User Reviews

Fell into this by accident and couldn't turn it off even though it was 1am ... great story if melodramatic but that's why we love Noir, right? Ruth Roman is wonderful as always and it was fun to watch how easily she turned that platinum blond helmet into brunette (in the motel bathroom) as well as her tough dance-hall girl demeanor into the kind hearted maternal woman! The ingenious ways in which they seemingly easily made their way from NYC to Northern California were fabulous ... Steve Cochran is sure easy on the eyes ... great story but the ending was such that all I could do was laugh! Everyone got what they wanted - including the turncoat!

While the movie does have some telegraphed plot lines like the Magazine that reveals the young couple while they are on the lam, and the movie does have a ending that some might not expect but that is still cliché, overall I found this to be a cute movie when I watched it on the Movie Network... And, yes there are unanswered questions like did the old couple get their money, did the old man recover, and where the lead couple went after he is freed, these are for our imaginations to play with and figure out for ourselves.... And, of course, though the movie was made in 1951 and the times are much different in 2019, some of the figures would have to be changed, the premise is still very real...And, I found the acting to be well done and definitely had some humorous lines and even some references to the times the movie was shot in such as the reference to Babe Ruth.....and of course those were times that folks were trying to make it by doing hard labor in the fields so even that feels right and we know that can be hard work.....I have become a fan of Film Noir and think this film is worth seeing especially as the talent is not from the A List but they still do a better job than some of the A-Listers probably would have with this material in my opinion...Check it out and make your own judgement....

Where do they get these generic titles from? "Another Dawn," "Tomorrow is Forever," "Guns of Darkness." This title, "Tomorrow Is Another Day," I would guess was ripped off from the last line of "Gone With The Wind." The producers reckoned that, by 1951, since "Gone With The Wind" had never been shown after its initial release, the last line, one of the most memorable, was buried somewhere in our collective unconscious. It probably rang the public's chimes but they couldn't identify the source.

Actually, it's a rather nifty B movie with a couple of endearing qualities and it's worth watching.

The writers did a good job of catching the tenuous quality of life on the run from the law. This isn't "They Live By Night" but it's in the same ballpark. Steve Cochran is an ex con and Ruth Roman becomes his moll. After an accidental but lethal shooting they leave New York and travel across the United States by stolen rides on boxcars and trucks, and by hitch hiking and walking. They come to earth in Salina, California at the start of the lettuce-picking season, and although the work is hard, they make a living and fall in love to the extent that they are married and Roman becomes pregnant. The experienced viewer of 1950s movies knows this mundane paradise can't last. The police finally catch up with them, but not to worry. It's not a tragedy.

The budget was from hunger. Yet the writers have managed to capture a lot of quotidian details. The couple first take flight to the house of Roman's brother in New Jersey. He's willing to put them up but his wife argues heatedly against it. Later, desperate for a ride, they climb aboard one of those trucks carrying half a dozen cars on its trailer, and a suspenseful scene follows in which they try to get the keys and open one of the cars where they can lie down and sleep. The lettuce scenes are out of "The Grapes of Wrath" but the pay is better.

It's not flawless. We first see Ruth Roman in a dime-a-dance place in New York, probably modeled on Roseland, where I once met a pretty girl ninety five years ago whose name I can still remember, Rose Brown. (Who could forget it?) Anyway, Roman is wearing a puffy platinum wig that's almost fluorescent. She speaks like a tart, or tries to. And she wheedles gifts and money out of poor Cochran, who doesn't know his way around because he's spent more than half his life in the Crowbar Hotel. She later reveals her brunettedness.

Well, I'll tell you. Ruth Roman is rather a dull actress, whatever the part, but least of all is she suited to the kind of role that might fit Marie Windsor or Gloria Graham. She's bourgeois. No getting around it. She was bourgeois in "Strangers on a Train" and she will always be bourgeois, except that here she sound like a bourgeois trying desperately to mimic a cheap whore.

And Steve Cochran -- a beacon for all of us who want to be Hollywood stars but lack talent. When he enters the frame, a gaping black hole appears and swallows up everything else.

But there is a good deal of tension throughout the movie, once you get used to Roman as a dance hall girl and Cochran as a morose ex murderer. Given the strictures of the plot, the dialog at times shows a certain keenness. The holes in the plot can be overlooked.

Ruth Roman (Catherine), Steve Cochran (Bill Clark), Lurene Tuttle (Mrs Dawson), Ray Teal (Mr Dawson), Morris Ankrum (Hugh Wagner), John Kellogg (Monroe), Lee Patrick (Janet Higgins), Hugh Sanders (Conover), Stuart Randall (Frank Higgins), Bobby Hyatt (Johnny), Harry Antrim (warden), Walter Sande (sheriff).

Director: FELIX E. FEIST. Screenwriters: Art Cohn, Guy Endore, based on the story "Spring Kill" by Guy Endore. Film editor: Alan Crosland Jr. Cinematographer: Robert Burks. Music director: Ray Heindorf. Music composer: Daniele Amfitheatrof. Art director: Charles H. Clarke. Producer: Henry Blanke.

Copyright 18 September 1951 by Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Holiday: 8 August 1951. U.S. release: 22 September 1951. U.K. release: 25 February 1952. Australian release: 14 March 1952. 8,174 feet. 90 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: After serving 18 years for the murder of his father, an embittered man of 31 falls in love with a prostitute and is involved in the shooting of a policeman.

COMMENT: Well written, neatly directed, competently acted and superbly photographed melodrama. Though there is very little action, the screenplay holds the interest, achieving its impact with sharply realistic dialogue and suspenseful situations.

OTHER VIEWS: This melodrama begins quite promisingly, with some neat observation of settings such as the shabby dance-hall and roadside cafés. But the material is unduly familiar — and the ending is unlikely. — Monthly Film Bulletin.

Very good film showcasing the acting talents of Steve Cochran and as the brassy blond in the first part of the film, Ruth Roman.

Rather than his usual tough persona, Cochran comes across quite well as the rather sullen convict leaving prison after 18 years for shooting his no good father. The film shows that he had missed the formative years of life while incarcerated.

Trouble seems to follow Cochran as he meets up with Roman, and he thinks he has killed her lover, a police officer.

The film deals with their adventures along the way. They wed under assumed names and eventually land in California, where befriended by a couple with a child. Cochran works hard on the land and the two settle down. Naturally, fate intervenes and the couple, through tragedy, are forced to tell who Cochran really is so as to collect the much needed reward money.

The ending may not totally satisfy our tastes as Cochran did actually wound another police officer, but we may be happy to see that he and Roman are given another opportunity at life.

Tomorrow is Another Day starts off as a hard-edged noir but halfway through begins to morph into romantic melodrama. By the final frame, we're treated to a full blown "happy ending," in contradistinction to the film's seemingly initial intent.

The leading man Bill Clark (Steve Cochran) has just been released from prison after serving time for 18 years for murdering his father when he was 13 years old (it's implied he's been in the same adult facility for the entire 18 years but wouldn't he have been first placed in a juvenile lockup until he became an adult?).

There's a very good scene in which Bill is befuddled walking around town following his release, unable to get used to the all the changes he sees after 18 years. He's then betrayed by a stranger who pretends to help him but turns out to be a newspaper reporter, who tricks him into revealing information about himself and then writes an article which is published in the next day's newspaper.

I doubt that many reporters would have done such a thing as most would fear some kind of retaliation; and indeed Bill does retaliate the next day by assaulting the reporter at his newspaper officer after reading the front page story that screams "Murderer released after 18 years!" Interestingly enough the reporter admits he deserved the beating and then refuses to press charges.

The scene in which Bill meets his temporary femme fatale Catherine Higgins, aka Cathy (Ruth Roman) is fascinating as it provides a window into the now defunct world where men bought tickets for a dime to dance with women for a minute at a time. I believe the women were called "taxi dancers." At this juncture, Cathy is a blonde and seems like she has little interest in going out with Bill, who has never been with a woman before due to being incarcerated for so long.

Somehow Bill ingratiates himself enough with Cathy that he ends up at her apartment where the break into the Second Act occurs: the shooting of Cathy's "landlord" (boyfriend?), Detective Conover (Hugh Sanders). It's Cathy who does the shooting after Conover knocks Bill out. The kicker is that Bill can't remember what happened and believes Cathy when she tells him that he's the one who shot the detective.

It's an exciting enough scenario and the couple's machinations once they're "on the lam" prove to be interesting (at least for a while). Especially the scene in which they hitch a ride on a trailer truck containing new cars (Bill is able to obtain the keys from the truck driver's glove compartment, which enables he and Cathy to enter one of the new cars and remain there until they arrive in California, after fleeing New York City where they were living prior to the shooting of the police detective).

The bulk of Act Two has the ex-con and the femme fatale suddenly morph into lovebirds and become "good citizens." Cathy's transformation into a pregnant homemaker-to-be occurs when she suddenly reveals herself to Bill as a brunette. The couple get married under assumed names and settle down in a run down community consisting of shacks owned by lettuce pickers. Bill is hired as a lettuce picker where he eventually earns his keep performing back breaking work. At this point, it feels we're watching a scene from The Grapes of Wrath, not a hard-boiled crime film.

All that's left basically is to find out how Bill and Cathy are found out-and that occurs when their neighbors, consisting of Bill's boss Henry Dawson (Ray Teal), his wife Stella (Lurene Tuttle) and their son Johnny (Robert Hyatt) become of aware of Bill's criminal identity through an article that features a photo of him in a pulp crime magazine. Stella initially doesn't want Henry to rat Bill out but changes her mind and informs the police after Henry's hurt in a bad car accident and a large amount of money is needed for a special operation that may or may not save his life.

The film has two more surprises: one good and one bad. The good one is when Cathy shoots and wounds Bill after he's about to shoot a police officer who has arrived to arrest him. The bad is the ending in which the DA back in NYC lets Bill and Cathy go free after it's revealed that Detective Conover confessed before dying that he was shot by Cathy while she was acting in self-defense.

Film noir expert Eddie Muller speculates that the ending was changed perhaps after a test audience indicated that they preferred a happy ending as opposed to the much more shocking one which he speculates to be that of Cathy actually killing Bill and then finding out afterward that both of them were going to go free.

Both Cochran and Roman are much better as embittered individuals who've had one too many hard knocks in life than what they later become (i.e. a couple of goody two shoes).

There's enough here to keep your interest but Tomorrow is Another Day is only half a noir-if you're expecting the full noir treatment with the tragic ending for a bitter ex-con and his femme fatale, you will decidedly be quite disappointed.