One Year Later

This film starts somewhat inauspiciously, but develops into something well worth watching.

The core story of One Year Later is that of Molly, a young woman desperate to reconcile with her husband before she loses him finally and terribly to the electric chair. Jim is to die for killing his former boss, the man with whom Jim thought his wife to have been having an affair. Sure that Molly was unfaithful, Jim will not so much as listen to her. Jim has been made to board a train headed to the prison in which he is to die. Molly has got a berth on the same train, trying as she might to talk to Jim.

Also riding towards death is Tony, a reporter dying of lung disease. Tony knows something of Jim and Molly's story, and wants to help in whatever way he can.

Secondary characters include J. Atwell Hunt, unfaithful to his own spouse, and Greggs, whom that spouse has hired to prove the infidelity.

One Year Later has its flaws. The beginning, as I indicated, is inauspicious. The secondary stories and characters should have been better developed or not developed at all. (Thus, by implication, the movie may be seen either as too short or as too long.) But the central story is rather well handled. Most of the acting is of fairly high quality and Mary Brian and Russell Hopton in particular do fine jobs with their roles. And the resolution was relatively novel and bittersweet, rather than being trite and saccharine as one might have expected.