Make Way For Tomorrow On DVD!

Out on DVD is Make Way For Tomorrow, a forgotten gem of a film. Director Leo McCarey's (The Awful Truth, An Affair To Remember) heartbreaking 1937 tale is about an older married couple (Beulah Bondi, Victor Moore) who lose their house to the bank and are separated and shuttled around to live with their children who don't really want them. Obviously an inspiration for Ozu's Tokyo Story, this was a commercial failure when it came out but was remembered well by critics and directors. In a lovely extra on this Criterion DVD, Peter Bogdanovich recalls asking Orson Welles about Make Way For Tomorrow only to have him roar back: "Oh my God, that's the saddest movie ever made. It would make a stone cry!" It just is a truly exquisite film. A long sequence where the elderly couple wander through New York for probably their last hours together and return to the hotel where their spent their honeymoon is sheer perfection. It will rip your heart out, but boy is it great.