Now and Forever

If you're looking for a Shirley Temple vehicle, Now and Forever isn't it. She's very young and hardly in the movie. She isn't her singing, tap-dancing persona in this movie. This is a Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard drama that happens to have a little girl in the story. Shirley does sing one song, though, but she's not the lead.

Gary is a small-time crook with no plans to go straight. He hasn't seen his daughter in a long time, and his wife Carole has never met her. While he initially plans to unload Shirley's custody onto someone else, when the father and daughter are reunited, the little curly top melts his heart. Carole adores her, too, and soon Gary vows to clean up his act. But will it stick? Will his vow of "honor bright" to Shirley see him through?

If you're a fan of the cast, you'll want to check out this early '30s picture. Shirley isn't the focal point, but if you love her, you're going to want to watch all of her movies, right?

This is a pretty bad movie directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard and Shirley Temple. Cooper plays a thief who is married to Lombard and they are not getting on that well. Cooper finds out he has a daughter, played by Temple, and he winds up keeping her over his relatives objections. Cooper tries to quit being a thief and be a good father but he's in debt and it's the only way he can get the money. Guy Standing offers him one last job but Lombard wants him to quit and Cooper doesn't want Temple to find out. Shirley Temple only sings one song here and it's pretty short and it's hard to see why Cooper or Lombard would want to do this movie.

Let us be frank - having decided to view all available pictures with Carole Lombard, I had kept this one for the very end. Not because of Gary Cooper, though I had feared he would not be a natural match for the sharp wits of Lombard. Actually I was quite wrong about that, he is outstanding in a role of classy spendthrift swindler and irresponsible father. A few years later the role of Jerry Dean would probably have been proposed first to Cary Grant. But in 1934 Grant's impressive dispositions to play such morally dubious characters as Jerry had not yet been fully acknowledged - they would be for example in Hitchcock's Suspicion a few years later -, while on his side Cooper had not yet been typecast as the rather serious and taciturn character he mostly became in the 40s and after. The main reason for a limited eagerness to see this film, far from being a great fan of child star movies, was Shirley Temple. While the film made progress, there was relief to see that such fears had on the whole been exaggerated. This is not to say that Temple is not "extremely cute", all curls and dimples, as well as "so smart and wise for her age" - the two qualities which seem to have so enthralled the public with her in the 30s, and which can appear rather irritating to (some) modern viewers. She is both these things, a bit too cute, and too smart and wise. But one must recognize that she is not overacting it. More importantly, the film carefully avoids allowing her to steal the whole show. Cooper and Lombard do not simply become satellites around her sun - on the contrary, beyond her, theirs characters and mutual relation become more complex and contradicted than before. While not a masterpiece the film can be counted as a worthy element in both its stars' careers. It actually starts as pure screwball, very pleasantly so - but even before the appearance of Temple and the levity it brings, trouble looms and the mood starts shifting towards more serious ground. All along, dialogues between Jerry and his wife Toni are far above the lightweight stuff to be usually found in such comedies. The story earns in gravity and interest what it loses in sheer fun. The central thread is highly predictable - will the demands of fatherhood somehow oblige Jerry to give up his self-centered, pleasure-oriented life view and lifestyle ? -, and there cannot be much doubt about the final reply to that question, but both the actual ending and the way to get there are refreshingly unexpected and avoid rather skillfully the pitfalls of heavy-handed moralism - as Toni does. While Carole Lombard plays second fiddle to Cooper's first in the story, her character is fairly developed and rich, and she plays it with perfect pitch.

Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard reminded me of the romantic thieves in "Algiers" played by Charles Boyer and Hedy LaMarr. That movie was 1938 and this one 1934, so this movie is the original. It is a pre-code movie, so don't expect the stupid moral standards that the Hays office enforced in the years after this movie. Cooper and Lombard are wonderfully charming in their first few scenes together. They become more intense later on and less fun. In fact the whole film become less fun when Shirley Temple enters. At age six, Temple wasn't yet the brilliant seasoned pro and entertainer she became the following years.

This is Henry Hathaway's eleventh film, but eight of those were one hour Westerns with Randolph Scott, so it is only his third non-Western. His work with the actors, camera placements and story-telling techniques are excellent.

The main problem I found was with the stings or cons that are in the film. They seem far too easy. Perhaps people were much more gullible and assumed honesty in those days, but it is hard to believe that Cooper could have pulled off his cons without the luck of having a screenwriter watching over him.

It is not a great film, and not the best for Cooper, Lombard, Temple or Hathaway, but there is a lot of talent here and the film is enjoyable most of the time.

Incidentally, Dorothy Dell starred with Shirley Temple in 1934 in "Little Miss Marker" and died in a car crash at the age of 19. Carole Lombard starred with Temple in this movie and died in a plane crash at the age of 34. I thought I had discovered a "Temple Curse," but when I checked all of Temple's other female co-stars, almost all lived into their 80's or 90's and died of natural causes.

The only Shirley Temple appeared away from Fox studios was in this loan out film to Paramount co-starring Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard. After Fox became 20th Century Fox, Darryl F. Zanuck would not lend out his biggest star and America's biggest star during those years. Now and Forever was made slightly before Temple's peak years, but she was rising fast.

Another viewer said he could not understand why Cooper and Lombard would want to be associated with this film. Very simply it was going to make money and they would also gain exposure. The challenge was holding their own against the adorable little moppet.

Cooper is a confidence man who apparently isn't as good as he thinks he is. He swindles Guy Standing, but later finds out he's actually been the one taken. Of course by that time he's reunited with his little daughter and she introduced to his new wife Carole Lombard.

Cooper just is an instinctive grifter though, content to lead life one step ahead of the law. It's not however a life that he can have a little daughter along with for the ride.

The ending here is a little darker than most Shirley Temple movies are and that makes it somewhat unique. Lombard is good, but she's somewhat subdued in this film. Best in the film besides Shirley is Guy Standing.

Not one of Cooper's best or Lombard's best, but Shirley Temple fans of every generation will probably like it, but find the film a bit strange.