Remember the Day

I've been trying to remember the name of this movie

for 30-40- years ,,, and found it tonight ! I've looked before but couldn't find it ..

i remember watching this on TV in the 50's and loved it and always thought about it .. the ending..was to me ..one of the Great movie endings..

the theme of " loyalty' ... is what always stuck with me .... and the people we've met in our life ...who we never forget...

thank you IMDb!!

This movie may seem old-fashioned today.Two teachers having an affair (this was also the subject of "these three" by William Wyler )causing a scandal ! These three are here a man,a woman and a boy;the movie begins when Claudette Colbert is an old teacher and the rest is a very long flashback ;it is interesting to notice there's something similar in a more recent work such as "Mr Holland's opus" in which a clumsy girl ,Holland's former pupil,becomes a senator.

More than a propaganda movie (WW1 and when the movie was produced WW2),this is a tribute to the teachers:Mrs Prinell is the kind of mistress every boy and girl would like to have (or would have liked to have).Her word reaches far when she tells Dewey he "stands out" but ,like any human being,he is on his own .Perhaps the ending is too good to be true and in real life people who make their way of life often forget the people who helped them along the way,but this is a wonderful ending:I love the moment when Deway mumbles "Mrs Trinell...Nora Trinell..." The boy writing "I beg your pardon" on the blackboard,the white Xmas ,the "auld Lang Syne" on the last day of the year and the train leaving the little town :we'll remember these days.

Henry King has directed a nostalgic piece of great artistry that accurately evokes the World War One era in America. Claudette Colbert's wit and charm effectively offsets the potential sentimentality of the story, and handsome John Payne gives one of his finest performances as her love interest.

Lovingly photographed, Remember the Day is a charmer from start to finish.

This is a very nice little movie that showed Claudette Colbert and John Payne to great advantage as two young teachers who, in 1916, meet in a small mid-western town, teaching at a high school. They fall in love, and we watch the romance blossom into a marriage - the entire effect helped by the nostalgia of a by-gone, simpler era. Parallelling the story we have the story of a young boy that goes to the school and is taught by both Colbert and Payne.

The film is set up with it's heart (the romance) surrounded by a more recent story set in 1940, at the Republican Presidential Convention (a fictional version of the convention). Colbert is there to see the young boy student, who has now grown up. It is not until the film ends that we understand who she is visiting with. And it is not until the conclusion of the film that we get the bittersweet portion of the romance.

The film is very simple, and it's final element for success is that Payne and Colbert had terrific chemistry together. Ironically enough it would be their only film together (one wishes they had done a second film but that was not in the cards for some reason). Also ironically, it's total success should be compared with the comparative failure of TOMORROW IS FOREVER, wherein Orson Welles and Colbert both perform their roles well (in characters very like Payne's and Colbert's here) but lack the spark to make that trickier story more believable.

I have long loved Claudette Colbert in films and am a bit surprised that she isn't more well known for her part in this terrific film. While naturally people tend to think of her from IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT and SINCE YOU WENT AWAY (two terrific films), it's a shame more people haven't seen REMEMBER THE DAY, as it offered a side to her that wasn't seen so often in films. Here, Colbert is both more sexual and less motherly than she usually seemed in films. Part of this is because her usual asexual hairstyle is gone and she seems to be more of a real woman with real needs and desires. Frankly, apart from her role in SIGN OF THE CROSS, it might just be the sexiest part she ever played. Now this does NOT mean that she was a slut or a loose woman--far from it. But she just seemed more approachable and warmer than in other films in which she appeared.

REMEMBER THE DAY is also a highly sentimental film about a beloved teacher who makes her mark on students. However, unlike films like GOODBYE MR. CHIPS and THREE CHEERS FOR MISS BISHOP, the focus in this movie is on the effect she had on one particular student--one who grew up to be nominated for President of the US. The sentimentality is strong but thanks to an excellent script, direction and acting, the film seemed more believable, less maudlin and more authentic than most films of the style.

In addition to wonderful work by Colbert, John Payne had one of his better performances and this is a film everyone involved should have been proud of making. A sweet old film that seems to be rather timeless--it's well worth a look.