Make Way For Tomorrow
Les Phillips

The title is bitterly ironic. This is a deep, gentle, melancholy film about an old couple whose children no longer have time for them. It is not Tokyo Story; it was made sixteen years before Tokyo Story (and is said to have inspired Yasujiro Ozu). And it's a Leo McCarey film. Make Way For Tomorrow is unlike anything McCarey ever did – you would never think that the same man made The Awful Truth or Going My Way. I've never seen such effortless candor applied to family trouble. Really it is unlike any other American film, then or now.

Barkley Cooper (Victor Moore) and his wife Lucy (Beulah Bondi) call their grown children together to tell them that their home's about to be foreclosed. Who can take them in? This scene has a light tone; it could easily introduce a screwball comedy; instead it introduces what Orson Welles called "the saddest film ever made." None of the children can make room for both parents, so they separate and go to different households. Can they endure in cramped Depression quarters? Can Barkley maintain his self-respect after years of unemployment? Can Lucy adjust to life with her shallow daughter-in-law and conniving granddaughter? Can the couple ever live together again? Nothing works out.

Are the children monsters? McCarey shows their side of the story– the tension in-laws feel when a parent moves in, the stress of their own parenting difficulties, their disappointment in their parents' failures. The depression is the real villain here. Small details remind us that the younger Coopers, though ostensibly middle-class, are really scrapping to survive. Are the parents saints? They're sympathetic, but very human, and their attempts to fit into their new homes are sweet but klutzy. (Why, why did Barkley wait until a week before the foreclosure to tell his children? Too proud, of course, but very foolish.)

McCarey risks long, slow sequences, packed with nuance, that speak volumes. The bridge party scene is an example – Lucy tries to make friends with her daughter-in-law's guests, and succeeds, so much so that she disrupts the party and irritates her daughter-in-law. The camera shows her as part of the group; then it shows her exiled. The director also took great pains with his actors, with wonderful results. The supporting cast is formidable: Thomas Mitchell, Fay Bainter, and Barbara Read, among others. And Bondi and Moore, playing older than their real ages, are magnificent: compassionate, gentle, unwilling to be martyrs, and deeply committed to each other.

The last twenty minutes of Make Way For Tomorrow are unforgettable. Barkley and Lucy have a last night out together before their final, permanent separation. They choose an elegant restaurant where they dined 40 years ago, one they've never entered since. It's entirely different now, but pictures on the wall in the lobby show it exactly as they remember it. The staff treats them like royalty. They drink a little too much champagne. There's an orchestra; and so they dance, beautifully. They talk about their marriage, and they talk about how much they love each other. And then they go their separate ways.

Make Way For Tomorrow, as I said, is like nothing else. It will enrich you, it will make you meditate, and it will break your heart. This is an utterly indispensable film.

©2010 Les Phillips
CineScene