It Happened Tomorrow Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

It Happened Tomorrow Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 21, 2021

Trivia lovers who keep track of the comings and goings of various offerings on broadcast television may remember a series called Early Edition that aired for four seasons on CBS from 1996 to 2000. Early Edition featured Kyle Chandler as a kind of hopeless shlub (albeit one with matinee idol good looks) who rather mysteriously starts getting the next day's paper delivered to him 24 hours or so in advance, which then allows him to help various folks whose trials and tribulations have been disclosed in various articles "from the future". The series is credited as having been created by a trifecta of guys named Ian Abrams, Bob Brush and Patrick Q. Page, but some "inquiring minds" might wonder if one or all three of these men had stumbled across the 1944 fantasy It Happened Tomorrow, since it offers exactly the same conceit. Kind of weirdly, It Happened Tomorrow also offers an aggregation of people in its writing credits, and some of the assignations are a little odd in my not so humble opinion. In addition to a shared screenplay credit listing both Dudley Nichols and director René Clair, there's also an unusual mention of "originals" by Lord Dunsany, Howard Snyder and Hugh Wedlock. A further credit states the film includes "ideas" by Lewis R. Foster, whatever that means. (I don't typically include screenshots of the opening credits of a film, but I made an exception in this case, since this set of credits is kind of sui generis in my personal experience; see the "bonus" screenshot in position 21.) Lord Dunsany in particular seems to have been a rather interesting gentleman, holding the second oldest title in Irish peerage, and collaborating with the likes of William Butler Yeats, but I haven't been able to figure out what work of Dunsany's provided an "original" for this to be based on, a situation I also encountered vis a vis the other two men named above. That said, whoever came up with this idea probably could have created a bit of a stir for the creative team behind Early Edition, since the two properties share some similar aspects.

Underlying similarities aside, one central difference between Early Edition and the film currently under review is that It Happened Tomorrow actually takes place "yesterday", or, more accurately, yesteryear, since the bulk of the film plays out at the end of the 19th century and/or dawn of the 20th century (there's a passing comment about the upcoming presidential election between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan, but it's not made clear whether the reference is to 1896 or 1900). The first sequence actually details the golden wedding anniversary of Lawrence (Dick Powell) and Sylvia Stevens (Linda Darnell), where their gaggle of family has assembled in their rather luxe mansion to fete them with song and accolades. Unfortunately, the couple is having a little squabble, as Larry wants to finally tell his children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren about a "miracle" he experienced when he was a young man. Sylvia is against it, and in fact the film never actually shows Larry disclose the information to his family, instead just segueing into the flashback which provides the bulk of the film's running time.

Larry is a cub reporter who has been tasked with writing obituaries. The paper's archivist, Pop Benson (John Philliber) goes on a metaphysical rant in the office about the illusion of time, pointing to volumes of papers from years ago and saying that if someone showed up at some date early in any given volume, they'd then be able to forecast the "future" based on papers later in the volume. Larry is kind of passingly intrigued and jokes with Pop that he'd love to get tomorrow's paper today in order to finally get some scoops to his name. When Pop kind of diaphanously shows up later that night and hands Larry a paper, Larry doesn't think much about it and just shoves it in his suit jacket pocket. The next morning at a diner, a friend of his asks to look at it, and Larry tells him it's last night's edition, but the friend quickly shows Larry it's actually today's paper, and that it in fact has an article about a freak snowstorm that begins just as the two guys are reading about it. A couple of other articles, including a help wanted ad, finally wake Larry up to the fact that he's been given an opportunity to peek into the future.

In the meantime, Larry has gone to a show featuring a mind reader named Oscar Smith (Jack Oakie, doing some kind of "ethnic" accent), who works in tandem with his niece Sylvia (the aforementioned Linda Darnell). Suffice it to say that Larry is instantly enamored of Sylvia, and maybe in an attempt to impress her, takes her to an opera house that he's already read will suffer a robbery that evening. The robbery of course takes place, but perhaps unsurprisingly, Larry himself becomes a suspect since he seems to have known all of the events beforehand. That part of the story is kind of a diverting red herring, since little really ever comes of it, with the actual narrative moving on to Larry meeting Pop again in the middle of the night and snatching yet another paper out of Pop's hands, with the idea that Larry can cash in at the race track tomorrow and have enough moolah to set him and Sylvia up for life. Unfortunately for Larry, he reads a front page story detailing the killing of the paper's star reporter — Larry Stevens.

There are a number of kind of glaring inconsistencies in the storytelling here, including a rather quick transition on the part of Sylvia in terms of how she feels about Larry, and what would seem to be a whole unspoken element with regard to Larry's illicit racetrack profits, which one assumes helped to buy that luxe mansion seen in the opening scenes of the film. And with regard to the horse betting, one might also think that the police, who have been tailing Larry due to his seeming foreknowledge of the opera house robbery, would be a little suspicious of a guy raking in tens of thousands at the racetrack. Some of these illogicalities, aside, though, It Happened Tomorrow has some of the same elegance as Clair's best work. Powell and Darnell are perhaps surprisingly well matched, but Oakie's characterization might best be thought of as cinematic kitsch.

It Happened Tomorrow Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

It Happened Tomorrow is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Film Collection, an imprint of Cohen Media Group, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. The back cover of this release states this was sourced from a 4K scan, and the results are really lustrous a lot of the time. Contrast is impressive almost all of the time, with great fine detail levels on things like the fine checkered pattern of Larry's suit jacket or some of the paraphenalia adorning the costume of Sylvia in her guise as an ostensible clairvoyant. There are just a couple of kind of curious and short-lived degradations in image quality, aside and apart from expected issues during things like optical dissolves. Grain looks natural and resolves without issues throughout the presentation.

It Happened Tomorrow Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Unfortunately, the LPCM 2.0 Mono track on this release does show some noticeable crackle and distortion in some musical moments, notably the very opening seconds of the film and, later, the first scene with the family singing. Those issues aside, dialogue actually is presented without any major problems whatsoever, aside from that questionable decision on accent on the part of Jack Oakie (that's a joke). Optional English subtitles are available.

It Happened Tomorrow Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (HD; 1:01) is one crafted by Cohen Film Collection, not a vintage original trailer.

It Happened Tomorrow Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It Happened Tomorrow is an engaging fantasy that offers some of the same whimsy that Clair's I Married a Witch does. I have to say I was completely struck by John Philliber's performance here, and in my estimation he kind of walks away with the picture. While audio has some issues, video is great looking. Recommended.