Tomorrow Is Forever

Tomorrow Is Forever is a 1946 American romantic drama film directed by Irving Pichel, and starring Claudette Colbert, Orson Welles and George Brent. It was also the film debut of Richard Long and Natalie Wood. It was distributed by RKO Radio Pictures and was based upon the 1943 serialized novel of the same name by Gwen Bristow.

Plot
Elizabeth (Colbert) and John (Welles) are a newly married couple, separated when John goes off to fight in World War I. Elizabeth is notified by telegram of John's death just before Christmas 1918. At the same time, she learns that she is pregnant. After the baby is born, she agrees to marry Lawrence Hamilton (Brent), warning him that she could never love him the way she loved John. They raise the baby as Hamilton's. Cut to the Invasion of Poland, with young John, now grown, eagerly following the war news.

John, however, is still alive, but after being disfigured in the war he has undergone plastic surgery, making him almost unrecognizable. He is nursed back to health by Dr. Ludwig. Twenty years later, he returns to America as Erich Kessler, an Austrian who speaks with a pronounced accent, and begins working at Hamilton's company, unaware that he married Elizabeth. Kessler is accompanied by his eight-year old foster daughter, Margaret (Wood), whose parents, Dr. Ludwig and his wife, have been killed.

During a luncheon at Hamilton's house, Kessler is stunned to meet Mrs. Hamilton and realizes it is Elizabeth. He quickly deduces that the Hamilton's 20-year old son Drew (Long) (“short for John Andrew”) is his own.

Drew is anxious to go to Canada and join the Royal Air Force. Kessler is supportive of Drew's ideas but Elizabeth is horrified at the thought of losing her son the way she lost her husband. She begins to suspect that Kessler is actually John and confronts him with her suspicion. He denies his identity. Elizabeth tells Kessler he is no longer welcome in her home for supporting Drew's plan to go to war, but she relents when Kessler reveals that Margaret's parents were murdered by the Nazis.

Drew decides to go to Canada without his parents' permission. Kessler intercepts him at the train station during a rain storm and brings Drew back home, but he is greatly fatigued by his ordeal in the rain. Elizabeth begs Kessler to admit that he is her husband, but he steadfastly refuses. Instead, he implores her to forget the past and live in the present.

Elizabeth goes upstairs and tells Drew that he can join the RAF and Kessler leaves. Back at home, Kessler collapses as he tries to burn a letter from Elizabeth. The next day, the Hamiltons arrive to thank Kessler for bringing Drew home and learn of his death. Elizabeth comforts the distraught Margaret and the Hamiltons instinctively adopt her and take her to their home, leaving the partially burnt letter in the fireplace.

Cast

 * Claudette Colbert as Elizabeth Hamilton
 * Orson Welles as John Andrew MacDonald/Erik Kessler
 * George Brent as Lawrence Hamilton
 * Lucile Watson as Aunt Jessica Hamilton [as Lucille Watson]
 * Richard Long as Drew Hamilton
 * Natalie Wood as Margaret Ludwig
 * John Wengraf as Dr. Ludwig
 * Sonny Howe as Brian Hamilton
 * Michael Ward as the Drew infant
 * Ian Wolfe as Norton
 * Joyce MacKenzie as Cherry Davis

Production
Natalie Wood's screen test for the role required her to act out the scene where a party popper makes her recall the murder of her character's parents by Nazis. Because she had worked with Irving Pichel on his previous film Happy Land, she was too happy to see him during the test in order to properly cry at first. During production, she had to wear a dental bridge after she lost two of her baby teeth.

Boycott
The film was boycotted in Aiken, South Carolina because Orson Welles mistakenly identified the town as the location of Isaac Woodard's blinding. In July and August 1946, Welles devoted five episodes of Orson Welles Commentaries to the brutal attack on Woodard. Aiken is near Batesburg-Leesville, South Carolina where the attack actually occurred. Welles' initial misidentification of the location led to protests and threats of lawsuits in Aiken, in addition to the boycott of his current film.

Reception
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times skewers the film as a "hackneyed and over-wrought telling of the Enoch Arden tale" in his review for The New York Times. He credits Welles with a "studied display of overacting" that distracts from the poor script. Crowther calls Woods' acting "meretricious", but concludes, "Irving Pichel has directed the film ponderously from Lenore Coffee's vacuous script. Tomorrow seems forever coming after an hour and a half of what goes on."

Writing for Turner Classic Movies, Jeremy Arnold observes: “Like so many melodramas of the time, the story may be preposterous, but it is lent compassion and sensitivity by a talented cast and crew.”

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 60% on the Tomatometer.