Make Way for Tomorrow

The Criterion Collection resurrects a rarity here, and it’s a long-hidden gem, an understandable flop in its day but esteemed from then till now by the cognoscenti. Leo McCarey is better known for directing Cary Grant and Irene Dunne in The Awful Truth, for which he won an Oscar in that same year. Or for first pairing Laurel with Hardy, or directing the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup, or Bing Crosby in Going My Way, or two versions of An Affair to Remember. So the grim seriousness of this film comes as a surprise, notwithstanding memorable moments of humor. It’s basically the story of five grown children who, when faced with the dilemma of their parents losing the family home in the “Roosevelt recession” (in the interval between the passage of Social Security and its implementation), force them to separate, eventually sending the mother off to a home for the aged and the father off to an unknown fate. This story is so un-Hollywood that the comparison that struck me was Tokyo Story, and indeed it appears that Ozu did take inspiration from McCarey. That’ll shake up your view of film history. Make Way for Tomorrow is notable for its matter-of-fact and even-handed manner – no heroes, no villains, just ordinary people responding in an ordinary way to an ordinary situation. Tears are elicited but not jerked. Smiles earned but not forced. The couple, played by Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi, reunites once for a day in New York City, where they had honeymooned fifty years before, and grace abounds for a fleeting moment, before an ending of ineffable sadness. This hardly qualifies as escapist entertainment in hard times, but makes for a film of lasting import. (1937, dvd.) *7+*