The Worst Film Ever

Best movie ever!

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Director: HENRY HATHAWAY. Based on the story Honor Bright by Jack Kirkland, Melville Baker. Screenplay: Vincent Lawrence, Sylvia Thalberg. Camera: Harry Fischbeck. Film editor: Ellsworth Hoagland. Art directors: Hans Dreier, Robert Usher. Song: Larry Morey, Leigh Harline, "The World Owes Me a Living", sung by Shirley Temple. Additional song by Harry Revel and Mack Gordon. Additional music: Rudolph G. Kopp, John Leipold, Karl Hajos. Costumes: Travis Banton. Sound recording; Harold C. Lewis. Western Electric Sound System. Producer: Louis D. Lighton. Executive producer: Adolph Zukor.Copyright 29 August 1934 by Paramount Productions, Inc. New York opening at the Paramount, 12 October 1934. U.S. release: 31 August 1934. U.K. release: 30 March 1935. Sydney release at the Prince Edward (on a double bill with Cary Grant's Kiss and. Make Up), 5 January 1935 (ran 3 weeks). 9 reels. 81 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Callous jewel thief (Cooper, would you believe?) tries to sell his motherless child to his brother-in-law for $75,000.NOTES: Academy Award to Shirley Temple for her outstanding contribution to screen entertainment in 1934. Originally, Stephen Roberts was assigned to direct, and Claudette Colbert was announced for the Lombard role.COMMENT: Now and Forever is exactly how long this talking bore of a film seems to last. Admittedly, it opens promisingly. Cooper and Lombard are a pair of confidence crooks. Even though they talk too much, we are fascinated by the ingenious way in which Coop swindles the Shanghai Hotel out of his bill. But the story then becomes increasingly slight and banal. Almost nothing happens as soon as Miss Temple enters (about 15 minutes in). The characters just sit around and talk, talk, talk. When a bit of action finally does come along, it is the most tamely staged in all of Hathaway's films.Although the picture is set in Shanghai and Paris, there is no location work except for a brief sequence on a lake.Hathaway has stated that he pays close attention to acting. This we doubt. In nearly all his movies, there are performances that seem strained and amateurish. (Perhaps because of a lack of rapport?) In this film, I would single out Shirley Temple and Gary Cooper. She just rattles off her lines like a well-trained parrot, while his naturally slow delivery is even more expressionless than usual. Even a talented player like Carole Lombard can give little animation to her routinely conventional role. Sir Guy Standing is similarly hamstrung. Although he plays in his customary hearty manner, his characterization seems shallow and superficial. Charlotte Granville is okay in a part in which Alison Skipworth would have been preferable. Other roles are small, but competently played. Miss Temple has one song. She puts it across with enthusiasm, if little talent. (Hathaway doesn't think too highly of her vocal ability either, as he breaks into the middle of the song with a scene off- stage.)Although production values are very moderate, photography and sets are attractive. Other credits are okay, though Miss Lombard is saddled with some ridiculous costumes. OTHER VIEWS; Shirley Temple is such a charmer that she makes even a sludgy script pleasant-going. I also enjoyed Sir Guy Standing as a self-confessed rat and Charlotte Granville as a typical Hollywood bejeweled Jessie Ralph matron. Cooper and Lombard are both sufficiently adroit and charismatic to overcome the wearisome banalities of much of their dialogue."Now and Forever" is beautifully photographed and set. Not a typical Hathaway movie by any means, but very competently directed. All the same, it's true that Hathaway only sparks into real life during the action bits — particularly in the smooth piece of camera-work with which he interrupts Shirley's song, which continues off while Coop steals the necklace, then back to Shirley for the delightful last verse. — JHR writing as George Addison.

The characters of Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard are established early in this tearjerker with a few laughs when Cooper pretends to be a books inspector to con fellow guests at a hotel in order to pay off his own bill. They head separate ways-Lombard to Paris and Cooper to America, where he stops by to collect money promised in order to let his in-laws adopt his daughter (Shirley Temple). Bartering for the perky young miss as if she was a prize heffer at a county fair, Cooper obviously has no interest in taking her in until he spends some time with her and finds that she has a free spirit that his former brother-in-law is trying to subdue. Cooper takes her to Paris so he can marry Lombard and continue their string of cons, but circumstances arrange themselves so he has no choice but to make some strong moral decisions based upon his own growing love for his flesh and blood.At first, Temple and Lombard hit it off like oil and water, but who can resist Shirley's curls and Lombard's blue eyes? This makes their situation all the more dangerous as Cooper finally agrees to take on a respectable career but can't stop his extravagant lifestyle which includes trying to con a wealthy widow (Charlotte Granville) with the help of an old colleague (Guy Standing).There's a lot of sentimentality in this drama, one of two pictures which Temple made on loan to Paramount at the start of her major stardom years. She shows some adult cynicism when she first meets the pretty Carole, and you know that they will open their hearts to each other. Some actors warned you about the focus being stolen by dogs and children, but they forgot about spunky old ladies, which is true in the case of Granville who comes off the champion here, her acidic delivery (mixed with love) the highlight of the film. This is an enjoyable family drama that may seem forumulatic in some respects, but is memorable on its own rights.

This movie is well worth viewing, if only to see Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard in relatively early roles and to see Shirley Temple in an unusual part before she really peaked in popularity (here she is an incredible SIX years old). This is not a typical Temple film, in that she sings only one song (expertly), but you do get to see her act in a thoroughly convincing way. The supporting players are excellent as well.This is a rather odd movie that can't quite make up its mind what to be...a decidedly downbeat ending that is actually starker than it's presented in some reviews here and a series of rather improbable con jobs that are not dramatically convincing. However, it's a treat to see the incredibly talented Temple, the skillful Carole Lombard, and the totally charming Gary Cooper (who, by the way, sports a very impressive wardrobe throughout, as does Lombard).I watched the colorized version--better than I expected--but would have preferred black and white. See this movie with a "willing suspension of disbelief" and you'll enjoy it as a blast from the long-ago past.

Even longtime Shirley fans may be surprised by "Now and Forever." The movie was filmed with Paramount studios – not with Shirley's parent company Twentieth Century Fox – in 1934, before Fox producer Darryl Zanuck had perfected the successful Shirley formula (cute songs, cold hearts for her to melt, young couples for her to play cupid to, happy endings). Thus "Now and Forever" falls into the category of a Shirley vehicle without the standard Shirley story. It is an awkward position for any movie, but this impressive, talented cast makes it work.Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard star as fun-loving, irresponsible con artists Jerry and Toni Day. The only thing that this devoted yet dysfunctional duo seems to hate more than being together is being apart. When they are suddenly landed with custody of Jerry's young daughter Penny (Shirley Temple), it is Toni – and not Penny, as many believe – who persuades Jerry to give up his criminal career. But Jerry flounders at his desk job, and desperate to prove that he can provide for his new family, he soon returns to thieving and dishonesty. In a standard Shirley device, Penny tries to melt the heart of crusty curmudgeon Felix Evans, the victim of one of Jerry's cons, but her attempt fails, for Evans is revealed to be a con artist himself, and he blackmails Jerry into helping him steal jewels. The drama, gunfight, death, and sorrow that follow all make this film a very unusual one for Little Miss Sunshine. There is no happy ending, no dancing, and only one song sequence (the cute number "The World Owes Me a Living").But this does not mean that Shirley fans should avoid "Now and Forever." Rather, it's divergence from the usual Shirley story make it more interesting and memorable than many of her other films. But beware: You should avoid colorized version of this film, and see it in black-and-white if you can. The color is bright, garish, and unrealistic, and in many scenes, Shirley's famous curls are actually red instead of blonde. Yikes!