User reviews

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 the type of fantasy Frank Capra put his stamp on just a few years later. It stars Lee Tracy as a working-class guy who begins to regret his humble life after meeting up with old friends who have become wealthy; he gets his chance to go back in time and live his life over again. Premise has since been used time and again, but here it's given a surprisingly fresh and clear-eyed take. Tracy is the only acting liability among the performers(he's too broad for a subtle picture like this one). It's well-paced, amusing, shies away from mushy sentimentality, and features The Three Stooges--unbilled in a cameo as wedding singers!

Lee Tracy earns a meager living as a cigar store owner with his wife Mae Clarke. One night, after a fight with his wife over money, he's hit by a car and wakes up in the hospital to find he's twenty years in the past. Now he can do things differently, including marrying wealthy Peggy Shannon. Armed with knowledge of the future, he becomes successful and powerful. But over time he comes to realize how good he had it in his other life.

A good role for Lee Tracy, a largely forgotten star from the 1930s. Tracy was a versatile actor, equally great at both comedy and drama. Mae Clarke and Peggy Shannon are both excellent here. Fine support from Otto Kruger, C. Henry Gordon, and Clara Bandick. Look out for the cameo from the Three Stooges. It's the first film appearance of the Stooges after Curly had joined. Love those MGM sets. A compelling tale of "what might have been," years before It's a Wonderful Life and countless other movies used similar ideas. Especially interesting for history buffs as the movie offers insights on views back then regarding a variety of topics from World War I on up to the Great Depression.

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.

I pretty much guessed the ending (which I won't reveal here), but that didn't stop me enjoying the story! Lee Tracy does a good job in the role of Joe Gimlet, frustrated and discontent store owner, who wishes his life had turned out different, especially after running into his old friend Ted (Otto Kruger), who's now wealthy and married to the boss's daughter, Elvina (Peggy Shannon) that could have been his wife, if things had been different.

Instead, he married girl next door Mary (Mae Clark), whose practical outlook on life is making him feel stifled and resentful. When he storms out into the street after an argument, it appears he may get his wish for all he missed out on, as he finds himself 20 years younger, and trading places with Ted. Joe breaks up with Mary and marries Elvina and proceeds to make his money/success dreams come true, while Ted marries Mary and seems content with the simple life.

And then the words "be careful what you wish for" come back to haunt him!

I think some parts were overdone, like Joe's drinking and shooting off his mouth, especially about things he remembers from the past/future that hasn't happened yet, making some people think he's flipped his lid. But all in all, it's an enjoyable film.

"Turn Back the Clock" is an unusual film for Lee Tracy. While he nearly always played a super-fast talking sharpie in his movies, here he plays a much more ordinary sort of guy. When the film begins, Joe (Tracy) is a hard-working guy but nothing more. When he meets an old friend who has struck it rich (Otto Kruger), Joe begins to think how his life had been if he'd just made a few different decisions. After all, he could have had the life his friend now has. Soon after this, Joe is struck by a car and ends up in the hospital. During the period in which he's unconscious, he imagines that he's back 20 years and he has his married life to do all over. While he loves the girl he eventually married, he now knows that if he'd just married another girl he could have been rich--so he does so and the film shows his life he could have had. Not too surprisingly, his new life turns out to be a lot less wonderful than he'd thought--and by the end, he's much like Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz"--thinking there's no place like home--and no wife like his old wife.

So is the picture any good? After all, it's not the usual sort of Tracy role. Well, I'd have to say that the film is only fair. While I loved the ending (Tracy's lines here were great) and the plot wasn't bad, I didn't like the way the film was occasionally written. Too often, Joe seems like a moron--and as he does things, he often does them dumbly--such as telling everyone about the future and saying things that just didn't seem very realistic (particularly on his wedding day). In fact, it's a very ordinary picture aside from one thing--the Three Stooges. Despite their spending almost their entire careers with Columbia Pictures, they (and their front man Ted Healy) were first brought to Hollywood by MGM--but the studio had no idea what to do with them. Here, instead of comedy, the trio are singers. Now they did a nice job--but it's also a very tiny part and you really need to pay attention to see Moe, Curly and Larry--especially since they do not sport their usual hairdos.

There's a good old time travel plot where the protagonist is given, by God, Saint Peter or other supernatural agency, the chance to go back in time and change his life, either to improve his circumstances or to avert a disaster. To make things interesting, there should be some kind of twist. His efforts to improve things only make them worse, or his efforts to prevent the disaster cause it to happen.

This early entry in the genre blows it from the beginning by making it clear that the return to the past is only an ether-induced dream, so we know that it really isn't going to change events. It still has its effect on the hero, in the sense of "be careful what you wish for" but it loses some of the impact of similar plots where we assume that he has no way of returning to the old status quo.

Still there's always fun to be had in the situation of the man who knows everything that's going to happen without anyone believing him. In this instance he does get to use his knowledge to gain a measure of fame and fortune and there are some comic bits, that not all of today's audience would understand, when he slips and starts talking about historical events yet to happen, like World War One, Prohibition and the stock market crash to uncomprehending friends and family. In fact, this is a bit overdone and you being to wonder why he seems to be too dumb to remember what year he's in.

Bottom line, a fun watch but inconsistent and missed opportunities for a catchier plot.

A unique film of the "if I had it all to do over" variety, Turn Back The Clock gives Lee Tracy a chance to show the full range of his talents as an average Joe who wants a second chance at life and gets it.

Director Edgar Selwyn and screenwriter Ben Hecht delivered a small masterpiece in 1933 that might seem familiar now to later generations. Everyone from Frank Capra to Rod Serling has used the same theme successfully - the lesson to be learned: you can't change the past without consequences, so maybe its better just to be happy with what you have.

TCM has this one in its vault, so see it if you're a Tracy fan. You won't be disappointed. Excellent performances by Mae Clarke and Peggy Shannon as well. Funny and dramatic with some of the delightful over the top stuff you'd expect from an early Thirties film, but fast and insightful at the same time.

Oh, and an uncredited guest bit with The Three Stooges as wedding singers!

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.

Joe Gimlet (Lee Tracy) owns a cigar store in New York along with his wife Mary (Mae Clarke). They aren't poor, but they do struggle to make ends meet. On March 6, 1933, in walks someone he knew when he was growing up, Ted Wright (Otto Kruger), now a banker. Ted invites Joe and Mary to dinner with him and his wife, Elvina, and tells Joe that if he will give him the four thousand he has in savings, he can turn it into twenty thousand in a few months. Joe wants to do this, Mary does not because it is all they have. They argue, and Joe says that if he could live his life over he would not have married Mary and would have instead pursued wealth. Joe then storms out of their apartment and into the street, and is hit by a car. While he's unconscious, he imagines he gets to live his life all over again, starting in 1910 when he is a young man.

In this alternate reality, Joe takes up Pete Evans (George Barbier) when he offers to let him in on a real estate deal in return for his 400 dollar life savings. He marries Pete's daughter, Elvina, to seal the deal. And since he knows everything that's going to happen through March 6,1933, he's a tremendous success in business, becoming not only a rich but a powerful man. Among the bad things he knew - He figured that his wife would probably two time him since he saw signs of her two-timing Ted in 1933. Joe didn't think he'd mind, but it turns out he does. And then March 6, 1933 comes and he no longer has the advantage of prescience. Complications ensue.

It's not like anything in this film is a big surprise, although time travel was not common story material at the time. It's all about learning to appreciate what you have or, in the words of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz "There's no place like home."

The make-up job done is pretty impressive for the time - MGM really does make the lovely Mae Clarke look like a middle aged frump at age 23.

MGM really "got" what worked as far as Lee Tracy vehicles. Starting with "The Nuisance" when he came over from Warner Brothers, they always gave him parts that used his penchant for fast talking comedy while letting him show his dramatic chops as well. An example of the latter in this film is when Tracy realizes he's back in 1910, in his boyhood home, and goes downstairs to see his mother cooking breakfast. In 1933 she must have been dead for years, because here he embraces her like he hasn't seen her for years - he hasn't - and tells her he's never leaving her side again. It's a very touching moment that, if you've lost a parent, you can easily relate to.

Lee Tracy ended up throwing away his own career at MGM, as did Buster Keaton, but at least MGM gave Lee Tracy the sporting chance that they never gave Buster Keaton.

Joe Gimlet (Lee Tracy) is a simple tobacco store owner struggling to get by in New York City. His friend Ted is suddenly rich after marrying wealthy Elvira (Peggy Shannon), a girl which Joe could have married in the past. Ted offers him a lucrative deal, but his wife Mary (Mae Clarke) rejects it. Joe and Mary have a fight. Joe vows to marry the girl with the money next time around. He gets hit by a car and wakes up 20 years in the past. He gets to choose again.

The problem is that Joe needs to show his love for Mary at the beginning. The story should be a choice between love and money. Joe is the author of his own difficulties. He could still marry Mary while doing business with Elvira's father. That's the other path. The movie should make Elvira more horrible before their marriage. I get the idea behind the attempt, but it's not completely working here. The Three Stooges appear in a film for the first time without Ted Healy although they are not the Stooges in this.

When old friend Otto Kruger walks into the tobacconist run by Lee Tracy and his wife, Mae Clarke, he's glad to see them. He married Peggy Shannon, the daughter of local rich man George Barbier, and made a fortune. Now he's president of one of the few solvent banks in the country. He offers to take the $4000 they've saved over the past 30 years and turn it into $20,000. Tracy is all in favor, but Miss Clarke isn't. Tracy says he should have married Miss Shannon back when, and he'd have everything he wants. They quarrel some more, and Tracy stalks out and is hit by a car. He wakes to find himself back in 1903, but with all his memories. Now he marries Miss Shannon, and makes a lot of money. But things aren't quite that simple.

It's a nice little time-travel fantasy, with great care taken in the settings. The performances are likewise entertaining. It nicely combines nostalgia and a stay-in-your-own-backyard message hat fits very nicely with a story that centers around March 6, 1933, the day Roosevelt announced a bank holiday that marked the trough to the Depression.

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.

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.

An extraordinarily-well written screenplay by Ben Hecht and Edgar Selwyn stands up surprisingly well over the years. Selwyn directs this little seen drama with good, but not great, results. The unusual plot leads the viewer to speculate what he or she would do if given the opportunities that unfold. As has been remarked by other reviewers, Frank Capra would have been very comfortable with the project. The major theme is to remind depression-era movie audiences that money does not lead to happiness and they are probably better off the way that they are. It would have been nice to see this film with come better leading actors, about all one can say is that they get the lines out and give life support to the drama. Cinematography is extremely good as you would expect from Harold Rosson. This could have been a very much better film with a better cast. One has to wonder why it has not been thought of for a remake? Highly recommended.

I had an interest in watching this particular film for years because I had heard this was the first time The Three Stooges-Moe, Larry, and Curly-had appeared on film without their longtime leader Ted Healy. In fact, Moe and Larry have their slicked back and without Curly or those wild haircuts, they might have been unrecognizable if not for their familiar voices though Curly's here is more in his normal mode and not the falsetto he usually employed. In other words, they're acting like normal people who appear at a wedding reception singing their song unlike Lee Tracy who acts more weird in front to them singing a song that hadn't even come out yet! Tracy plays a man during the Great Depression who gets into an argument with his wife about some money when he starts to take a trip back in time to...well if you're curious enough with what I told you so far, I recommend you seek this out either on DVD or online which is how I just watched it. The vibe seems similar to both It's a Wonderful Life and the Back to the Future movies which is what I liked about this one. So on that note, I recommend Turn Back the Clock.

There is definitely an It's a Wonderful Life vibe to this film, with Lee Tracy in a George Bailey like role, except that instead of imagining a world where he hasn't existed, he imagines a world where he took a different path in life, pursuing wealth instead of true love. He goes back in his life from 1933 to 1910, with fate having apparently allowed him to make a different decision about an investment opportunity, as well as who he would marry. In a couple of other small parallels to Capra's 1946 film, early on he's a soda jerk in a pharmacy and the "sweet girl" in his life is named Mary (Mae Clarke). And of course, in a larger way, it shares that film's wholesome lesson, one that we can see coming.

In his "new life" things get a little bit by-the-numbers and cheesy as he's the guy who now knows what the future holds, auto business boom, WWI, and Depression included, when the film may have been stronger with him having taken this other path but not been blessed with all the knowledge. Regardless, it reconnects with its central theme, which is so perfectly captured in the line "If I could turn back the clock again, I'd make it go the same way, to here, and this (kissing her)."

It also features a fantastic speech to the soldiers going off to WWI amidst great patriotism. He reflects a bitter truth in America, that after all the pomp in sending them off, they would soon see the horrors of war, and for the ones that returned, they wouldn't be seeing bands and speeches welcome them. That's been a truism throughout American history, but resonated especially given the recent actions of Republicans senators to block the act to help veterans exposed to toxins simply for political reasons.

The cast to the film doesn't have a lot of big names, but the performances from Lee Tracy and Mae Clarke have to be among my favorite from their oeuvre, and they had a fine supporting cast in Otto Kruger, C. Henry Gordon, and Peggy Shannon. Heck, you even get an early appearance from the 3 Stooges as an added bonus. Meanwhile, I liked the visual effects when the main character fades in (and later out) of this other world, with a watery effect in a beautiful pattern of clouds, as well as the use of slow motion, overlays, and a montage sequence.

This is a wholesome, sweet film, but it manages a Pre-Code moment in that he knows his wife his having a lover but forgives her because of how busy he is in the war effort, and there is no marked termination to the affair or punishment doled out to her for having had it. There are also a few amusing little interchanges like this: "You know, seeing you and Mary like this makes me feel as though I'd like to do something for you." "Well, as the lady said to the sailor, nothing's stopping you."

Overall, it's by no means a masterpiece, but for 1933 it's a fine bit of fantasy and an entertaining film.

Fantasy movies with time travel themes are popular with movie goers today. Many of these films' characters journey back in time for a deeper understanding of themselves. One of cinema's first personal journeys of being transported into the past along with a self-introspective lesson on how to live in the present is August 1933 "Turn Back The Clock." Written by Ben Hecht and Edgar Selwyn (also the director), "Turn Back The Clock" was set during the depths of the Great Depression. A great majority of the middle class was envious at the wealthy, especially those rich fat cats whom hadn't been affected by the 1929 Stock Market Crash. Joe Gillet (Lee Tracy) is one of those green-eyed people. With a modest savings from the cigar store he owns, Joe has a customer who turns out to be an old friend, Ted Wright (Otto Kruger), a wealthy banker. Ted hears about Joe's small savings and says he can multiply that sum in a few short months. Joe's all in, until his wife Mary (Mae Clarke), a fiscal conservative, refuses to sign off on the opportunity. In a drunken stupor, Joe wishes he could turn back the clock twenty years and make some chancy, but profitable deals he was afraid to make as a young man. He suddenly gets hit by a car, rushed to the hospital, where he's transported back 20 years to 1910. Those years can now be relived all over again for Joe, and the decisions he's regretted not making in the past can now be made.

"It's about many people like Joe who were trapped in bad situations beyond their control and how they parted ways with good luck through no fault of their own," writes film reviewer Danny Reid. "Watching Tracy's silly but frustrating leap to the past is chock full of smart cynicism and warm humor in a time that undoubtedly earned both." One noticeable scene for Three Stooges fans is the trio's second feature film appearance, their first after signing a MGM contract with Ted Healey earlier in 1933 after making a number of shorts with him. During the back-in-time wedding party scene in "Turn Back The Clock," where Joe marries Elvina Evans (Peggy Shannon of "Deluge"), the Three Stooges, without Ted Healey, sing at the piano to liven things up.

Director Selwyn had acted and produced theatre stage plays since 1899, and owned several play houses, including the Park Square Theatre in Boston. He directed Helen Hayes' Best Actress Academy Awards performance in 1931's "The Sin of Madelon Claudet." Selwyn had a brush with death in April 1912 when he bought tickets on the RMS Titanic to New York City before realizing he had a critical reading of a new Parisian play he was interested in bringing to the states. His good friends and fellow Broadway producers Henry Harris and his wife Renee begged Selwyn and his wife, Margaret Mayo, to go on board with them, but Selwyn politely rejected. Harris drowned on the ill-fated Titanic while his wife, Renee, survived. She took over her late husband's production company, and ironies of all ironies, discovered Mae Clarke (she's the recipient to James' Cagney's wrath in 1931's "The Public Enemy" grapefruit scene) as well as Barbara Stanwyck. Renee lived to be 93, and died in 1969. Unlike Joe before he went on that 20-year trip back in time in "Turn Back The Clock," Renee Harris said, " If I had my life to live over, I wouldn't change it. After all, I had 10 wonderful, happy, superb, unforgettable years with my first husband."