Ambitious reporter in old New York begins to receive tomorrow's paper today, and tempts fate: A pleasant premise for a '40s fantasy, with elegant Rene Clair direction, and your appetite's set for evocative mid-century whimsy. But the modest independent production looks pinched, and the scriptwriters haven't thought their intriguing situation through. Why does Dick Powell (not very interesting here) read only the headlines, instead of perusing the future-predicting stories to really understand what's going to happen? Is the giver of the paper alive, dead, or both? Why employ a flashback construction, which robs the plot of whatever suspense (will the reporter cheat death or not?) it may have? Why give Linda Darnell, the lovely leading lady, nothing to do? A thoroughly conventional, though Oscar-nominated, score doesn't help, and Jack Oakie, as Darnell's vaudeville partner, provides what little energy there is.
Review of It Happened Tomorrow
