User Reviews

Director: JOHN M. STAHL. Screenplay: Dwight Taylor. Based on the novel Modern Cinderella by James M. Cain. Photography: John Mescall. Film editor: Milton Carruth. Art directors: Martin Obzina, Jack Otterson. Set decorator: Russell A. Gausman. Costumes: Orry-Kelly. Music: Charles Previn, Frank Skinner. Assistant director: Joseph A. McDonough. Uncredited script contributors: Herbert J. Biberman, Aben Kandel, Charles Kaufman, John Larkin. Irene Dunne's gowns: Howard Greer. Gowns: Vera West. Music director: Charles Previn. Sound supervisor: Bernard B. Brown. Sound engineer: Joe Lapis. Producer: John M. Stahl.

Copyright 16 August 1939 by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. New York opening at the Rivoli, 16 August 1939. U.S. release: 11 August 1939. Australian release: 28 September 1939. 10 reels. 92 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: What Irene Dunne doesn't know is that concert pianist Boyer is married.

NOTES: Academy Award, Sound Recording (beating Balalaika, GWTW, Goodbye Mr Chips, The Great Victor Herbert, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Man of Conquest, Mr Smith Goes To Washington, Of Mice and Men, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex and The Rains Came).

Re-made as Interlude in 1957, and again as Interlude in 1968.

COMMENT: Lavishly produced romantic melodrama with some marvelous special effects and fascinating backgrounds that will keep male interest alive while the womenfolks weep into their lace-edged handkerchiefs.

The film's main drawback is Irene Dunne. Wearing ghastly costumes and unbecomingly groomed, Miss Dunne looks about as glamorous as an old dish-mop.

Fortunately, the rest of the cast is fine: Boyer charmingly elegant, and a fine study in madness from Barbara O'Neil.

A lesser defect is that the script starts us off with a militant union and strike background ("Solidarity forever/For the union makes us strong!") and then darts off at a tangent for the hurricane episodes and the mad wife. These occupy most of the film and when we finally get back to the strike, it is called off in a most perfunctory and dramatically unsatisfactory fashion!

John M. Stahl's direction has flair and other production credits are equally polished.

Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne star in "When Tomorrow Comes," a 1939 film directed by John Stahl and based on a story by James Cain. Cain sued for copyright infringement, stating the scene in the church was stolen from his story "Serenade" but he lost.

Helen and Philip (Dunne and Boyer) meet when she waits on him in a restaurant. She learns later he's a famous concert pianist. The waitresses are planning to strike; Philip appears at the meeting and is impressed by her speech.

The two make a date to meet, and he takes her out on his boat, then to his Long Island home - where they meet the famous 1938 hurricane and wind up stranded in a church. When the hurricane passes, the two must face the tumult in their lives.

This is a sweet film. It does not have the scope of the Dunne/Boyer Love Affair, and the story is predictable (as was Love Affair). As they proved in their previous film, Boyer and Dunne have wonderful chemistry and warmth. Boyer must have been an interesting guy - the great screen lover who never, ever wore his toupee when he wasn't making a movie. Neither he nor the very private Dunne ever let Hollywood get the better of them.

Scarlett's mother, Barbara O'Neil, has a small but showy role.

Good movie.

...and I did like some aspects of the film. But overall, this film just seemed to stray off course a few times too often.

At the beginning of the film, an inordinate amount of time was spent on the wait staff's union business. It was an okay place to start, but it went on so long that it cheated us in terms of the real meat of the plot. Some dialog here and there actually made me stop and think, "Gee, that was dumb". And then the ending...I found it totally unsatisfactory (was that a code consideration?).

On other hand, I like Irene Dunne, although I didn't like her here as much as I usually do. To me, she doesn't come across as well as a lowly waitress as well as she came across in more somewhat upper class films such as "The Awful Truth" (with Cary Grant). Recently I've been taking a second look at Charles Boyer and I've gained more respect for his acting than I once had. He's really very good here.

I give the film high marks for the special effects. Special effects in a love story? Yes, the hurricane is done quite nicely for 1939, and the scene in the flooded church is nicely done.

I watched this film on TCM, and this was one of the worst prints I've ever seen them present. Of course, that's not the film's fault, but this is one picture that desperately needs to be restored.

The star-crossed couple from "Love Affair" (Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne) are reunited in the same year's "When Tomorrow Comes", I know K women's picture that starts off with like comedy, switches into a disaster film and then ends on a soap opera note. The two meet when Boyer sits at a crowded lunch table in the cafe where Dunne works, preparing to lead her co-workers on strike for unfair treatment. After convincing done and fellow waitress Nydia Westman that he is not a company spy, Boyer sneaks into their union meeting then takes Dunne out on a trip to Long Island where a torrential storm leaves them stranded. When they returned to town, Dunne learns that boy has a mentally ill wife (Barbara O'Neill) who has no intention of letting her husband go. How will a woman of Dunne's high moral character deal with the possibility being a backstreet mistress? The same way she did in 1932? Or the same way that Margaret Sullivan would 2 years later in the remake of that 1930 to version of "Back Street", ironically co-starring opposite Boyer.

While enjoyable in the first half as a light comedy, the change in moods makes it a perplexing film and ultimately hard to fully recommend. Of course, Boyer and Dunne have outstanding chemistry, receiving a claim for the same years "Love Affair". Like that classic, this also had a 1950's remake, "Interlude", starring June Allyson and Rossano Brazzi. Like this film, it too is pretty much forgotten, while the original "Love Affair" and its remake ("An Affair to Remember") are considered classics and still popular today. The background score of this film is beautiful to look at with its lush sound and dramatic effect. Supporting performances are good, and it's interesting to see O'Neill, having played the understanding second wife in "Stella Dallas", Scarlett O'Hara's mother in "Gone With the Wind", and of course her Oscar-nominated performance as Boyer's even more bitter wife in "All This and Heaven Too". It's unfortunate that the script never knows what it wants to be, so I must refer to it as "The Three Faces of Love" due to its obvious split personality.