Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)

Finally! After illegally downloading this movie from unpreferred torrent sites, I finally got to see it! I saw it a bajillion years ago on television and have had my eyes peeled for it ever since. And it was just as good as I remembered it -- exquisitely sad, provocative, and subtle. It's easy for a movie about old folks being abandoned by society to devolve into melodrama, but Leo McCarey prevents this from happening. The film does a really good job of being consistently depressing, which is unconventional for a Hollywood flick from the late 30s. For Christ's sake even Gone with the Wind (that's racist) has a happy ending.

If you've seen Ozu's Tokyo Story [also great], then you should definitely see this movie, as it was the inspiration for Tokyo Story. Anyway, Beulah Bondi and Victor Moore are 70 and have just gotten their house repossessed by the bank. They have no where to live, and their 4 children begrudgingly divide the couple amongst them. Beulah goes to live in New York City, where she is hopelessly always in the way, even when she really isn't. Victor goes to the country to live with his B-of-a-daughter who makes him sleep on the couch. It's difficult to determine what is more painful -- for the couple to live separately in their last years when their only loved ones are each other, or for the couple to be discarded by their children. Problems. This one is a quiet tear-jerker.

It's funny that Beulah's son in this movie is Thomas Mitchell, who plays her brother in It's a Wonderful Life 9 years later . It's also interesting to note that the screenplay was written by a lady! [Vina Delmar].

5/5 pizzas