Next Time We Love

Among all of Jimmy Stewart's films, "Next Time We Love" is among the more obscure...even though there is some really terrific acting in it as well as three top actors (Margaret Sullavan, Jimmy Stewart and Ray Milland). As far as why it's not a popular film, I have a strong guess....it's not a particularly enjoyable picture and you have a hard time really caring about the characters.

The story itself is a great illustration of the old saying, "Act in haste, repent at leisure". This is because Cicely and Chris (Sullavan and Stewart) meet and decide to get married only a few days later. It's clearly an impulsive move and even before the honeymoon it's clear this will NOT be an easy marriage. Chris is a newspaper correspondent and likes the idea of traveling the world to report the news. This is clearly NOT a career conducive to a great marriage. But to make it worse, Cicely soon takes up acting and she likes it...and it pays well. In fact, when Chris loses a job, she carries them. This SHOULD make them happy but it doesn't. After all, it's the 1930s and a man, a 'real man', was expected to be the bread-winner and a wife was to stay home, make babies and wait for her man to come home from work--which was impossible with being a correspondent and her being an actress. So, years pass and Chris roams the world while Cicely becomes famous...and they barely have any time for each other. Both have created their own separate lives...and all the while, their good friend Tommy (Milland) is there to help Cicely...and soon it becomes apparent Tommy wants to be more than just a friend.

So basically you have two strong-willed people who are more concerned with their careers than each other...something hardly the stuff of a romance or fun film. In many ways, I wonder how much this story was influenced by the Hollywood life...and broken marriages. Either way, the acting is stupendous (particularly by Sullavan)...but the film is still unpleasant and not particularly involving for me. As for me, I just wanted to slap them both and tell them to grow up! After all, they had a child and yet they seemed a bit childish themselves.

Though in many ways a soapy tearjerker, this movie is one of many 1930s dramas with a surprisingly adult perspective, with sophisticated attitudes towards marriage, infidelity and divorce. It helps that James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan are incredibly well-matched: you're able to sympathize with both partners. All in all, an entertaining melodrama about how clashing careers can strain a marriage, and a remarkably modern look at love versus ambition.

This is a very progressive film with themes way ahead of the times even for today. What does that mean? Usually when someone calls a film "progressive" it means it's hypersexed, banned by the Pope or has gratuitous shots of belly buttons. Right, well, none of that. NEXT TIME WE LOVE is progressive because it delves into interpersonal issues that simply "didn't exist" in the golden age of Hollywood.

A wife who chooses career over family? Preposterous. A husband/father who neglects the upbringing of his child? Outrageous. A marriage that is mutually tolerant of infidelity? Sacrilegious. Hollywood has historically depicted the marriage ceremony as the proverbial "happily ever after"; yet in this film we get a sober and realistic view of how life really works.

There are no dramatic fireworks, no cartoonish liaisons, no screaming or breaking things like we might get in a modern film dealing with this subject. Instead, it's extremely subtle and believable. There's not much flashy plot to sink your MTV-starved mind into, but if instead you like to digest your films slowly and comprehend the meaning behind every gesture--the tension in Margaret Sullivan's spine, the repressed torment in Jimmy Stewart's posture, the way a cigarette can be worth a thousand words when lit at the perfect moment--then this film is for you.

One thing worth mentioning... this is one of the few films that handles the aging of characters in a credible manner. Margaret goes from a giddy schoolgirl to a mature woman of the world. Jimmy goes from a brash adventurer to a pensive introvert. The makeup, hairstyles, clothes and especially the way the actors carry themselves convey the passage of time as the film progresses over a decade (perhaps mirroring the awakening of a nation from the roaring 20s to the tougher times that followed). The climactic hotel meeting near the end of the film presents two completely different personalities from what we originally met; you could almost believe that it was played by two new actors, but no, we owe it all to the fantastic acting & direction of this film.

By the time her fifth film was ready to be launched Margaret Sullavan had achieved a position of some clout with her original studio Universal Pictures. She used that clout to get as her leading man, a young player she knew from Broadway as the best friend of her then husband Henry Fonda. Sullavan got Carl Laemmle to get Louis B. Mayer to loan him James Stewart and from Paramount as the second lead she got Ray Milland.

But Stewart was her project and she more than director Edward Griffith got him through Next Time We Love to favorable notices. This was Stewart's highest billing yet, co-starring to Margaret Sullavan and he made the most of it. They did three more films together and in only one of them did either Sullavan or Stewart not die in. They were the king and queen of bittersweet romances back in the day.

Sullavan is highly successful stage star and Stewart is a reporter with ambitions to be an international correspondent. Sullavan might have been better off marrying Ray Milland who is a producer, but something about the shy and stammering Jimmy wins her heart and that would be the first in a long line of female hearts on the screen to feel that way.

Of course being an international correspondent does keep Stewart away a lot and Margaret does not want to give up a successful stage career that's just getting started. Even with the arrival of a baby boy the problems only increase until a really heavy crisis comes on that overwhelms all.

Next Time We Love is an intelligent mature drama that holds up well and I'm surprised has not been remade. I could see a Cate Blanchett or a Gwyneth Paltrow in Sullavan's role with possibly Matthew McConaughey in the Stewart part in a remake today. Somebody in Hollywood take note.

Jimmy Stewart's first big role. This is not a romance we are used to with a happily ever after ending. Not even close. Maybe that would make it interesting and worthwhile but meh, I'm not all that impressed with this. You can see the immense talent in the young 27 year old Jimmy but he is still very much coming into his own here. Not the best vehicle for him considering I would never guess his character to be a man under at least 30. Quite a mature role for such a youngster to Hollywood. Still an okay, quick film that isn't his best but is from such a great era that it's hard to say it's bad!

5.7 / 10 stars

--Zoooma, a Kat Pirate Screener