Main Cast: Victor Moore, Beulah Bondi, Fay Bainter, Thomas Mitchell, Ray Mayer
Release Year: 1937
Country: US
Run Time: 92 minutes
Plot
While not a box-office success, this drama, directed by Leo McCarey, developed a potent reputation among film critics and movie buffs for its sensitive and perceptive treatment of the problems of the elderly. When McCarey won the Oscar for Best Director the same year for The Awful Truth, he remarked that the Academy gave him the award for the wrong movie. Barkley and Lucy Cooper (Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi) are a couple in their late 60s who have fallen on hard times and have been given the bad news that the bank is foreclosing on their house. Barkley and Lucy turn to their five children for help, but none are willing or able to do much for them; their son George (Thomas Mitchell) says that Lucy can stay with him and his wife Anita (Fay Bainter), while Nellie (Minna Gombell) and her husband Harvey (Porter Hall) can take in Barkley, but neither couple have the space or the means to house them both. Living with their children and their new families proves stressful for everyone involved, and Lucy decides to take up residence in a home for older women. She and Barkley realize that this will probably mean a permanent separation for the two of them, and they try to enjoy one last outing together before they part. Remarkably, Beulah Bondi was only 46 years old when this film was made, making her less then ten years older than several of her on-screen children; make-up wizard Wally Westmore used his bag of tricks to age her the appropriate two decades for the role. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Hans Dreier - Art Director, Bernard Herzbrun - Art Director, Leo McCarey - Director, LeRoy Stone - Editor, George Antheil - Composer (Music Score), Victor Young - Composer (Music Score), Boris Morros - Musical Direction/Supervision, Wally Westmore - Makeup, William C. Mellor - Cinematographer, Leo McCarey - Producer, Adolph Zukor - Producer, A.E. Freudeman - Set Designer, Gordon Jennings - Special Effects, Don Johnson - Sound/Sound Designer, Walter Oberst - Sound/Sound Designer, Vina Delmar - Screenwriter, Josephine Lawrence - Book Author, Nolan Leary - Play Author, Helen Leary - Play Author
Make Way for Tomorrow is a 1937drama film directed by Leo McCarey. The plot concerns an elderly couple (Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi) who are forced to separate when they lose their house and none of their five children will take both parents in.
The film was written by Viña Delmar, from a play by Henry Leary and Noah Leary, which was in turn based on the novelThe Years Are So Long by advice columnist Josephine Lawrence.
McCarey believed that this was his finest film.[citation needed] When he accepted his Best Director Oscar for The Awful Truth, he said "Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture." Orson Welles reportedly said of the film, "It would make a stone cry," [1] and rhapsodized about his enthusiasm for the film in his booklength series of interviews with Peter Bogdanovich, This Is Orson Welles. In Newsweek magazine famed documentary filmmaker Errol Morris named the film his number one most important film, stating "The most depressing movie ever made, providing reassurance that everything will definitely end badly."[2]
