It Happened Tomorrow

"It Happened Tomorrow" could have stood a better beginning - the choice to introduce the story with elderly Dick Powell and Linda Darnell (as Larry and Sylvia Smith) celebrating 50 years of wedded bliss sacrifices the story's surprises. The film does possess the light touch required to make the framing sequence charming. But, director René Clair and Mr. Powell build an unexpectedly good level of suspense regarding Powell's courtship, and mortality. They are so good, you can almost forget how much the opening gives away…

Watch for a thoroughly delightful (and unfortunately rare) performance by sagely John Philliber (as "Pop" Benson). He plays the keeper of the "Evening News" "morgue" (a place where newspapers keep obituaries and other files). Possibly, Mr. Philliber had read his own notice; he died in 1944. Powell was also able to read the writing on the wall, and saved his fledgling career by pursuing more interesting roles (like this one). Jackie Oakie and Edgar Kennedy are also on board. This is a subtle celebration of life, and its mysteries.

******** It Happened Tomorrow (5/28/44) René Clair ~ Dick Powell, Linda Darnell, John Philliber, Jackie Oakie

Reporter Dick Powell in the gaslight era of 1896 big city America would like to have the knowledge of the future. Well, think of all the scoops he could have on his job. Later on that evening another staffer on the paper John Philliber gives him a copy of tomorrow's evening addition. And for the next three days Powell's life is turned topsy turvy trying to take advantage of this most inside of information.

At this point in Dick Powell's career he was looking desperately to rejuvenate his career. His musical days were over, he left Warner Brothers, signed with Paramount looking for some straight acting parts, but Paramount mostly put him musicals and not as good as the ones he did with Warner Brothers.

Powell had scored some success in Preston Sturges's Christmas in July with no songs and he grabbed this one. He did well in the role here, but soon he'd change his screen image for all time later that year in Murder, My Sweet.

Exiled Rene Clair helmed this whimsical tale and got good results from his cast. Linda Darnell is as lovely as ever with her uncle Jack Oakie as a mind reading carnival act. And Edgar Kennedy does his patented slow burn as a police inspector who suspects the worst when Powell is scooping the police on some crime stories.

The plot has quite a few twists and turns and it would be a sin to give even one of them away. Powell and Darnell learn a most valuable lesson to take the future as it comes day by day. A little knowledge can indeed be a dangerous thing.

It seems that this is a much sought after and rarely diffused film - and it is now available on DVD. Picture quality not bad at all considering the time it was made and plot generally quite lighthearted if not unduly mystifying. I was expecting something a little more spicy with a bit of time-travel involved - but was not too disappointed in the end as the actors' performances are good and the subject matter is quite original. I would therefore recommend it to all who love comedy fantasiies but without going over the top about it .

Certainly, the best reason to watch "It Happened Tomorrow" is that it is fun to watch, with an interesting premise, a story and characters that are pleasantly exaggerated to just the right degree, and a good pace that keeps things moving. But it's not without a point, either, and by keeping things from ever getting too serious, it's rather effective in its implied observations.

The likable Dick Powell and the appealing Linda Darnell work well together, giving solid performances without trying to get more out of their characters than they should. Jack Oakie is nicely cast as the boorish uncle of Darnell's character, and he gets some very good moments.

The premise of reading tomorrow's news is certainly familiar in other forms and from other pictures, but it is the kind of interesting idea that always works well when it is in good hands. René Clair has the right feel for it, keeping things light most of the time, and adding some creative details. The story is often very clever in showing the ways that the advance knowledge both influences and misleads the characters.

The story moves fairly quickly, with some good period detail. It's an enjoyable movie and also, without being heavy-handed or obtrusive, illustrates some worthwhile ideas.

I watched this film just after watching director Rene Clair's previous Hollywood outing "I Married A Witch" and enjoyed this one too. It's also a fantasy production, with Dick Powell the hungry news-hound who thanks to "Pop", the old caretaker of the newspaper who he's befriended, gets a copy of the next day's paper in advance, hence the title of the film.

It won't take you long to ascertain the status of old "Pop" and why his sayings are so cryptic , but it's the prelude to a couple of days of impending headlines and deadlines which see Powell variously lose and recover, (with a raise!) his reporter job at the paper, witness a bank robbery as it happens and then be on the scene when the police catch said crooks the next day, save his new girlfriend from drowning, win and lose $60000 on the racetrack and lastly, inescapably it seems, be present at his own reported death.

All that stuff is lovely and engaging but the film gets dragged down somehow by some poor editorial choices by the director. For one thing the movie is framed by a pointless 50-years-after sequence which effectively tells you Powell's fate well in advance and secondly, too much time and space is given to Jack Oakie the magician father of Linda Darnell, for whom she acts as his mind-reading assistant in the act and with whom Powell becomes smitten at one of their shows. His personality is as loud as his outfits and he brings too much vaudeville slapstick to bear on proceedings. I think the film would have played a lot better if done more in the style of say, "It's A Wonderful Life' than "Arsenic And Old Lace" to borrow two titles from the master of the fantasy feature, Frank Capra.

I liked Powell and Darnell as the leads and especially John Philliber as the venerable, mysterious Pop, who himself ironically died within a year of the film's release but not Oakie or George Cleveland for the same reason, as the excitable newspaper editor, Mr Gordon.

Director Clair has a pleasingly light touch which this material requires but just seems to have become confused as to the best approach to adopt to make for a fully satisfying outcome.

The end result still pleases but with better oversight this could have been on a par with the best of this genre of movie, maybe even rivalling the charm of some of Capra's premier features.