Make Way For Tomorrow

Leo McCarey’s MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW may be outshined (at least to most cinephiles) by Yasujirô’s remake, Tokyo Story, but this old Hollywood classic deserves recognition of its own. At once charming and devastating, it has very little of gloss that you’d see on most studio movies of the era and instead focuses on the very real issues that face very real people. And speaking of devastating, the ending offers little true resolution, a very bold move for 1937.

It also stands out in McCarey’s career at this time as a comedy man for Universal. Early in the decade, McCarey helmed the unquestionably best Marx Brothers movie (and the best comedy of all time, in my estimation) DUCK SOUP. And in the same year as Make Way for Tomorrow, put out the Cary Grant screwball classic THE AWFUL TRUTH. Yet amidst these hilarious classics, he snuck in this understated and moving drama, setting him up to produce future prestige pictures like Going My Way and An Affair to Remember.