Make Way for Tomorrow (Leo McCarey, 1937)
Orson Welles once said that this devastatingly emotional Depression-era drama about aging and the gap between parents and children “would make a stone cry.”
35MM Print
Film/Video Theater
\One of the most memorable, human, and emotionally overwhelming films from the Hollywood studio system, Make Way for Tomorrow follows the struggles of an elderly couple who lose their home. They’re then forced to live separately, one with each of their children whose lives are too busy to have much time for them. Director Leo McCarey is best known for his screwball comedies (he won an Oscar for The Awful Truth, made the same year) and melodramas (An Affair to Remember), but with this film he’s created one of the most enduring films of the 1930s as well as the inspiration for Yasujiro Ozu’s beloved Tokyo Story. Bring tissues! (92 mins., 35mm)