Make Way For Tomorrow - 1937, is definitely an emotionally shattering masterpiece that hits too hard too close to home. Too close to the truth about revealing something most everyone of us will eventually and inevitably have to face, growing old, while seeing and hearing youth live faster and faster around us lost in delusional denial and thats exactly why this profound film was not and still isnt really popular with the general public. Suddenly forced to see the looming future that most people dont or wont even think about. While for reasons mostly unknown, the extremely too similar Japanese movie Tokyo Story - 1953, continues receiving all the cinematic praise and media attention world wide.
McCarey has a number of strikes against him in the eyes of liberal critics, then and now. He was a devout Catholic conservative who became an anti-communist crusader, though without Capra's fascistic leanings in the 1930s. And he specialized in comedy, which has never won plaudits as easily as drama. MWFT is somewhat out of the run of his work, and when it came out reviewers did not know how to take this sometimes wry but ultimately somber picture from the director of Laurel and Hardy and 'Duck Soup'. As Bogdanovich says, movie comedians are more flexible. This is bc they tend to be more rooted: they see more of the world's incongruity and poignancy than straight actors, who are often imprisoned in the solipsism of their glamor and good looks. Of course some comics are monsters of egotism, but more are natural character actors and team players. Victor Moore was an old ham who had just come from playing Fred Astaire's pal in 'Swing Time' and trading cracks with Helen Broderick. He usually played flustered, put-upon types. It was not a big stretch to be the husband in MWFT, docile and acceptant of his kids' insensitivities like Ryu Chishu in 'Tokyo Story'. This performance is Moore's Great Exception, like Jack Benny's in 'To Be or Not to Be' or Jackie Gleason's in 'The Hustler'- but Moore goes further beyond his accustomed range.
Beulah Bondi went on to play George Bailey’s (i . e., James Stewart) mother in “It’s a Wonderful Life” in 1946, as well as Martha Corrine Walton on “The Waltons.”
This brief interview is one of the most precious commentaries on the cinema I've heard or read, especially Bogdanovich's reflections/revelations on the human/humane aspect of the movies that is all too often neglected. The presentation taught me a lot about McCarey, and just as much about Bogdanovich.
@@fede018 Blu-ray 2009 right? "Tomorrow, Yesterday, and Today, a 2009 interview with filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich about the career of director Leo McCarey and Make Way for Tomorrow"
This is a great commentary on a great movie. Make Way for Tomorrow is a striking commentary of our past sins, but ironically, much of the poor treatment of the aged today is because of their OWN past in corrupting our culture, and mistreatment of their OWN parents. And, it will simply get worse and worse, as America declines.
