One More Tomorrow (1946) Peter Godfrey

It’s a shame that One More Tomorrow is not a better film. Not that it’s bad, it’s just that the potential was there to be so much more than the sum of its parts. Based on Phillip Barry’s 1932 Broadway play, The Animal Kingdom that starred Leslie Howard, it was filmed for the first time under the original title with Howard recreating his role of the frivolous playboy Tom Collier. Added to the film’s cast was Ann Harding as Daisy Sage, a bohemian artist, and Myrna Loy, a money hungry socialite, as the two women in his life. Like other works by Barry, the theme of the free-thinking versus the conservatively privileged upper class is at work (Holiday, The Philadelphia Story). I have not seen the 1932 film which from what I have read is stronger in its social commentary but moves at a slower pace. That said, One More Tomorrow is an entertaining film with plenty on its mind. It does get a bit soapy, and its storyline ending is predictable, but given a chance, you will see there’s more to it.

Short Takes: Ladd, Stanwyck, Flynn and Seduction, Italian Style

Alan Ladd’s first major screen appearance, a tepid thriller with Barbara Stanwyck and Errol Flynn and a wicked satire from Italian film director Pietro Germi hightlight this week’s short takes.

This Gun For Hire (1942) Frank Tuttle

Alan Ladd is a nasty hired killer out for revenge after he is paid off in marked bills and he soon finds the police are quickly on his tail. Based on a novel by Grahame Greene, the movie comes across as one part foreign intrigue and two parts a noir crime film. Ladd is good as the pretty boy killer, with a soft spot for cats, who inadvertently becomes involved with a group selling chemical secrets to the Japanese. Veronica Lake is recruited by a senate committee to help expose the men selling the secrets becomes mixed up in the police hunt for Ladd. Ladd’s killer eventually finds redemption through Lake’s character who befriends him.  This was the first teaming of the handsome Ladd and the gentle soft beauty of sexy Veronica Lake. It’s also the film that made Ladd a star. The memorable Laird Cregar, so good in “Hangover Square” and “The Lodger,”  makes for an interesting weasel like neurotic criminal. I admittedly have always found Robert Preston, here he play the police Lieutenant in charge of the case, rather dull and he does nothing here to change my mind.