''Make Way for Tomorrow'' is a 1937 American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

Leo McCarey Thomas Leo McCarey (October 3, 1898 – July 5, 1969) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was involved in nearly 200 films, the most well known today being ''Duck Soup (1933 film), Duck Soup'', ''Make Way for Tomo ...

. The plot concerns an elderly couple (played by

Victor Moore Victor Fred Moore (February 24, 1876 – July 23, 1962) was an American actor of stage and screen, a major Broadway star from the late 1920s through the 1930s. He was also a writer and director, but is best remembered today as a comedian, play ...

and

Beulah Bondi Beulah Bondi (born Beulah Bondy; May 3, 1889 – January 11, 1981)According to the State of California. ''California Death Index, 1940–1997''. Center for Health Statistics, California Department of Health Services, Sacramento, California. At ...

) who are forced to separate when they lose their house and none of their five children will take both parents. The film was written by

Viña Delmar Viña Delmar (born Alvina Louise Croter; January 29, 1903 – January 19, 1990) was an American short story writer, novelist, playwright, and screenwriter who worked from the 1920s to the 1970s. She rose to fame in the late 1920s with the publ ...

, from a play by Helen and Noah Leary, which was in turn based on the novel ''The Years Are So Long'' by advice columnist

Josephine Lawrence Josephine Lawrence (1889–1978) was an American novelist and journalist. Her works chronicled the lives of common people, with stories often filled with a large cast of bustling characters, emphasizing the everyday lives of children and the elder ...

. McCarey viewed the film as his best, and it has been praised by later critics. In 2010, it was released selected for preservation by the United States

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...

Plot

Barkley "Bark" (

) and Lucy Cooper (

) are an elderly couple who lose their home to

foreclosure Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan. Formally, a mortg ...

, as Barkley has been unable to find employment because of his age. They summon four of their five children—the fifth lives thousands of miles away in California—to break the news and decide where they will live until they can get back on their feet. Only one of the children, Nell (

Minna Gombell Minna Marie Gombell (''née'' Gombel; May 28, 1892 – April 14, 1973) was an American stage and film actress. Early years She was born Minna Marie Gombel in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of William and Emma M. Debring Gombel. Her father ...

), has enough space for both, but she asks for three months to talk her husband into the idea. In the meantime, the temporary solution is for the parents to split up and each live with a different child. The two burdened families soon come to find their parents' presence bothersome. Nell's efforts to talk her husband into helping are half-hearted and achieve no success, and she reneges on her promise to eventually take them. While Barkley continues looking for work to allow him and his wife to live independently again, he has little or no prospect of success. When Lucy continues to speak optimistically of the day that he will find work, her teenage granddaughter bluntly advises her to "face facts" that it will never happen because of his age. Lucy's sad reply is to say that "facing facts" is easy for a carefree 17-year-old girl, but that at Lucy's age, the only fun left is "pretending that there ain't any facts to face ... so would you mind if I just kind of went on pretending?" With no end in sight to the uncomfortable living situations, both host families look for a way to get the parent they are hosting out of their house. When Barkley catches a cold, his daughter Cora (

Elisabeth Risdon Elisabeth Risdon (born Daisy Cartwright Risdon; 26 April 1887 – 20 December 1958) was an English film actress. She appeared in more than 140 films between 1913 and 1952. A beauty in her youth, she usually played in society parts. In later ...

) seizes upon it as a pretext to assert that his health demands a milder climate, thus necessitating that he move to California to live with his daughter Addie. Meanwhile, son George ( Thomas Mitchell) and his wife Anita (

Fay Bainter Fay Okell Bainter (December 7, 1893 – April 16, 1968) was an American film and stage actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for ''Jezebel'' (1938) and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Early life Bainter wa ...

) begin planning to move Lucy into a retirement home. Lucy accidentally finds out about their plans, but rather than force George into the awkward position of breaking the news to her, she goes to him first and claims that she wants to move into the home. Meanwhile, Barkley resigns himself to his fate of having to move thousands of miles away, though he too is entirely aware of his daughter's true motivation. On the day Barkley is to depart by train, he and Lucy make plans to go out and spend one last afternoon together before having a farewell dinner with the four children. They have a fantastic time strolling around the city and reminiscing about their happy years together, even visiting the same hotel in which they had stayed on their honeymoon 50 years prior. Their day is made so pleasant partly because of the kindness of people they encounter, who, although strangers, seem to find them a charming couple, to genuinely enjoy their company, and to treat them with deference and respect—in stark contrast to the treatment the two are receiving from their children. Eventually Barkley and Lucy decide to continue their wonderful day by skipping the farewell dinner and dining at the hotel instead; when Barkley informs their daughter with a blunt phone call, it prompts introspection among the four children. Son Robert (Ray Meyer) suggests that each of the children has always known that collectively they are "probably the most good-for-nothing bunch of kids that were ever raised, but it didn't bother us much until we found out that Pop knew it too." George notes that it is now so late in the evening that they won't even have time to meet their parents at the train station to send off their father. He says that he deliberately let the time pass until it was too late because he figured their parents would prefer to be alone. Nell objects that if they don't go to the station, their parents "will think we're terrible," to which George matter-of-factly replies, "Aren't we?" At the train station, Lucy and Barkley say their farewells to one another. On the surface, their conversation echoes Lucy's comments to her granddaughter about preferring to pretend, rather than facing facts. Barkley tells Lucy that he will find a job in California and quickly send for her; Lucy replies that she is sure he will do so. They then offer each other a truly final goodbye, saying that they are doing so "just in case" they do not see each other again because "anything could happen." Each makes a heartfelt statement reaffirming their lifelong love, in what seems an unspoken acknowledgment that it is almost certainly their final moment together. Barkley boards the train, and Lucy and he acknowledge each other and wave through the closed window as the train pulls away. A somber Lucy turns from the scene.

Cast

Production

and

, who played "Pa" and "Ma", respectively, were both relatively young actors who wore make-up to appear older.

Reception

Writing for '' Night and Day'' in 1937,

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...

gave the film a neutral review, summarizing it as "a depressing picture about an old couple". Greene noted that the overall effect the audience receives is "a sense of misery and inhumanity ... left vibrating in the nerves", and commented that the description from Paramount gave a distinctly different expectation of the actual film. McCarey himself believed that it was his finest film. When he accepted his

Academy Award for Best Director The Academy Award for Best Director (officially known as the Academy Award of Merit for Directing) is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given in honor of a film director who has exhibi ...

for ''

The Awful Truth ''The Awful Truth'' is a 1937 American screwball comedy film directed by Leo McCarey and starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant. Based on the 1923 play ''The Awful Truth'' by Arthur Richman, the film recounts how a distrustful rich couple begins d ...

'', which was released the same year, he said, "Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture." ''Make Way for Tomorrow'' earned good reviews when originally released in Japan, where it was seen by screenwriter Kogo Noda. Years later, it provided an inspiration for the script of ''

Tokyo Story is a 1953 Japanese drama film directed by Yasujirō Ozu and starring Chishū Ryū and Chieko Higashiyama about an aging couple who travel to Tokyo to visit their grown children. Upon release, it did not immediately gain international recogni ...

'' (1953), written by Noda and director

Yasujirō Ozu was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. He began his career during the era of silent films, and his last films were made in colour in the early 1960s. Ozu first made a number of short comedies, before turning to more serious themes in t ...

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...

said of the film, "It would make a stone cry," and rhapsodized about his enthusiasm for the film in his 1992 book-length series of interviews with

Peter Bogdanovich Peter Bogdanovich (July 30, 1939 – January 6, 2022) was an American director, writer, actor, producer, critic, and film historian. One of the "New Hollywood" directors, Bogdanovich started as a film journalist until he was hired to work on R ...

. In ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...

'' magazine, famed documentary filmmaker

Errol Morris Errol Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of its subjects. In 2003, his documentary film '' The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamar ...

named it his #1 film, stating "The most depressing movie ever made, providing reassurance that everything will definitely end badly."

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

added this film to his "Great Movies" list on February 11, 2010, writing:

"Make Way for Tomorrow" (1937) is a nearly-forgotten American film made in the Depression ... The great final arc of "Make Way for Tomorrow" is beautiful and heartbreaking. It's easy to imagine it being sentimentalized by a studio executive, being made more upbeat for the audience. That's not McCarey. What happens is wonderful and very sad. Everything depends on the performances.

Also in February 2010, the film was released by

the Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

, whose website describes it as

one of the great unsung Hollywood masterpieces, an enormously moving Depression-era depiction of the frustrations of family, aging, and the generation gap ... ''Make Way for Tomorrow'' is among American cinema's purest tearjerkers, all the way to its unflinching ending, which McCarey refused to change despite studio pressure.

In interviews filmed for the Criterion release,

Gary Giddins Gary Giddins is an American jazz critic and author. He wrote for ''The Village Voice'' from 1973; his "Weather Bird" column ended in 2003. In 1986 Gary Giddins and John Lewis created the American Jazz Orchestra which presented concerts using a j ...

and Peter Bogdanovich summarize the film's message as to be kind to others, especially ones' family or elders. Giddins posits that, without being political, the film provides an argument for

Social Security Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...

(which was being implemented in the United States at the time of the film's release). Both Giddins and Bogdanovich argue that the film avoided derogatory

ethnic stereotype An ethnic stereotype, racial stereotype or cultural stereotype involves part of a system of beliefs about typical characteristics of members of a given ethnic group, their status, societal and cultural norms. A national stereotype, or nationa ...

s by humanizing the supporting characters of the Black maid and the Jewish merchant. In late 2010, the film was selected for preservation in the United States

by the

as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically" significant.

References

External links

* * * * *
''Make Way for Tomorrow: Make Way for Lucy...''
an essay by Tag Gallagher at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...