Really Surprised!

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A very instructive film. It's no good, mind you, but it's certainly fascinating. In fact, so fascinating, it's hard to decide where to begin. So let's start with the photography. This is credited to little-known Lester White, who was one of Louis B. Mayer's favorite cameramen because he could both shoot fast and shoot artistically at the same time. White worked on most of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Andy Hardy series, but he was also an expert on film noir – and this particular film certainly shows off his expertise in that domain. The movie was produced by none other than Lee Garmes, himself an expert cameraman who specialized in – you guessed it! – film noir! So this movie is nothing if not superbly photographed. Unfortunately, it's one of those movies that start off on a high note, but gradually lose the plot. The opening scenes are great. The characters are deftly introduced and the plot, although it seems pretty traditional, has room to expand – and this it does until about halfway through when it suddenly loses direction and seems at a loss what to do with the characters so artfully introduced in the opening scenes. So all it does is mark time until our 84 minutes are up and we can all go home. A pity! And a wonderful assemblage of players wasted too – including Harry Carey, C. Aubrey Smith (very unflatteringly photographed), Charles Winninger and Helen Vinson! Available on a very good Alpha DVD.

I found this film when I received a catalog from Alpha Video advertising it. The film (properly called Beyond Tomorrow) sounded interesting, so I ordered it. This is a perfectly charming story from classic Hollywood which explores human emotion on a fairly deep level. Here is an unsung holiday film which is different. A B-list cast to be sure, but the players here are at their best and create unforgettable characters. This will bring a tear to your eye and a lump to your throat unless you are a true Scrooge. The film quality is what you'd expect from Alpha. An unrestored 16mm print, but very viewable and at 84 minutes, it is preferred to the colorized version which is 5 minutes shorter for no reason that makes any sense. I've not seen this version, but the cuts generate some continuity issues from what I've read. This is available very inexpensively from a variety of public-domain companies. If you like classic Hollywood, this belongs in your collection.

RKO Pictures eschewed the use of stars in making this very charming fantasy about three business partners who have three very different personalities who help a pair of young lovers they meet in life and in death and Beyond Christmas.Harry Carey is the cynical one, all business and a potential Scrooge if he keeps going on. Charles Winninger and C. Aubrey Smith have more faith in human nature. In a friendly bet they turn out to be two thirds right. The trio is gathered at Maria Ouspenskaya's home for dinner and they decide to throw out wallets with a $10.00 bill and each one's business card inside. Sure enough two out of the three wallets are returned by Jean Parker and Richard Carlson and as everyone gathers for dinner, it's obvious that Carlson and Parker are smitten with each other.It might have been better if a real singer had been cast in Carlson's role, you can't miss the fact that Carlson is being dubbed. But he is an aspiring singer who gets a break on a radio program and becomes an overnight hit.After that Carey, Smith, and Winninger are all killed in a plane crash, but they linger on earth to help Carlson and Parker over the rough spots.The roughest spot is Helen Vinson who is playing one of her patented other woman roles. She's a Broadway actress with her eye on Carlson and he's taken with her, a fact upsetting to Parker.As you can see the plot has already taken a few interesting turns, but the end is quite beautiful, quite sentimental, and life affirming for those who believe we do have a purpose in our existence.When you've got three consummate professionals as the business partners who don't go out of business even in the next world, you can't help but have an enjoyable fantasy film without pretense. The kind they really don't make any more.

Apart from "essential" Christmas movie fare like adaptations of Charles Dicken's "A Christmas Carol", Frank Capra's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946), George Seaton's original MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (1947) and Bob Clark's A Christmas STORY (1983), there is also an assortment of fairly obscure but equally pleasant films dealing with the Yuletide season and this review concerns one of them. Incidentally, the film has received various budget DVD incarnations over the years as a result of its public domain status but, ironically enough, the official DVD release from Fox mistreats the film threefold: most bafflingly it offers a cut version (when the budget disc I watched was complete), the film is also available in a redundant computer colorized version and, most ludicrously, retitled it as BEYOND Christmas! Anyway, the plot is simple enough: three old, wealthy but lonely bachelors make a bet with one another that if they each throw their wallets, containing just one $10 note, out of the window into the streets, they will eventually be returned by whoever finds them. As it happens, only two of them come back and the men invite the persons in question to sit at their Christmas dinner. The bachelors are winningly played by cheery Charles Winninger, bemused C. Aubrey Smith and grumpy Harry Carey while the impoverished lucky diners are silver-voiced country hick Richard Carlson and demure nurse Jean Parker; the old gentlemen, then, are doted upon by their deposed Russian émigré housekeeper Maria Ouspenskaya. Romance soon blossoms between Carlson and Parker but, after the tragic death of the three old men in a mountaintop airplane crash, Carlson soon falls in with Helen Vinson, a man-hungry divorcée who also happens to be a radio star and soon sets Carlson on his way to become the current hit crooner of the airwaves... Unfortunately, the second half of the film is an unconvincing, bland depiction of unexpected stardom going to one's head but BEYOND TOMORROW is ultimately redeemed by the sensitive portrayals of the four veteran character actors and the uplifting fantasy elements so prevalent during wartime, given that the three old gentlemen return from their graves as ghosts to guide the straying Carlson back to ever-loyal Parker's rightful path. Schmaltzy, yes but it was rather an unexpectedly perceptive touch to have the ghosts still preoccupied by their earthly demons – Smith re-uniting with his dead soldier son in the afterlife, Carey still being the loner tormented by "the darkness" and Winninger, of course, literally wanting more than anything else to reunite the two young lovers.