Main Cast: Brian Aherne, Merle Oberon, Gladys Cooper, Ida Lupino, C. Aubrey Smith, Robert Cummings, Claude Rains, Anna Neagle, Roland Young
Release Year: 1943
Country: US/UK
Run Time: 106 minutes
Plot
The 80-star cast of Forever and a Day would certainly not have been feasible had not most of the actors and production people turned over their salaries to British war relief -- a point driven home during the lengthy opening credits by an unseen narrator. The true star of the film is a stately old manor house in London, built in 1804 by a British admiral (C. Aubrey Smith) and blitzed in 1940 by one Adolf Hitler. Through the portals of this house pass a vast array of Britons, from high-born to low. The earliest scenes involve gay blade Lt. William Trimble (Ray Milland), wronged country-girl Susan (Anna Neagle), and wicked landowner Ambrose Pomfret (Claude Rains). We move on to a comic interlude involving dotty Mr. Simpson (Reginald Owen), eternally drunken butler Bellamy (Charles Laughton), and cockney plumbers Mr. Dabb (Cedric Hardwicke) and Wilkins (Buster Keaton). Maidservant Jenny (Ida Lupino) takes over the plot during the Boer War era, while the World War I sequence finds the house converted into a way-station for soldiers (including Robert Cummings) and anxious families (including Roland Young and Gladys Cooper). Finally we arrive in 1940, with American Gates Pomfret (Kent Smith) and lady-of-the-house Lesley Trimble (Ruth Warrick) surveying the bombed-out manor, and exulting over the fact that the portrait of the home's founder, Adm. Eustace Trimble (Smith), has remained intact -- symbolic proof of England's durability in its darkest hours. The huge cast includes Dame May Whitty, Edward Everett Horton, Wendy Barrie, Merle Oberon, Nigel Bruce, Richard Haydn, Donald Crisp, and a host of others -- some appearing in sizeable roles, others (like Arthur Treacher and Patric Knowles) willingly accepting one-scene bits, simply to participate in the undertaking. Seven directors and 21 writers were also swept up in the project. Forever and a Day was supposed to have been withdrawn from circulation after the war and its prints destroyed so that no one could profit from what was supposed to have been an act of industry charity. Happily for future generations, prints have survived and are now safely preserved. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Forever and a Day is practically an embarrassment of riches, with a huge cast that ranges from the instantly famous to the "I-don't-know-his-name-but-he's-in-everything." Unlike later cameo-laden extravaganzas like Around the World in 80 Days or The Greatest Story Ever Told, the use of such recognizable faces is rarely distracting; these people are cast in parts that are appropriate for them, even when their roles are so brief (Edmund Gwenn, Arthur Treacher) as to be limited to two or three lines. With so many stars from which to choose, each individual viewer will likely have his or her own favorite performances, but there's a great deal to be said for Gladys Cooper proving, in a rare sympathetic role, that she was capable of much greater range than she was typically allowed to demonstrate onscreen; for Ida Lupino's feisty but indecisive Jenny; for Edward Everett Horton's typically bumbling father; and for Claude Rains' villainous Pomfret patriarch. The film's "more is more" approach applies to its startling roster of directors and writers; if this approach means that these artists don't make as individual a contribution as we've come to expect of them, they still manage to create a film that is surprisingly cohesive, given the many hands involved. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Forever and a Day is a 1943drama film, a collaborative effort employing seven directors/producers and 22 writers, including an uncredited Alfred Hitchcock, with an enormous cast of well-known stars.
In World War II, American Gates Trimble Pomfret (Kent Smith) is in London during the Blitz to sell the ancestral family house. The current tenant, Leslie Trimble (Ruth Warrick, tries to dissuade him from selling by telling him the 140 year history of the place and the connections between the Trimble and Pomfret families.
Entr'acte (1924) •Paris qui dort (1924, a/k/a The Crazy Ray) •La Tour (1928) •Forever and a Day (1943, segment "1897") •La Française et l'amour (1960, segment "Le Mariage") •Les Quatre vérités (1962, segment "Les Deux Pigeons")
To Redeem a Value •10,000 Dollars •The Gentleman from Indiana •Jane •The Reform Candidate •The Tongues of Men •The Call of the Cumberlands •Madame la Presidente •The Code of Marcia Gray •David Garrick •The Making of Maddalena •An International Marriage •The Stronger Love •The Intrigue •Sins of Her Parent •The World and the Woman (with Eugene Moore) •The Kingdom of Love •The Price of Silence •A Tale of Two Cities •American Methods •When a Man Sees Red •Les Misérables •The Heart of a Lion •The Blindness of Divorce •True Blue •Riders of the Purple Sage •His Extra Bit •The Rainbow Trail •For Freedom •The Man Hunter •Pitfalls of a Big City •The World and Its Woman •The Loves of Letty
1920s
The Woman in Room 13 •The Silver Horde •Madame X •The Great Lover •A Tale of Two Worlds •Roads of Destiny •A Voice in the Dark •The Invisible Power •The Grim Comedian •The Man from Lost River •The Eternal Flame •The Sin Flood •Oliver Twist •The Voice from the Minaret •Within the Law •Ashes of Vengeance •Black Oxen •The Sea Hawk •The Silent Watcher •Her Husband's Secret •Winds of Chance •The Splendid Road •The Wise Guy •The Eagle of the Sea •Children of Divorce •Adoration •Weary River •The Divine Lady •Drag •Dark Streets •Young Nowheres
