Upon winning Best Director at the Academy Awards for his 1937 screwball comedy The Awful Truth (the highest grossing film of the year), Leo McCarey took his Oscar, turned to the applauding crowd and uttered the unusual acceptance of “I want to thank the Academy for this wonderful award . . . but you gave it to me for the wrong picture”.
The movie he was talking about was the powerfully emotional drama Make Way for Tomorrow. A bust at the box office, the film still brought recognition to one of the premier filmmakers of the era. Being a favourite of John Ford, Frank Capra, Jean Renoir, Ernst Lubitsch, George Bernard Shaw and Orson Welles (who called it one of the saddest films ever, claiming that “it would even make a stone cry”), as well as being the inspiration behind Yasujirô Ozu’s classic 1953 picture Tokyo Story, this is a pure piece of emotional film making. Funnily enough, though praised by iconic filmmakers and ardent film fanatics alike, it is probably one of the least known motion pictures out there. Nearly unseen, thankfully Criterion has released it, providing the movie with an avenue to finally reach a larger audience.
Drinking a batch of bad milk while filming the Harold Lloyd picture The Milky Way, McCarey nearly died. While bedridden, his father passed away, and sadly, he was unable to attend the funeral. Distraught, the filmmaker decided to make this movie as a sort of tribute.
Filmed with simple elegance and grace, the story follows elderly couple Barkley, aka ‘Bark’(Victor Moore), and Lucy Cooper (Beulah Bondi), who call a family meeting at their country home on a cold, blistery winter’s day. Four of their five children make the trek, leaving their busy city lives: eldest son George (Thomas Mitchell), daughters Cora (Elizabeth Risdon) and Nell (Minna Gombell), as well as their larger than life, overly exuberant youngest child Robert (Ray Meyer).
With their busy lives getting in the way of keeping in touch with their parents, they are floored when the couple, who have been married fifty years, announce that the bank is foreclosing on their house (as Bark has been unable to find work due to his age). In a tough bind, the only sibling with the space to take both parents is Nell, though knowing that her husband will need convincing, asks for three months to butter him up.
Lacking a better solution, Lucy heads to New York with George while Bark goes to live with Cora for the three month period. Having spent half a century together, the couple find the separation to be exceedingly difficult, though it is quickly seen as being an even bigger hindrance to the busy lives of the youthful families who have taken on their elderly parents.
Lucy, being the kindly, helpful mother one would expect, wishes to aid in any way she can, though George’s wife Anita (Fay Bainter) and their modern teenage daughter Rhoda (Barbara Read) just find that she is getting in the way. Sitting in on posh bridge games (which Anita teaches), attending a film with Rhoda, and causing strife by extending the hours of their housekeeper Mamie (Louise Beavers), each incident causes a larger rift in the household. Soon, Anita is blaming her mother-in-law for Rhoda getting into trouble, as none of her friends (male or female) are willing to come round the house anymore as her grandmother is too meddlesome.
Bark has a bit of an easier time, finding a friend in an elderly shopkeeper named Max Rubens (Maurice Moscovitch), though the man soon comes down with a harsh cold and high temperature. Cora, seizing the opportunity, spins a story that the cold climate is affecting his health – suggesting that he be sent to California to their third sister’s abode.
With the decision being made, the couple are given a day to spend together before Bark catches the train to the west coast. With some sort of cosmic fate intervention, the couple thrives in New York, finding passion and a youthful exuberance in the city where they honeymooned so many years earlier. In a flukish twist, they procure a ride in a posh automobile (their first), then return to the ritzy hotel where they spent their post wedding bliss – the hotel manager and employees welcome the couple back, like grand old friends. Enjoying food, drink and dance, they ignore their kids as well as the plans that they have made for them. Will the loving couple find a way to live out their lives together, or will they be forever separated on different sides of America?
Utilizing realistic little moments to build the drama, Leo McCarey depicts a film in which no one is truly a villain. Though we obviously fall in love with the charming elderly couple, their kids are simply struggling with the awkward and unexpected situation. McCarey, a fervent believer in improvisation, used the trick to add realism and heart to a movie that never feels stagnant or fake. Also a fan of doing facial closeups, the love, pain, sorrow, confusion and angst found on the actors’ visages tells us more about the scenario and their emotional feelings than any amount of dialogue ever could.
It could also be argued that McCarey is a humanist. Building rich, vivid characters, no one in the film can be called a stereotype. When we expect something along these lines, like when he introduces Rubens as a Jewish store owner or the African American housekeeper Mamie, he flips our expectations. Rubens is a caring, kindhearted friend, and it is actually daughter Cora who is harsh to him, not the other way around (which would have been typical for the day). Similarly, Mamie has power in the household and more depth than one might expect to find in a 1930s motion picture.
Having a knack for making his audience uncomfortable, we feel like we are part of the film. During the bridge sequence, McCarey begins by showing the annoyance of the players as Lucy takes a call from Bark (speaking in a high pitched, near scream), but as they hear the sentiment felt between the two, it is they who feel like they are intruding, being moved by the touching conversation (we too are caught up in this clever scene). In another heart-wrenching moment, Lucy (who has visited an old age home and despises it), discovers that the family has gone behind her back to place her in the facility. Before her son can reveal the disheartening information, his mother saves him the effort – asking to go there (lying and telling him that it is the best thing for her), then goes as far as admitting that he was her favourite child.
Perhaps the most moving portion of the film is the end, when the pair are able to reunite in New York. Bark, at first, constantly checks his pocket watch, nervously monitoring the time they have left. But then, the magic happens and they forget their woes. Poems are uttered, time is enjoyed, and a dance that could have gone horribly wrong works out thanks to an astute bandleader. Then, there is the fitting ending which survived despite studio pressure – thankfully, McCarey even had the power to deny Paramount President Adolph Zukor, who spent ample time on set, who was lobbying for a different ending. Though he was able to make the movie his way, it ended up getting him fired from Paramount (that is, his contract was not renewed).
Poignant, romantic, heartbreaking, dramatic, beautiful and ultimately one of the most pure examples of a tear jerker, Make Way for Tomorrow is a striking piece of film making. Filled with impressively subtle performances (often a rarity in this era), simple, but effective direction, and a powerful story, this is definitely worth a watch. So, bridge the gap between old and young, watch Make Way for Tomorrow today to discover whether this couple can stop the divisive train that has been set in motion.