Les hommes de demain

...based on a Pulitzer-prize winning (!!!) play, from United Artists and director Leslie Fenton. Fredric March stars as Mike Frame, a small-town American who is taking charge of an orphaned relative, 13-year-old German boy Emil (Skip Homeier). Mike, his sister Jessie (Agnes Moorehead), young cousin Pat (Joan Carroll), and Mike's fiancee Leona (Betty Field) welcome the boy into their home but are shocked and appalled by his Hitler Youth sensibilities, including vocal antisemitism, anti-American sentiments and a desire to continue the German cause in any way possible. Emil's attitude naturally leads to trouble both at home and in school, with things coming to a violent conclusion. Also featuring Edit Angold, and Rudy Wissler.

I called this hysterical and it is, in both senses of the word. Emil is depicted as such an extreme exaggerated caricature that he becomes an object of unintended hilarity. Homeier, who had originated the role on Broadway and was making his film debut here, overplays it to the hilt. The situations are often absurd, the character decisions ludicrous, and the last half hour is just one bizarre moment after another, including attempted murders, brutal fist-fights among children, and one of the more unconvincing sappy endings in some time. There's no way that I'd call this a good movie in the conventional sense, but as a bad movie I found it very amusing.

Tomorrow the World was the screen adaption of a Broadway play that ran a season or two previously. It's the story of an American family who adopts a kid over from Nazi Germany. Of course the kid comes over with all the attitudes instilled there from his time in the Hitler Youth. It's going to take a lot of deprogramming to straighten him out.

Skip Homeier repeated his role from the Broadway stage and made an electrifying debut. So much so that he overshadowed grownup stars Fredric March and Betty Field. March is his widower uncle and Betty Field is his fiancé who also is Homeier's teacher in public school.

Of course Homeier doesn't exactly make too many friends spouting all the party line he learned in the Hitler Youth. He's positively horrified to find out that he's going to be mixing with kids of all backgrounds that he's been taught are inferior.

Pretty much everyone gives up on Homeier save Joan Carroll who is March's daughter. Her scenes with Homeier are the best in the film.

Skip Homeier could never escape the typecasting after this movie. Even when he occasionally played good guys there was always an edge to them. No one would ever cast him as a hero. But he did well as a teenager and later as an adult. Fans today probably know him best as the mad leader of a futuristic hippie cult from an original Star Trek episode.

Fredric March might have been a bit miffed at being upstaged by a kid. But he had a second Oscar in his future in his very next film, The Best Years of Our Lives.

I think Father Flanagan in Boys Town would have had a handful dealing with Homeier, might have given his philosophy a quick review or he may have seen his thesis proved about they're being no such thing as a bad boy. It's all in how soon you get to them and whether the life programming patterns have taken root.

Based on a play, the movie tells the story of an American family that adopts an orphaned German relative before the end of WWII. To their horror, the boy is a Hitler Youth who spouts anti-semitic rhetoric and boasts of Germany's ultimate victory (Tomorrow the World!). Fredric March gives his usual wonderful performance as the uncle, Agnes Moorehead is once again convincing as the maiden aunt lacking self-confidence, and Betty Field is great as the intelligent school teacher/fiancee who tries hard to understand the boy. The real treat here is Joan Carroll, who plays March's young daughter with such charm and ease that she just lights up every scene she's in.

Some dialog contributed by Ring Lardner, Jr., whose characteristic crackle is most welcome in what could be a preach-a-thon.

"Tomorrow the World", the play in which this picture is based, was popular on Broadway during the WWII era. It was to expect it made it to the movies. Ring Lardner Jr, one of the best American writers of the time undertook the film adaptation aided by Leopold Atlas. Leslie Fenton, the director made the best of it.

An American family living in the midwest accept to house and care for a German youth whose father was friendly with the head of the household, Mike Frame, a widower, with a teen age daughter.

When Emil Bruckner arrives, he immediately makes a blunder when he describes his plane trip seated next to a fat Jew. Well, little does this little brat know that Mike is seeing a school teacher who happens to be Jewish. Leona Richards is the epitome of kindness and patience. So is Pat, the daughter who tries to show Emil around and help him make friends in her circle. Emil does everything possible to destroy this family that welcomed him into their home. Little by little he tries to get his way until everybody finds out this little boy is a bully and a coward.

The cast of this 1944 movie is headed by the great Frederic March, one of the icons of the American theater and the film industry. He plays the decent Mike Frame. Betty Field makes an impressive appearance as the kind Lee Richards. Agnes Moorehead, is also good as Aunt Jessie, who is charmed by the rotten Emil. Skip Homeier, repeating his theater role is remarkable as the young Nazi sympathizer who gets a lesson in how wrong he has been about his American hosts.

This is a movie that has a dated look, but still makes an impression because of the strength of the treatment it received from the writers and the director.

"Tomorrow the World" is a thought provoking film about an American family who adopts a troubled German boy after the war. Together they try to undo the ridgid Nazi influence that was instilled in him (which is no easy feat). Leslie Fenton directs a first rate cast including Fredric March, Betty Field, Agnes Moorehead and Joan Carroll. However it is Skip Homeier as the Nazi youth who steals the picture with an electrifying performance. The film is available on video and DVD.