User Reviews

In the vein of CHEERS FOR MISS BISHOP, GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS and GOOD MORNING, MISS DOVE, Fox gave CLAUDETTE COLBERT and JOHN PAYNE a chance to show what they could do in another sentimental tale about the passage of time in a schoolmarm's life and her effect on faculty and students, as well as her remembrance of a lost love.

The good thing about REMEMBER THE DAY is it doesn't wallow in cheap sentiment the way some of the sudsers mentioned above had a tendency to do. Nor is it quite as cheerless. Instead, the script is bright and pleasant for most of the time, giving Claudette and John Payne a chance to create likable characters.

Like so many '40s romances, it's told in flashback as Claudette recalls her romance with football coach Payne at a school where both of them are teachers who never met before. Both have a natural charm that really comes across here with Claudette being the sort of dream teacher everyone should have--warm and thoughtful. And little DOUGLAS CROFT is excellent as her most promising student.

Of course, true love never does run smooth in these sort of things and soon a hint of scandal puts a damper on the Colbert/Payne romance when their moral conduct leads the school president to believe they spent the summer together violating school rules. Colbert rejects Payne's proposal of marriage at first, but later they do wed and he goes off to war.

ANNE REVERE is excellent as a prim and proper spinsterish teacher who misunderstands gossip about Colbert's romance. The period flavor is nicely captured but Alfred Newman's overly busy background score is a bit too schmaltzy for comfort, with old time songs constantly playing away in the background

With Payne joining the service (the Royal Canadian engineers), you know something has to happen to make it an ill-fated romance. Fortunately, the lighter side of the romance keeps the picture from falling into the bathos of many a tear-jerker, saving it from the fate of a film like CHEERS FOR MISS BISHOP.

Summing up: Well wrought sentiment nicely directed by Henry Koster with Colbert at her charming best and Payne as a promising newcomer.

This is a very nice little movie that showed Claudette Colbert and John Payne to great advantage as two young teachers who, in 1916, meet in a small mid-western town, teaching at a high school. They fall in love, and we watch the romance blossom into a marriage - the entire effect helped by the nostalgia of a by-gone, simpler era. Parallelling the story we have the story of a young boy that goes to the school and is taught by both Colbert and Payne.

The film is set up with it's heart (the romance) surrounded by a more recent story set in 1940, at the Republican Presidential Convention (a fictional version of the convention). Colbert is there to see the young boy student, who has now grown up. It is not until the film ends that we understand who she is visiting with. And it is not until the conclusion of the film that we get the bittersweet portion of the romance.

The film is very simple, and it's final element for success is that Payne and Colbert had terrific chemistry together. Ironically enough it would be their only film together (one wishes they had done a second film but that was not in the cards for some reason). Also ironically, it's total success should be compared with the comparative failure of TOMORROW IS FOREVER, wherein Orson Welles and Colbert both perform their roles well (in characters very like Payne's and Colbert's here) but lack the spark to make that trickier story more believable.

Claudette Colbert is a schoolteacher thinking about her past life in "Remember the Day," a 1941 film also starring John Payne, Shepperd Strudwick, Ann E. Todd, Jane Seymour and Anne Revere. As she waits to catch a glimpse of a former student, Dewey Peters, now running for President, Nora Trinell (Colbert) thinks back to 1916, when Dewey was a child in her class, and she had just met another teacher in the school, Mr. Hopkins (Payne). Dewey has a terrible crush on Nora, who sees his true worth right away; Hopkins is in love with her. Kay, a student in Dewey's class, is crazy about him, but Dewey is at an age where he doesn't want any girls around. Besides, he's in love with Nora.

Nora and Hopkins eventually marry secretly, and he signs up for World War I. Dewey is heartbroken when he sees them together. Before going away to prep school, Nora encourages him in his goals and tells him that he is like a son to her. At his request, she goes to see him off at the train, the same train her husband is on en route to battle. The last time we see her in the flashback, she is waving goodbye.

This is a very touching movie with some nice performances, particularly by Colbert, Payne, and Douglas Croft, who plays the young Dewey. The fashions don't look particularly of the period, and as usual, everyone is aged much more than the 25 years that are supposed to have passed. It is true that people look younger today at 50, partly because we fight aging and also because of a youthful attitude, as one of the reviewers states. I still think everyone looked too old, and that includes young Dewey's parents during the flashback, who looked like his grandparents. It's unusual for Twentieth Century Fox to have permitted any aging at all - Zanuck would barely let Tyrone Power have gray at the temples in films with long time spans.

Colbert was actually 9 years older than John Payne, but I was aware of it only because I knew it. She was cast opposite younger men more than once. She is very lovely in this, looking much younger than her 38 years. She really carries the film. Payne, a very well-built hunk, gives a wonderful performance.

The acting really uplifts this film as does the solid directing of Henry King. You may shed a tear or two - if you don't mind that, "Remember the Day" is well worth seeing.

Henry King has directed a nostalgic piece of great artistry that accurately evokes the World War One era in America. Claudette Colbert's wit and charm effectively offsets the potential sentimentality of the story, and handsome John Payne gives one of his finest performances as her love interest.

Lovingly photographed, Remember the Day is a charmer from start to finish.

A marvelous film in the genre of Miss Dove, Mr. Chips and every wonderful teacher you ever had.

The role was just perfect for Claudette Colbert. She really worked magic with co-star John Payne.

This picture really offers Americana circa 1916 in Indiana. The embodiment of the school structure at that time is so well done. The obedient student, the prim and proper schoolteachers who dedicated their lives to teaching and nothing else.

Nora Trinell (Colbert) is a dedicated, wonderful teacher but she goes against what society thought of as a role for teachers when she finds love with Payne.

The "crisis" that leads to his dismissal and his ultimate redemption on the part of the principal is beautifully done here.

For me, the picture was so good because Trinell reminded me of my grade 5 teacher who inspired me in the field of social sciences.

Colbert, as the teacher who found love and tragically lost it, has one of her best film roles here. A caring person to her students, especially Dewey, she certainly tells the truth when she says that each year a teacher finds a student who she can really love as her own. Those words will forever stay with me.

As the typical spinster teacher, Anne Revere, was wonderful. Prone to be a gossip, she embodied what society thought was the role of a teacher in this period.

The ending will tug at your heart. Nostalgic and so wonderfully realized.

Henry King did some masterworks: Stella Dallas, Tol'able David, Alexander Ragtime Band, Ramona, etc., but also some impersonal films (The Black Swan, King of the Kyber rifles, etc.). I think that "Remember the day" lays in between these categories, and I am a bit confused by its positive reviews in IMDb. First of all, there is no chemistry between Colbert and Payne. Here, Payne overacts and looks misplaced as a romantic hero (think of his character portrayed by Power or Fonda). We all think of Payne, instead, as the cynical heavy in the films of Phil Karlson or Allan Dwan. Besides, too much time and sugar is dedicated to the romance between he a she, and too little time to the love of the boy Dewey for his teacher, not to speak of the awkward and abrupt final scene and the horrible actor ¿John Shepperd? who portrays adult Dewey. The direction of Henry King is, except in that final scene, smooth and fluid as ever, but the problems of the film are Payne and the script. The character of Dewey, mainly adult Dewey, should had been more developed.

I've been trying to remember the name of this movie

for 30-40- years ,,, and found it tonight ! I've looked before but couldn't find it ..

i remember watching this on TV in the 50's and loved it and always thought about it .. the ending..was to me ..one of the Great movie endings..

the theme of " loyalty' ... is what always stuck with me .... and the people we've met in our life ...who we never forget...

thank you IMDb!!

REMEMBER THE DAY (20th Century-Fox, 1941), directed by Henry King, bears no connection nor is it a sequel to Paramount's comedy-drama, REMEMBER THE NIGHT (1940) starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray. Though it's not hard to confuse these similar movie titles, they are as different as night and day. For this production, starring Claudette Colbert, on loan-out assignment from her home-base of Paramount Pictures, it offers her an occasional opportunity to break away from her assortment of amusing comedies to something on a different level, that of a devoted school teacher with recollections of her past, and the one student who took part of those fine memories. After viewing REMEMBER THE DAY, there's no question it was a box-office success. Through the passage of time, however, the film has somehow slipped into obscurity, and quite undeservedly. Though many of the featured players, with the exception of John Payne, are not quite the marque names one would expect, the sole focus is on Colbert from start to finish, in a role worth remembering, even for just a day.

Set in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, June 25, 1940, the story opens with a front page newspaper spread reading, "National big-wigs arrive for Dewey Roberts banquet." Moments later, Nora Tindel (Claudette Colbert), a middle-aged schoolteacher, comes to the Mayflower Hotel where a crowd of people await for the guest of honor, the presidential candidate, Senator Dewey Roberts, who happened to be one of Miss Tindel's former students. After being escorted to a seat near the secret elevator where Dewey Roberts is to come out, the orchestra that had been playing to the popular Glenn Miller song, "Chattanooga Choo Choo," switches to Dewey's favorite song, "Back Home Again in Indiana." As Miss Tindel listens to the music, she recollects to the day she met the future senator, Friday, April 14, 1916, in the classroom of Auburn Grammar School in Indiana where she fills in for a Miss Fitch for the rest of the semester. Being a new teacher, Miss Tindel starts her career knowing her students, especially the somewhat rebellious Dewey Roberts (Douglas Croft), named after Admiral George Dewey of the United States Navy. Student and teacher first come to disagreement when Miss Tindel prepares on taking her class to the matinée of William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" followed by a picnic the very Saturday of the upcoming baseball game against Rome as coached by gym teacher, Dan Hopkins (John Payne). Eventually the conflicting events come to mutual terms, leading to a fine relationship between teacher and student and their interest and knowledge of ships (Miss Tindel, daughter of a sea captain, raised in the whaling colony of New Bedford, Massachusetts), and a romance that blossoms between Miss Tindel and Mr. Hopkins. After learning Nora and Dan spent the summer together at Willow Springs, Mr. Steele (Francis Pierlot), the school principal, makes demands on their dismissal. However, Dan resigns in order to have Nora retain her teaching position, a job she so loves. Later, Nora and Dan's secret marriage causes friction between the jealous Dewey and his favorite teacher. After a few more incidents depicted in Miss Tindel's life, and whatever became of her husband, the story moves forward to the present day as Nora awaits for her glimpse of Dewey Roberts, and a heartfelt conclusion not to be missed.

REMEMBER THE DAY, based on the play by Philip Higley and Philip Dunning, is a warm, sensitive story that plays with warmth and conviction. As much as the idea of teacher being reunited with former student now in public office might seem original, a little known gem titled GRAND OLD GIRL (RKO Radio, 1935) starring May Robson, consisted a similar concept but not the exact story. In it, Robson plays the elderly school teacher who's reunited with former student, the president of the United States. Though Shepperd Strudwick, credited as John Shepperd, gets third billing in the cast listing as the adult Dewey Roberts, much of the story belongs to Douglas Croft playing the same character at age 13. A natural child actor, best known for playing Lou Gehrig as a boy in THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES (1942), and George M. Cogan as a boy in YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942), whose character grows to become Gary Cooper and James Cagney respectively, he's not only given more to do here, but gives an excellent performance all around. The fact that Croft and Sheppard nearly resemble one another makes their characters even more passable. Another bonus that makes REMEMEBR THE DAY worth recommending is the close-to-accurate hair styles and clothing for its actors depicted in the 1916-17 era as opposed to some movies set in another time frame having its actors costumed in modern-day fashion. A worthy offering, especially from former school teachers with fond memories of their former students, especially one who stands out among the others, leaving one to wonder where are they now? Other members in the cast include Ann Todd (Kate Hill, a fellow student with a crush on Dewey); Frieda Inescort (Ann Hill, as a woman); Jane Seymour (Dewey's mother); Harry Hayden (Dewey's father); Billy Dawson (Steve Hill); George Ernest (Bill Tower, the hotel bellboy and former Miss Tindal student) Anne Revere (Nadine Price); among others.

Not shown regularly on commercial television since the 1970s, and never distributed to home video but available on DVD since 2013 by Cinema Archives, REMEMBER THE DAY did get the time of day with broadcasts on numerous cable channels, including Cinemax (1986), American Movie Classics (1991-92), Fox Movie Channel, and eventually Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: August 18, 2014). Henry King, an underrated movie director, through his fine direction, provides a first-rate production where its theme song, "Till We Meet Again" would have any first-time viewer thinking to one-self whenever REMEMBER THE DAY should be available for cable TV viewing again. (****)

I have long loved Claudette Colbert in films and am a bit surprised that she isn't more well known for her part in this terrific film. While naturally people tend to think of her from IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT and SINCE YOU WENT AWAY (two terrific films), it's a shame more people haven't seen REMEMBER THE DAY, as it offered a side to her that wasn't seen so often in films. Here, Colbert is both more sexual and less motherly than she usually seemed in films. Part of this is because her usual asexual hairstyle is gone and she seems to be more of a real woman with real needs and desires. Frankly, apart from her role in SIGN OF THE CROSS, it might just be the sexiest part she ever played. Now this does NOT mean that she was a slut or a loose woman--far from it. But she just seemed more approachable and warmer than in other films in which she appeared.

REMEMBER THE DAY is also a highly sentimental film about a beloved teacher who makes her mark on students. However, unlike films like GOODBYE MR. CHIPS and THREE CHEERS FOR MISS BISHOP, the focus in this movie is on the effect she had on one particular student--one who grew up to be nominated for President of the US. The sentimentality is strong but thanks to an excellent script, direction and acting, the film seemed more believable, less maudlin and more authentic than most films of the style.

In addition to wonderful work by Colbert, John Payne had one of his better performances and this is a film everyone involved should have been proud of making. A sweet old film that seems to be rather timeless--it's well worth a look.

This movie may seem old-fashioned today.Two teachers having an affair (this was also the subject of "these three" by William Wyler )causing a scandal ! These three are here a man,a woman and a boy;the movie begins when Claudette Colbert is an old teacher and the rest is a very long flashback ;it is interesting to notice there's something similar in a more recent work such as "Mr Holland's opus" in which a clumsy girl ,Holland's former pupil,becomes a senator.

More than a propaganda movie (WW1 and when the movie was produced WW2),this is a tribute to the teachers:Mrs Prinell is the kind of mistress every boy and girl would like to have (or would have liked to have).Her word reaches far when she tells Dewey he "stands out" but ,like any human being,he is on his own .Perhaps the ending is too good to be true and in real life people who make their way of life often forget the people who helped them along the way,but this is a wonderful ending:I love the moment when Deway mumbles "Mrs Trinell...Nora Trinell..." The boy writing "I beg your pardon" on the blackboard,the white Xmas ,the "auld Lang Syne" on the last day of the year and the train leaving the little town :we'll remember these days.

Claudette Colbert was always good no matter what kind of part she had to play, but although never funny she was always the perfect comedienne. Here she displays quite a different sort of character, and the moment she appears on the screen you are touched by her sincere melancholy. She plays a teacher, she has been a teacher all her life, she is about 60 when the film begins, and as she has to wait for the arrival of the public person she has come to catch a glimpse of, she recalls the days before the First World War (1916) when she found her husband, a colleague among the teachers at her school. She had very good relationships with her pupils, and one of them stuck out in particular, who actually became jealous of her becoming husband and almost became a rival of his in sending valentines. The film tells the story of these two lovers of hers, one her husband who never came back from the war (John Payne, very similar to James Stewart here,) and the boy, who eventually grew up to become a presidential candidate. The film is very sweet and warm, it's a heart-warming picture, it is well made with good music by Alfred Newman and well up to the best American standard of the time, and anyone could enjoy it for its genuine humanity bordering on sentimentality but never falling out of character. This kind of lovable Hollywood pictures were typical at the time, while the flair for this Hollywood sweetness got hopelessly lost by the war that broke out the year this film was made, 1941.

Turned to this channel and was very pleasantly surprised by this movie. I read all of the previous postings especially the one written by the young girl who talked about the style of dress for the characters. People did not dress as they do now. Today we have grandmothers running in pageants in swim suits. In 1941 any woman in her 50's would never put on such an article much less wear it in public. Further a woman who had been a schoolteacher would have held herself up to a very high standard of respectability and social standards and mannerisms. Many women today seem to debase themselves publicly for the sake of looking young and in the know.

If you look at the "gowns" worn by Colbert they are not correct for 1915-1916. True dresses of the period would have been much longer and a great deal dowdier. The one outfit where she is wearing fur trimmed coat and hat would have been impossible to buy in Indiana where the movie is set. Someone like Mary Pickford in New York might own something like that but never a 23 year old teacher in the Midwest. In fact the white, bowed dress is more appropriate for 1936-1937.

The tailored, cinched waisted suits worn by Payne are clearly 1940's. An average suit in 1916 would have looked more like a black bag hanging on him. His shirts would have high starched (celluloid) collar and cuffs that were removable and changeable. The body of the of the shirt would be washed once per week. But then Payne could have worn a black bag and still looked as delectable.

This begins at a political party convention in Washington, D.C., as candidate Dewey Roberts (Shepperd Strudwick) prepares to deliver his speech to accept his party's nomination for a U.S. Presidential bid, when his former schoolteacher, Nora Trinell (Claudette Colbert), arrives to attempt to capture a glimpse of and to offer a note of congratulations to one of whom she feels proud to have influenced during his formative years.

But the program experiences delay, as attendees and a national radio hookup await the arrival of Candidate Roberts, Miss Trinell reminisces of her arriving from Connecticut into a rural Indiana community back in 1915, to instruct her eighth-grade class, which includes three lively pupils: Young Dewey Roberts (Douglas Croft), Kate Hill (Ann E. Todd), and Peter (William Henderson), Nora detaining the three for misconduct after dismissal.

In the meantime, when Nora announces to her class a field trip to the park for a Shakespeare play this coming Saturday, Dewey reports that the school's baseball team has a scheduling conflict, asks to be excused, and runs down the staircase to report to his Coach, Dan Hopkins (John Payne), who decides to have a word with the adamant yet flexible Miss Trinell.

Nora and Dan resolve their differences for now before school Principal, Mr. Steele (Francis Pierlot), as the two instructors begin their secret courtship, beginning with an independent Nora's prioritizing career over romance, and soon jeopardizing each of their careers, as marriage is forbidden for a teacher, according to school policy mandates, in 1915.

Dewey's parents, Mrs. Roberts (Jane Seymour) and Mr. Roberts (Harry Hayden) demonstrate a liking to his caring instructor, as Nora delivers Dewey's assignments during his bout with a brief illness. Upon her visit, Dewey shows Nora the model boats, which his father has helped him to construct, as ship-making has become a common bond between the two from the onset (since Dewey and Peter argued about the brig, the bark and ship rigged vessels, which, of course, Nora would correct, as her grandfather had been a Naval officer. Kate could not mind her own business during the debate, and had something to say about it, which is the reason as to why she had been detained that day.)

Well, fellow instructor Miss Nadine Price (Anne Revere) shares residence at a boarding house with Nora and serves as her confidante of sorts although Nora keeps her mounting feeling about Dan to herself for the most part. Dewey, by now, also admires Nora greatly and dismisses any notion that Nora and Dan are weak enough to fall for each other.

Nora completes her partial term of the academic year to vacation for the summer with Nadine and other female instructors at a resort, at which Nora expresses a lack of interest in playing croquet with Nadine or lounging with the other ladies, so when Dan drives by to rescue Nora, they decide to elope in secret, and to spend the remainder of the summer at a different resort, from whence they each send Dewey a postcard featuring the sailboat, "The Mabel."

Later in the autumn, when Dewey shows Principal Steele the postcards to prove his point after another argument with Peter, Mr. Steele puts two and two together to confront Dan Hopkins, who secretly sacrifices his career to permit Nora to stay on at her post, and so he enlists in the Service and receives his orders to sail to France.

Seasoned with a nice touch of nostalgia, Nora and Nadine light wax candles upon the Christmas spruce, as the boarding house rings in New Year 1916. Dan stops by for a visit, to stroll around the town square with Nora, before his train arrives to deliver him to the docks to sail to France before the U.S. enters WWI.

Eventually, Nora transfers from Indiana to a school in Washington, D.C., at which she teaches for the remainder of her career, and garners additional classroom alumni who attend the gathering for Candidate Dewey Roberts. But amid all of the pressure of facing a national audience, will Dewey also "Remember the Day?"

This also features Frieda Inescort as Mrs. Dewey Roberts, Marie Blake as Miss Cartwright, Selmer Jackson as Graham, William Halligan as Tom Hanlon, and Chick Chandler as Mr. Mason the Reporter.

And the film is released on Christmas Day, 1941, soon after the U.S. enters WWII, to reaffirm sentimental values of patriotism through the eyes of dedicated adults and youths alike.

The depiction of the characters being dramatically more "aged" than we'd expect today is not an error. In those days people DID age more... but more importantly, they looked older than our "seniors" of today. The thinking in those days was once you are an adult you act and look like one. It was an outdated attitude, true, but none the less, it is how they "thought". I remember my own mother at age 38 in the 60s acted like a woman of 70 would act today...and also the way she "looked" as well. I remember my older relatives of the 60s wouldn't get on a bicycle because it was for "kids". That was an ignorant way of thinking, but it was how they thought. This movie was right on for the times. Sometimes you have to be more open to "others" views of things before you draw a conclusion and form an opinion that you state on this website.