It Happened Tomorrow (1944)
Directed by René Clair

Film Review

It Happened Tomorrow, the last but one film that the French director René Clair made during his productive stay in Hollywood in the 1940s, cheerfully revisits the fantasy theme of his previous comedies - The Ghost Goes West (1935), I Married a Witch (1942) - and has some similarity with his subsequent Faustian foray, La Beauté du diable (1950).  Although Clair was himself displeased with the film, it was a commercial success and met with some very favourable reviews on its release in Europe.  The director's penchant for comedy is very much in evidence in this, the liveliest (and possibly silliest) of his American comedies, and the originality of the story's madcap premise has prevented the film from ever growing stale.  It is a daft but slick comedy tour de force, perhaps the most enjoyable of René Clair's English language films.

The film was scripted by Dudley Nichols, who not only lent his talents to a number of classic Hollywood comedies - including Bringing Up Baby (1938) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) - but also worked with Clair's countryman Jean Renoir on two of his American films - Swamp Water (1941) and This Land Is Mine (1943).  The starting point, evidently, was a one act play by Lord Dunsany entitled The Jest of Haha Laba, although the story is also credited to Hugh Wedlock and Howard Snyder, the rights to which had previously been purchased by Frank Capra and later sold on to Arnold Pressburger, the producer of It Happened Tomorrow.

Dick Powell was obvious casting for the lead role, but Clair had originally conceived the part for Cary Grant.  At the time, Powell was keen to bury his juvenile persona and refashion himself as a tough guy, so by taking the lead in Clair's film he was burying part of himself.  Not many months after the release of It Happened Tomorrow, Powell would be virtually unrecognisable as the surly, stony-faced private eye Philip Marlowe in Edward Dmytryk's Murder My Sweet (1944).  Watching these two films back-to-back, you'd scarcely believe that the male lead was one in the same actor.  Powell's unstintingly ebullient performance in Clair's slapstick-laden film is one that would have gained him easy admission to a Marx Brothers' film - he was a natural vaudevillian.

Linda Darnell doesn't just provide the requisite glamour, she also gets to show her comedic flair in a few notable scenes, although the bulk of the comedy support is shouldered by the affable Jack Oakie, who looks scarily like a comicbook version of Peter Ustinov.   There's also a nice turn from John Philliber, who is equally memorable as the Mephistophelian Pop Benson, a creepier version of Henry Travers' angel in Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946).  As great as the supporting performances are, the star of the film still has to be its leading man, who, having presumably entered into some diabolical pact with his director, throws just about everything he has into what is probably the funniest film of his career.  Having made up his mind to give his screen image a total makeover, Dick Powell could afford to go way, way over the top, and this he does - like a man determined to kick the clown habit for good.

Film Synopsis

In America in the 1940s, Larry and Sylvia Stevens are preparing to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary when Larry insists on letting the world know of the bizarre turn of events that led to their happy union.  Fifty years ago, Larry was earning a modest crust writing obituaries for The Evening News, although he hankered after becoming a serious journalist.  If only he knew the future, he would become a star reporter in no time.  Miraculously, this is what happens when an elderly colleague of his, Pop Benson, runs into him one night and gives him a copy of the next day's evening paper.  The paper contains an article that Larry apparently wrote (or, rather, will write) reporting an armed hold-up at the opera.

Wondering if it is really possible to know the future, Larry visits the theatre to watch an act by the supposed clairvoyant Cigolini and his niece Sylvia, to whom the obit writer takes an immediate shine.  Accompanied by Sylvia, Larry attends the opera recital which is due to be disrupted by the hold-up and is surprised when the crime takes place exactly as his newspaper report described.  Larry's fore-knowledge of the hold-up causes the police to think he is in league with the criminals and, to clear his name, Sylvia reveals it is she who has the gift of foresight - and promptly confirms as much by predicting the suicide of a young woman. 

Alerted by a second as yet unpublished newspaper from Pop Benson with the next day's news, Larry comes to Sylvia's rescue after she jumps into the river, and convinces the police of his innocence by revealing the exact time and place where the perpetrators of the opera heist will be arrested.  Seeing an easy way to get rich quick so that he can marry Sylvia, Larry begs Pop Benson to give him one more glimpse into the future.  It so happens that the newspaper that Benson supplies him with contains a list of a racetrack winners.  By betting on each horse in turn, Larry realises he can amass a colossal fortune.  But knowing the future isn't always a good thing.  The front page of the newspaper brings news of Larry's imminent demise...