''Tomorrow Is Forever'' is a 1946

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

romance film Romance films or movies involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion (emotion), passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typica ...

directed by

Irving Pichel Irving Pichel (June 24, 1891 – July 13, 1954) was an American actor and film director, who won acclaim both as an actor and director in his Hollywood career. Career Pichel was born to a Jewish family in Pittsburgh. He attended Pittsburgh Cent ...

, and starring

Claudette Colbert Claudette Colbert ( ; born Émilie Claudette Chauchoin; September 13, 1903July 30, 1996) was an American actress. Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the late 1920s and progressed to films with the advent of talking pictures ...

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...

and George Brent. It was also the film debut of Richard Long and

Natalie Wood Natalie Wood ( Zacharenko; July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was an American actress who began her career in film as a child and successfully transitioned to young adult roles. Wood started acting at age four and was given a co-starring r ...

. It was distributed by

RKO Radio Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orph ...

and was based upon the 1943 serialized novel of the same name by Gwen Bristow.

Plot

Elizabeth (Colbert) and John (Welles) are a married couple, recently separated when John goes off to fight in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. When Elizabeth receives notice of John's death just before Christmas 1918, she reluctantly marries Lawrence Hamilton (Brent). Elizabeth tells Hamilton that she could never love him the way she loves John, but the two marry and decide to raise the child she is carrying from John as their own. John, however, is still alive, but after being disfigured in the war he has undergone

plastic surgery Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty involving the restoration, reconstruction or alteration of the human body. It can be divided into two main categories: reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. Reconstructive surgery includes cranio ...

, making him almost unrecognizable. He is nursed back to health by Dr. Ludwig. Twenty years later, he returns to America as Erich Kessler and begins working at Hamilton's company, unaware that he married Elizabeth. Kessler is accompanied by his eight-year old foster daughter, Margaret (Wood), whose parents had been Dr. Ludwig and his wife. During a luncheon at Hamilton's house, Kessler is stunned to meet Mrs. Hamilton and realizes it is Elizabeth. He quickly deduces that the Hamilton's 20-year old son Drew (Long) is his own. After Germany invades Poland, Drew is anxious to go to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

and join the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

. Kessler is supportive of Drew's ideas but Elizabeth is horrified at the thought of losing her son the way she lost her husband. She begins to suspect that Kessler is actually John and confronts him with her suspicion. He denies his identity. Elizabeth then tells Kessler he is no longer welcome in her home for supporting Drew's plan to go to war, but relents when Kessler reveals that Margaret's parents were murdered by the Nazis. Drew decides to go to Canada without his parents' permission. Kessler intercepts him at the train station during a rain storm and brings Drew back home but is greatly fatigued by his ordeal in the rain. Elizabeth begs Kessler to admit that he is her husband, but he steadfastly refuses. Instead, he implores her to forget the past and live in the present. Elizabeth goes upstairs and tells Drew that he can join the RAF and Kessler leaves. Back at home, Kessler collapses as he tries to burn one of Elizabeth's letters. The next day, the Hamiltons arrive to thank Kessler for bringing Drew home and learn of his death. Elizabeth comforts the distraught Margaret and the Hamiltons instinctively adopt her and take her to their home leaving the partially burnt letter in the fireplace.

Cast

as Elizabeth Hamilton *

as John Andrew MacDonald/Erik Kessler * George Brent as Lawrence Hamilton * Lucile Watson as Aunt Jessica Hamilton s Lucille Watson* Richard Long as Drew Hamilton *

as Margaret Ludwig *

John Wengraf John Wengraf (23 April 1897 – 4 May 1974) was an Austrian actor. Early years Wengraf was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. Career Wengraf became a matinee idol in the 1930s, and was director of the Vienna State Theatre. He emigrated to Brit ...

as Dr. Ludwig * Sonny Howe as Brian Hamilton * Michael Ward as the Drew infant *

Ian Wolfe Ian Marcus Wolfe (November 4, 1896 – January 23, 1992) was an American character actor with around 400 film and television credits. Until 1934, he worked in the theatre. That year, he appeared in his first film role and later television, as a ...

as Norton * Joyce MacKenzie as Cherry Davis

Production

Natalie Wood's screen test for the role required her to act out the scene where a

party popper A party popper is a handheld pyrotechnic device commonly used at parties. It emits a loud popping noise by means of a small friction-actuated explosive charge that is activated by pulling a string. The explosive charge comes from a very small amo ...

makes her recall the murder of her character's parents by

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

. Because she had worked with Irving Pichel on his previous film '' Happy Land'', she was too happy to see him during the test in order to properly cry at first. During production, she had to wear a dental bridge after she lost two of her baby teeth.

Boycott

The film was boycotted in

Aiken, South Carolina Aiken is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Aiken County, in western South Carolina. It is one of the two largest cities of the Central Savannah River Area. Founded in 1835, Aiken was named after William Aiken, the president of the S ...

because Orson Welles mistakenly identified the town as the location of

Isaac Woodard Isaac Woodard Jr. (March 18, 1919 – September 23, 1992) was an American soldier and victim of racial violence. An African-American World War II veteran, on February 12, 1946, hours after being honorably discharged from the United States Arm ...

's blinding. In July and August 1946, Welles devoted five episodes of '' Orson Welles Commentaries'' to the brutal attack on Woodard. Aiken is near

Batesburg-Leesville, South Carolina Batesburg-Leesville is a town located in Lexington and Saluda counties, South Carolina, United States. The town's population was 5,362 as of the 2010 census and an estimated 5,415 in 2019. History The town of Batesburg-Leesville was formed in ...

where the attack actually occurred. Welles' initial misidentification of the location led to protests and threats of lawsuits in Aiken, in addition to the boycott of his current film.

Reception

Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' skewered the film as a "hackneyed and over-wrought telling of the

Enoch Arden ''Enoch Arden'' is a narrative poem published in 1864 by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, during his tenure as England's poet laureate. The story on which it was based was provided to Tennyson by Thomas Woolner. The poem lent its name to a principle in ...

tale" in his review for ''

''. He credits Welles with a "studied display of overacting" that distracts from the poor script. Crowther calls Woods' acting "meretricious", but concludes, "Irving Pichel has directed the film ponderously from Lenore Coffee's vacuous script. Tomorrow seems forever coming after an hour and a half of what goes on."

References

External links

* * * * *
Review of film
at ''Variety'' {{Irving Pichel 1946 films 1946 romantic drama films 1940s English-language films 1940s American films American black-and-white films American romantic drama films Films directed by Irving Pichel Films scored by Max Steiner Films based on American novels Films set in 1918 Films set in 1938 Films set in Baltimore RKO Pictures films