Hollywood during the Depression: After Tomorrow
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
7:30pm $5 at the door
After Tomorrow
Portage Theater
4050 N Milwaukee Ave,
chicago, IL 60600
Click here for location info
AFTER TOMORROW
Directed by Frank Borzage • 1932
On twenty dollars a week, Charles Farrell can barely get by, let alone scrape together a down payment on a future
with his dumb bell sweetheart, Marian Nixon. But the kids love each other (he even goes without cigarettes for a
week to buy her some sheet music) and know that the promise of a private flat and a marital bed will be realized—
after tomorrow. Until then, they have to contend with his wretched, doting mother (Josephine Hull), her wretched,
indifferent mother (Minna Gombell), her kind-hearted but ineffectual schlemiel of a father (William Collier, Sr.),
and a whole neighborhood so cramped you can’t do laundry without tripping over some kook fortune teller. Shot
at the height of the Depression, After Tomorrow is an extraordinary and pungent slice of lower-middle class urban
aspirations—every day you’re just one heart attack away from being put out of work forever or just one cloveflavored
chewing gum formula away from beating the whole savings racket. From this potentially grim material (a
successful Broadway from the year before), director Frank Borzage and cameraman James Wong Howe craft an
exuberant, sure-footed tribute to the carnal drive of youth. (For a movie that endorses waiting until you’re married,
this tender pre-Code romance also empathically believes in not waiting a minute later than you have to.) Long
unavailable, After Tomorrow is essential viewing. (KW)
79 min. • Fox Film Corporation • Restored 35mm Print from UCLA Film & Television Archive
About the artists:
After Tomorrow
AFTER TOMORROW
Directed by Frank Borzage • 1932
On twenty dollars a week, Charles Farrell can barely get by, let alone scrape together a down payment on a future
with his dumb bell sweetheart, Marian Nixon. But the kids love each other (he even goes without cigarettes for a
week to buy her some sheet music) and know that the promise of a private flat and a marital bed will be realized—
after tomorrow. Until then, they have to contend with his wretched, doting mother (Josephine Hull), her wretched,
indifferent mother (Minna Gombell), her kind-hearted but ineffectual schlemiel of a father (William Collier, Sr.),
and a whole neighborhood so cramped you can’t do laundry without tripping over some kook fortune teller. Shot
at the height of the Depression, After Tomorrow is an extraordinary and pungent slice of lower-middle class urban
aspirations—every day you’re just one heart attack away from being put out of work forever or just one cloveflavored
chewing gum formula away from beating the whole savings racket. From this potentially grim material (a
successful Broadway from the year before), director Frank Borzage and cameraman James Wong Howe craft an
exuberant, sure-footed tribute to the carnal drive of youth. (For a movie that endorses waiting until you’re married,
this tender pre-Code romance also empathically believes in not waiting a minute later than you have to.) Long
unavailable, After Tomorrow is essential viewing. (KW)
79 min. • Fox Film Corporation • Restored 35mm Print from UCLA Film & Television Archive
