Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)

Starring: Victor Moore, Beulah Bondi, Thomas Mitchell, Fay Bainter, Elizabeth Risdon, Porter Hall

Director: Leo McCarey

The Lowdown: After their home is foreclosed on an elderly couple is forced to temporarily seperate when none of their five children have room to take them both in.

My Take: Seeing as "Make Way for Tomorrow" was made and takes place during the Great Depression and its storyline is so deeply rooted in that era's economic turmoil and poverty its not hard to understand why people didn't flock to theater to see it. That said, its unfortunate that such a beautiful film up until recently was only known of by a very few aficionados of classic film.

However, "Make Way for Tommorow" merely uses the trappings of the Great Depression as a springboard for its real plot: an examination of two elderly people who find themselves lost and isolated from eachother in rapidly changing modern times that they don't understand.

When Bark (Victor Moore) and Lucy (Beulah Bondi) loose their house to foreclosure, the 5 children do their best but are so caught up in their own lives, the lives of their own children and numerous financial troubles all of which make it hard to be fully attentive to the needs of their parents. Any other film would have villainized the children and while as audience sympathy inevitably lies mostly with Bark and Lucy, the somewhat neglectful actions of their children are made understandable, if not sympathetic, thanks to a terrific script and some strong acting from the supporting players.

Similarly, Bark and Lucy are made sympathetic and the precise opposite of the curmudgeon stock characters that populate many Hollywood films thanks to the remarkable performances of the actors. Victor Moore makes Bark's stubborn pride a thoroughly believable and an occasionally endearing, Beulah Bondi makes us love this elderly woman who is able to handle many of the hard decisions that she must make over the course of the film with such grace. It is perhaps because she so capably portrays this woman's love for her children, no matter how neglectful  they may occasionally seem that we are able to forgive them to some extent for the decisions they make near the film's end.

Furthermore, despite what little time the two spend together on screen, Moore and Bondi are so thoroughly convincing in the portrayal of the loneliness and heartbreak of these two characters that when they reunite in the final act it we're overjoyed to see them reunited. As they spend time together, fully aware of how close to the end they both are, we feel a deep sadness as though we have known these characters for all 50 years of their marriage and forget that we are only seeing actors.

During this final arc we also see that this couple, despite being in their 70s (which was much older in 1937 than it is now) is truly young at heart and if only they had the time they would gladly live a whole other life time together. It is because of this youthfulness the actors bring to the characters that we can relate to these two, no matter how much older they are, It is ultimately that intense empathy that causes the film's conclusion to be one of the few that has ever moved me to tears. This is made all the more remarkable by Leo McCarey's terrific direction that never allows the proceedings to sink into melodrama and is instead intensley real, making "Make Way for Tomorrow" a deeply moving picture that is hard to forget.

Best Moment: The film's final emotional scene which Orson Welles' famously said "could make a stone cry."  I feel inclined to agree.

In Short: "Make Way for Tomorrow" is a shockingly underrated and mostly forgotten film that deserves a second look by today's audiences as more realistic, understated and infinitely more moving film that is in stark contrast with the more manipulative and less convincing tearjerker dramas churned out by Hollywood today. A beautiful film that any true fan of classic cinema should make an effort to see and one that has become a favorite of mine.

10 out of 10