109. Make Way For Tomorrow (1937)

Directed By Leo McCarey

Synopsis

A very old couple gets their house repossessed by the bank and has to go live with their children. They are separated and each goes to a diferent child's house, they soon become a burden and the father is sent to California and the mother to a retirement home. They do have a chance to get together for 5 hours however before he has to get his train to California.

Review

Leo McCarey direct what is possibly one of the most touching films of the 30's... I am a little girl and I cried at the end of this like crazy, 5 minutes later my voice was still shaky. I just loved it, the two main characters are pathetic in the true sense of the word.

Rarely has cinema ever portrayed old age with such tenderness and compassion without falling into stereotypes. In fact you can understand why the sons want to get rid of their parents, they are inconvenient, they talk loudly, they are embarassing and all the things old people can be. But in the end they are people who love and have passions like their young. They just seems to be put into this category of "old" where they lose the qualities of individuality and that is what is particularly sad about it. They are objects, almost trash for those who don't even try to understand them.

Itnerestingly in the film they are mainly mistreated by their children, strangers are always more than nice to them. In a way they didn't have to live with them and are able to approach them in a fresh way. In the end the film is a love story between two old people made to be apart by their own children, and the love between the aged is not a common theme in cinema, and that is possibly why this film is so hard to find today. Leo McCarey was supremely proud of the film, and for good reason, today you either get it on eBay on a version which I must warn you is on DVD but recorded off the TV or you might be able to download it from somewhere like eMule. A pity.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The film was written by Viña Delmar, from a play by Henry Leary and Noah Leary, which was in turn based on the novel The Years Are So Long by advice columnist Josephine Lawrence.

McCarey believed that this was his finest film. When he accepted his Best Director Oscar for The Awful Truth, he said "Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture."

Hotel Scene, just before they are parted forever... sniff: