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I had originally planned to put on--but I could not find one--a shot of Beulah Bondi looking in on Victor Moore, seated on the train, as it pulls out of the station and they wave goodbye to each other, at the closing of "Make Way For Tomorrow," knowing full well they probably will never see each other again. I mean, if you think the farewell scene between Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones at the train station, in "Since You Went Away," was something, it has nothing on the scene from the 1937 film.
Which is why the scene is so heartbreaking, as is what leads up to it. But the DVD cover, in its own way, conveys the sadness of this film, one I cannot watch ever again, not only because it is so heartbreaking, but, as I age, it presses into all my fears.
Everything I have heard about the new film, "Love Is Strange," starring Alfred Molina and John Lithgow as an older gay couple, points to it being a gay version of "Make Way For Tomorrow." The film, and actors, have been lauded, and, after seeing Lithgow's 'Lear,' and knowing Molina's work, I am sure it is deserved and exemplary. But no one has tipped off the ending, which they say produces hankies. If it is as dismal and bleak as "Make Way For Tomorrow," I do not want to see that. Gays have enough problems without having to watch their inner anxieties dramatized for them.
No matter the orientation, the universality is there, as Japan proved when it redid the McCarey film in 1950 at "Tokyo Story." I have not seen that either.
So, I think I am going to skip "Love Is Strange." If anyone out there can tell me the ending produces some hope, I may reconsider. But I have enough anxiety of my own; I don't need drama to replicate it.
Times have changed since "Make Way For Tomorrow." So, I would like to think there is some hope!
2 comments:
You're so incredibly canny, RQ! It never occurred to me that the vaguely familiar plot outline of "Love Is Strange" was really just an updated gay spin on "Make Way For Tomorrow."
While this plot device pushes your buttons to the point you would be very uncomfortable watching it unfold, I am a glutton for such punishment. Having seen pretty much every one of my worst fears in life materialize, torturing myself via film is a form of therapy and emotional steeling. I have no illusions I won't end up like poor Lucy, so seeing this might help harden me to the probability.
Even if I didn't identify, I would pay to see this four times merely to protest the bizarre new obsession gay male couples have developed: that they aren't complete without at least two children.
Mary, please: get over yourselves. Str8 couples and lesbians are up to their necks in cultural conditioning that prepares them for childrearing, but they are failing miserably because no adult today under 40 has any clue what "adult" or "parenting" really means.
Yet today, every pair of queens playing house with two or three years together and a newly-minted marriage certificate thinks they're a "solid couple" mature enough to raise a family (and a divine duty to do so). R-i-g-h-t. Go ask Neil Patrick Harris or Kelli Carpenter how well that works out in practice.
While I hope "Love Is Strange" has a less-bleak ending than "Make Way For Tomorrow," if it doesn't I'll take solace in the fact of it being a cold dose of reality dumped on those annoying queens who pretend they're 1950s Loretta Young while their true personality is more akin to pre-code Loretta Young.
Those pre-code Lorettas had better watch out. You see this one, and tell me how it ends. Seeing Leo McCarey's brilliant film once was enough.
What makes gay couples think they can do any better with childrearing than straight parents? Don't they realize having straight children may be as confusing to them, as their having
been gay was confusing to their parents?
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