109. Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)

Running Time: 91 minutes
Directed By: Leo McCarey
Written By: Vina Delmar, from the novel The Years Are So Long by Josephine Lawrence
Main Cast: Victor Moore, Beulah Bondi, Thomas Mitchell, Fay Bainter

"IT WOULD MAKE A STONE CRY" - ORSON WELLES on MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW

When Leo McCarey accepted his Oscar for Best Director for "The Awful Truth" he said, and I quote: "Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture", referring to the fact that if he was going to be named Best Director, it should've been for make way for tomorrow.

The plot is quite simple. When Barkley and Lucy Cooper face financial hardships and the bank takes their home away from them, they turn to their five children for a solution. During a meeting, called by the couple of fifty years, they talk over with their children the options of where to go from here. Wanting to divide the responsibility up, the children decide that two of them we'll house one of the parents, with George taking his mother and Cora taking her father. From there we flip flop between the new living conditions of the two elders. Lucy Cooper, who is now living with her son George, his wife Anita and their daughter, Rhoda. The house is forced to undertake a new way of life with Lucy in the picture, as Rhoda now refuses to have her friends over, for fear that her grandmother will talk their legs off. Anita, Lucy's daughter-in-law, is also hesitant to teach her bridge class, for fear that Lucy will get in the way.

On the other side of the fence, Barkley or Bark, as he's referred to in the film, has taken to long chats with the owner of the local general store and does so to get away from his very demanding, very irritable daughter, Cora. When Bark becomes sick with a cold, Cora bosses him around and refuses to put up with his whiny ways, as all Bark wants is his wife by his side, as he's sure that she could cure his illness. When push comes to shove, and things just don't seem to be working out on either end, the two sides both make decisions. George makes the decision to put his mother in a nursing home, while Cora thinks it's best if her father goes to California to live with one of the other siblings. The final thirty minutes of the movie are the parts that Orson Welles was referring to when he talked about the film making a stone cry, as Bark and Lucy say their final goodbyes and I dare any viewer to hold back the tears.

Of course, being a married man, this film made me think a lot of my wife. In fact, I was constantly putting myself in the place of the actors and envisioning what it'd be like to be in these characters' shoes. I think that's what made the water works come on for me so hard when the final moments of the film were taking place. The two primary actors: Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi, do a fine job of creating that special on screen chemistry and use a very natural dialogue to get their characters over as a real married couple. As the two quibble about whether their honeymoon began on a Wednesday or a Thursday, you really get into the spirit of these two characters and it makes it that much more sad when they're torn apart. Few films that I've seen have actually made tears stream down my face, but this one did just that, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. This is quite possibly, and without putting a lot of thought to it, the saddest movie I've ever seen, as it forced me to remember personal experiences and that helped me relate to the characters so well.

RATING: 9/10 Another movie makes a big time bid to get into my Top 20 and with only four films left 'till we hit the 101 mark, who knows what the Top 20 will consist of...not even me, yet.

NEXT UP: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves...My first animated film in the book and Walt Disney's first full length feature film. It should arrive from Netflix tomorrow and I will review it directly.

February 18, 2010 1:54am