Turn Back the Clock

It's not just because both Aunt Em and Uncle Henry from THE WIZARD OF OZ appear in this, the message: to be grateful for what you've got, is also the message of this fabulous 'if only you could re-live your life again' story.

I'd generally avoid anything with Lee Tracy in like the plague - I find him the most annoying actor of all time but in this he's surprisingly ok. Under the superb direction of Edgar Selwyn, Mr Tracy's usual crass obnoxiousness is completely transformed into a reasonably sympathetic and likeable character. The production of this from MGM is excellent - Edgar Selwyn is perhaps forgotten about these days but virtually all his films he made in the early thirties are brilliant. He also wrote many of them as well - for this film, he co-wrote it with possibly Hollywood's best writer, Ben Hecht.

Particularly in 1933, people might have wished that they could re-live their lives more so than other years. This film therefore, with its upbeat optimistic message would have been particularly poignant for its audience struggling through The Depression. Watched today it gives us a real sense of what Americans wanted to be told, what comforting reassurances they liked to hear as FDR took over the reins at the height - or rather lowest point of The Depression.

If BACK TO THE FUTURE is one of your favourite films (which of course it should be) then you should enjoy this 1930s take on that theme. Vastly underrated Edgar Selwyn gives us almost as much fun as Zemeckis did fifty years later but being from the early thirties there's a touch of cynicism there too. Although you'd normally associate an attack on snobbery, class division, greed and the exploitation of the ordinary working man with Warner Brothers, all that's included in this as Joe, our hero has the enviable but ultimately unenviable challenge of being wealthy. Fortunately for most of that unfortunate 1933 audience, he learns that love not wealth is the key to happiness To end with an appropriate few words from The Beatles: Money Can't Buy Me Love.

I had never heard of this movie until just catching it on TCM. What a pleasant surprise, as I've always loved alternative reality stories, whether "It's A Wonderful Life, the "Back to the Future" series or the several Twilight Zone episodes that this movie seemed to be a model for.

This is not literally a time travel movie, and I kind of like that it's made clear this is all a dream (induced by anesthesia). But it still has a lot of dramatic impact. The idea of "what if I had my life to live over again, knowing what I know now" seems to have a universal appeal. The very clever screenplay spins several variations on this theme, and even if the "lesson" learned by the hero is predictable, there are enough plots twists to maintain viewer interest. And as another reviewer commented, the script makes great use of true historical event. This movie is actually a pretty good history lesson. Probably a lot of viewers are unaware that our entry into World War I was very controversial and not at all universally favored at the time.

The script is particularly clever in it's parallel construction between the "real" story and the dream. The roles of the rich guy vs. the struggling storekeeper are reversed, but in both cases, there is the concept of changing one's life with a bold and maybe risky investment of one's life savings.

My only quibble is that the movie seems to end abruptly after the Lee Tracy character regains consciousness and finds that he's still married to Mary and back to reality. I actually thought there would be another plot twist, with him discovering that Otto Kruger is a con man trying to get his $4,000, and not really a rich success. That would've added another wrinkle to the "be happy with what you have" message.

This is worth seeing for its amazing story, which although fantastic is completely logical all the way. It's Ben Hecht, of course, and at his best, working together with Edgar Selwyn to produce a cinematic wonder of plot and imagination, playing with destiny and accomplishing a wonder of plausibility in spite of its character of total conjecture.

The only problem of the film is Lee Tracy's acting, which is rather exhausting, since he is constantly overdoing it. Maybe that was the fashion of actors in the early 30s, but today it's just annoying.

The other actors are doing alright, especially the two ladies and Otto Kruger, but it's the plot that is the main thing of this film. Who hasn't one time or another dreamt of reliving one's life and doing it over again but better? That's what happens to Joe Gimlet, he gets an alternative chance and really makes the best of it and everything he wanted to do different, and still it all goes wrong...

The most ingenious thing about the story construction is how it is combined with the story he left behind, he meets the same people but under different circumstances and making different careers, and so in the end he finds his best friend, president of the National Bank, in his own original position as a petty shop owner.

Ben Hecht was in his prime throughout the 30s, beginning with "Front Page", bringing forth a flood of script masterpieces, until he was allowed to make a film of his own, "The Specter of the Rose", an ambitious art film of ballet, very much ahead of its time, which flopped, so he was never allowed to make another movie. Still he continued writing excellent scripts, but his sharpest edge was lost.

A middle-aged shopkeeper is given the chance to TURN BACK THE CLOCK and see what his life would have been like had he made other choices when young.

Human dynamo Lee Tracy animates this whimsical fantasy about second chances. (Somewhat ironic, in that a `second chance' was exactly what MGM would not give Tracy after his spectacular fall from grace in 1934.) This was one of 5 films which Tracy would make for MGM in a very busy 1933, his total output at the Studio. As always, he energizes his every scene. Always engaging & enjoyable to watch, it is a shame that he is almost forgotten today.

Costars Clara Blandick (mother), Mae Clarke (wife), George Barbier (father-in-law), and Otto Kruger (rich friend) all provide very competent assistance, but this is really Tracy's film all the way.

Movie mavens will spot uncredited performances by Charley Grapewin as Tracy's boyhood doctor, and The Three Stooges (Moe & Curly Howard and Larry Fine), playing it straight as singers at Tracy's wedding.

Notice the fine attention to detail which MGM gives the shots of Tracy's hometown - the busy streets and authentic-looking buildings. It was this high level of production value - even for a `B' picture such as this - which was one of the Studio's hallmarks.

Turn Back the Clock (1933)

*** (out of 4)

Minor film about married couple Joe (Lee Tracy) and Mary (Mae Clarke) who run a partially successful cigar shop but one night they get into a heated argument about whether or not they should invest their life savings in the stock market. Joe gets upset because years earlier he could have become rich by investing but Mary wouldn't let him and the same thing seems to be happening. The husband leaves the house drunk and gets struck by a car and he gets his wish by getting to re-live the past twenty years. TURN BACK THE CLOCK has been called an early version of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and there's no question that this does share some connections with the Capra film but this here is still far from reaching a great level. I think the biggest problem I had with the film was that when Tracy goes back to re-live his life, he's well aware of everything that's going on and this allows him to make all the right decisions. I really didn't care about him knowing everything that was going to happen because he had already lived it because these scenes were often played for laughs and I didn't think the comedy worked. Still, this is a fairly entertaining fantasy and I liked how they threw in real events to tell the story including the stock market crash of 1929. Tracy is pretty good in the lead role, although his comedy bits aren't all that good. Clarke, best known for her work in FRANKENSTEIN, is good as the wife and Otto Kruger is very good in his scenes as the friend. The Three Stooges even have a small cameo. I did like the twist that happened towards the end of the movie with our main character and his alternate life. Fans of 30's cinema should enjoy this one even if it has some flaws.