a 10-cents-a-dance palace and falls for brassy, grasping Ruth Roman. But the sudden shooting of her police-bigwig boyfriend causes the ill-matched couple to hit the road, ending, like the Joads, in a California migrant-worker camp.

Roman's the revelation; in her best-known role, as Farley Granger's fiancee in Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, she was ill- and under-used. Here she modulates persuasively from bottle-blonde taxi dancer to sacrificing wife and mother-to-be (and a brunette, to boot). Cochran's almost as good, waffling between the suspicion of a wounded child and the explosive reactions of an under-socialized male. And the ending, while unconvincing, is nonetheless welcome. Along with They Live By Night and Gun Crazy, Tomorrow Is Another Day displays a redeeming sweetness and warmth that belie its film-noir pedigree.

The title sounds like a soap opera, and it kinda is, with some noirish touches. The first 30 minutes are familiar fare to any noir fan: ex-convict has troubles finding his way on the outside, meets a scheming blonde who only thinks of looking after Number One. At her place they run into her beau, who's none too pleased. Fists fly, and soon enough a shot is fired,hitting the boyfriend. We know it's the dame that did it, but since the ex-con was knocked out before the gun went off he doesn't know he's innocent. She doesn't clear things up for him, for obvious reasons. Fearing the worst, they hit the road together. From then on the melodrama takes over: she washes the bleach out of her hair, and becomes a reformed woman almost instantly. Love starts to bloom and they throw in their lot together. Will they ever find true happiness? At this point the movie lover who likes his noir hard-boiled might as well switch off. Those who sit out the rest of the movie either learn to care for the star-crossed couple or will feel cheated out of a good chase movie. I'm sort of on the fence about this one; both leads are engaging enough, but the story could have used more grit. Noir fans should try this one out, it has enough going for it, but be warned: Bonny And Clyde it ain't.

I can't think of any other film from the pre-Moon Is Blue period that deals with so many tough social issues (without, of course, QUITE breeching the Production Code): prostitution, rape, pimping, and even premarital sex. Steve Cochran is excellent as a brooding ex-con on the run from a crime he didn't commit. Outstanding atmosphere, photography, and screenplay. Even the scenes in the lettuce fields are outstanding!

"Tomorrow Is Another Day" is an example of why I love TCM.

Included as part of the station's "Summer of Darkness" series, highlighting my favorite genre, film noir, "Tomorrow Is Another Day" aired at 10:45 pm. I had no intention of watching it, since I was tired and I'd already sat through two other movies in the series that evening: "The Gangster" and one of my all time faves, "Gun Crazy." But then the host started talking about how "Tomorrow..." is a "dark gem" in the noir canon and how it's relatively unknown, and I started to think about when I would ever have the chance to see it again and decided I had to sit down and watch the damn thing.

And man was I glad I did. A gem indeed, "Tomorrow..." stars Steve Cochran and Ruth Roman as a recently released con and a dance hall hostess, respectively, who move away from the city and set up house, only to find that his criminal past will not be left behind so easily. There's a whole sub genre of noir that involves flights from big cities into the open spaces of America and how those open spaces are no longer safe; the decay of urban environments will follow relentlessly, and the open spaces are even more dangerous because there are fewer places to hide. Cochran and Roman have incredible chemistry together, and the movie really makes you root for both of them, even though he comes across as perhaps a tad off his rocker.

In case I've oversold it, don't think this film is going to change your life. There's nothing groundbreaking to be found here. But it is a fresh surprise in a genre that's full of fresh surprises.

Felix Feist (who?) provides the playful direction.

Grade: A