USA 91m Dir: Leo McCarey Key Cast: Beulah Bondi and Victor Moore
Unfortunately Make Way for Tomorrow is one of the rare films on the 1001 list which isn't very easy to get hold in the UK without forking out a large sum of money so I've been able to watch it. If and when I get the end of this challenge I'll spend a bit of money to get the missing films if they haven't been released here by that point. In the meantime I've done the next best thing which is read as much as I can about the film and watch every clip I can find on YouTube, though there are very few.
The plot of the film sees older couple Bark and Lucy Cooper facing the loss of their house through foreclosure. When they tell four of their five children, it is decided to spread the inconvenience of hosting them by separating them. The couple find themselves losing self-confidence and dignity and the children find them deeply irritating so it is decided that one will stay in a nursing home in New York, the other in California. Before they are separated for the final time, the couple are able to spend time together in New York.
The film is deeply sad because it depicts a couple who haven't been separated for fifty years torn away from each other. By all accounts it's those final moments which are the highlight of the film and it's from here that most of the available clips are from. It has a similar vibe to a romance where two people fall in love but the difference here is that the pair have a long history together and know they will never see each other again. It sounds utterly heart-breaking.
Of course, the grown-up children of the couple clearly have the power to keep their parents together but they don't want them around. They are kind of aware that they are terrible with lines like "...probably the most good-for-nothing bunch of kids that were ever raised, but it didn't bother us much until we found out that Pop knew it too." It's one of those plots that feels like it has become more relevant as the population continues to age since the film was released.
The films sounds pretty bleak and depressing but there's also a hint of beauty about it with the way the couple are still very much in love. I'm disappointed I haven't been able to source this as it's really widely regarded. Director Leo McCarey considered it his best film too and famously when he won the best director Oscar for The Awful Truth in the same year he said "Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture". A really special film by all accounts and out of the handful of films from the list so far that I haven't been able to get hold of, this is the one I want to see the most!
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