Customer Reviews

Beyond Tomorrow

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a little-known black and white movie that is, in many ways, a treasure. The story begins on Christmas Eve in a large city (NYC, I believe), with three elderly gentlemen business partners who prepare to spend Christmas Eve together. Alas...at the last minute the invited guests cancel. The three elderly men make a bet -- they take three gift wallets, placing a business card and $10 in each of them, and they toss the wallets out onto the street...just to see if anyone will return the wallet.

Needless to say, from this humble beginning two kind souls return the wallets, friendships are built, and even romance ensues.

The part I think is most interesting about the movie though, is that the story really does go "Beyond Tomorrow," following the elderly gentlemen and their opinions, interests, and concerns for their new friends, even beyond the grave -- in an uplifting way.

This is an extremely enjoyable movie. I encourage you to give it a look, especially if you are tired of watching the same line-up of Christmas specials and movies.

Top-notch holiday entertainment, though not quite in the same class as "It's a Wonderful Life" or "A Miracle on 34th Street"...both better known 5-star offerings.

Merry Christmas!

Alan Holyoak

With spring, a young man's fancy turns to love - and so I sought out a romance to watch. Of course, being me, I chose a nontraditional sort of romance, one involving ghostly matchmakers. Since my own love life (or lack thereof) would seem to require some sort of supernatural intervention itself, Beyond Tomorrow seemed like a perfect choice. This 1940 classic is actually a Christmas movie, truth be told, but there's no harm in watching it whenever you like. After all, a failure to keep Christmas in your heart throughout the entire year leaves you vulnerable to nocturnal visits from the spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.

Beyond Tomorrow tells a simple but touching story. It all starts with three older gentlemen who share the same house and work together running an engineering firm. Chad (C. Aubrey Smith) and Michael (Charles Winninger) are all business, working late on Christmas Eve, while George (Harry Carey) enjoys Christmas as a jolly Irishman should. When he learns that his invited guests are unable to join him and his friends for Christmas Eve dinner, George forestalls the two old fogeys' idea of heading out to the club by inviting two strangers for dinner. Each of the men sticks ten dollars and his card in a new wallet, pitches it out onto the snowy sidewalk, and waits to see if fate (and an honest heart or two) will bring any good deed doers to their door. Two out of three ain't bad, as a young Texan (Richard Carlson) and a charming young teacher (Jean Parker) end up joining them for dinner. The two young folks quickly fall in love, spending many a happy hour in the company of their three unassuming benefactors over the following few weeks. Even as they make plans for a lifetime together, however, they lose their three good friends in an airplane crash. And so it is that Chad, Michael, and George return home in ghostly form. And it's a good thing they do, as the young lovers soon face some rocky times, as new-found success as a singer and the attentions of another fashionable young lady turn the young Texan's head.

I'm a little surprised this film isn't more widely known, as it really does tell a wonderful story. The love story itself actually pales in comparison to the lives (and deaths) of the three older gentlemen. George's two friends gradually lose their crusty edges by the time their personal calls from heaven come, but it is the warm-hearted George (who, even as a ghost, cares more about the young lovers' happiness than his own eternal rest) that really steals the show and makes this such a should-be Christmas classic. A powerful performance by the wonderful Maria Ouspenskaya adds further emotion to a truly heart-warming story.

In this elaborately scripted fantasy, when three aging businessmen are unexpectedly left without guests on Christmas Eve, each tosses a wallet including a ten dollar bill from a window in hopes that someone honest will return one, and be asked to dinner, to make their holiday less lonely. Two of the three billfolds are returned, by a young man (Richard Carlson) and a young woman (Jean Parker) whose lives are acutely changed as they are welcomed not only to the table of the three gentlemen but also into their hearts and those of their two retainers (Maria Ouspenskaya and Alex Melesh). The young pair quite appropriately fall in love, only to have their beatitude marred when their sage benefactors die in a plane crash, but when the three promptly return to their town manse as apparitions, a bittersweet tale unfolds when Jimmy, the young man, falls prey to a siren (Helen Vinson) and the trio (C. Aubrey Smith, Charles Winninger, Harry Carey) in their belief that they will not be received in Heaven until they assist the lad in untangling himself from the vixen, set out to do so. After two of the spirits wend their way to Elysium, the last (Winninger) decides to remain within the shadow of Earth, swooping about while attempting to assist his young former charges with their romantic travails. All boils down to an eminently satisfactory ending, with fine work by those involved, including splendid editing by Otto Ludwig and top-drawer art direction by Stephen Goosson, while cast member Ouspenskaya, as a noble émigré from Russia, is especially effective in this amiable film.

Jean Lawrence (Jean Parker of Little Women) and Jimmy Houston (Richard Carlson) are two young lovers who meet and are helped along by three older gentlemen. When the three gents are killed in a plane crash, they return to their home in order to fulfill their unearthly destinies. Jimmy drifts away from Jean after becoming the latest singing sensation. He goes off with a young starlet whose jealous, gun-toting ex-husband is hot on their trail! Can the trio of ghostly friends intervene before it's too late? To complicate matters, two of the three are called to their final rewards, leaving only one spirit to assist the young couple! BEYOND TOMORROW also stars Maria Ouspenskaya (The Wolfman) as a russian woman with a heart of gold. A good old-fashioned story from a far less cynical time. Well worth owning...

This film is timeless in that it both charms and teaches.
Three old men with good hearts look for someone to celebrate Christmas with by throwing 3 wallets containg $[...] each into the street. A bet is made whether or not anyone would be honest enough to return them. Just as time was up and the bet over a young Texan rings the bell and returns the wallet. A few moments later a young woman returns another and the two fall in love. The three elderly gentleman have a tragic death after becoming close friends with the young couple. Their spirits return to their mansion where they set about helping the couple. One by one the elderly specters are called to their eternity until only one remains.
In my estimation no Christmas collection should be found without this warm hearted and sincere masterpiece of cinema.
I gave 5 stars for the movie itself, the dvd is somewhat lacking, without any special features and about half way through the movie, for a few seconds, there was a marked degradation of the transfer but only for a short time.
This is a personal favorite of mine and I hope that it will be to you as well.

Three old gentlemen, rich and engulfed in industrial adventures, come to their last Christmas. One of them engages the others into some social caper : to invite for their Christmas dinner and subsequent follow-up events the people who will bring back the billfolds containing ten dollars that they throw in the street. It is of course two rather poor and solitary people, a young man and a young woman, who do this whereas the third billfold is carelessly thrown away by a rich girl. Dishonesty is not the main quality of this selfish girl. Of course the young woman and the young man fall in love, but the young man is a singer and he gets into business rather fast and thus gets involved with a female star who is a shark and a vulture looking for men she can eat alive and raw. The young man falls into the trap. During that time the three old men meet with some mishap in a blizzard and they come back as ghosts, waiting for their being called on the road to some eternal fate. But one of them will look after the dramatically trapped young man and will eventually get his salvation, after him being killed by the previous husband of the cannibal star, and all will end well that started well and turned sour in the middle.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

My intention is to review the Westlake DVD, NOT the title itself--(too) many reviewers have already taken the time to do so; suffice it to say that I found it charming, extremely moving, and perfectly cast.
I don't know if there were ever any end credits for this film but there aren't any on this release. Worse, with the exception of the cast, there aren't any opening credits either--I'm taking Westlake's word for it that this film's title is actually "Beyond Tomorrow." Given that Fox has recently retitled (AND colorized, AND chopped) it, I have to wonder if the source material even exists. Whatever...the quality isn't very good, which is why I assigned so few stars to a film to which I'd normally assign 5 (I'm a big fan of Harry Carey and especially of C. Aubrey Smith).
The image is often very poor and frequently shows vertical white lines which I suspect are the result of splits in the film. Oddly enough, the audio isn't bad at all--a bonus considering the poor video quality. This is a shame because this really IS a lovely little film; as others have noted, only the beginning involves Christmas but I still intend to include it in my holiday repertoire.
In addition, don't be fooled into thinking this is comes in a keep case because it doesn't: it's packaged in a cardboard sleeve. There are no extras but at least there are chapters. The asking price at the time of this review, given the cheap packaging and poor quality, is an obscenity. It would seem that, excepting the aforementioned credits, this is Beyond Tomorrow in its entirety.
Bottom line: I loved the film, the release itself left me lukewarm. Highly recommended if you can get past the poor quality.

UPDATE (12/26/10): TCM ran Beyond Tomorrow on Christmas Eve and while I suspect something might have been missing (given that the music started during the titles that announce the restoration credits), there definitely WERE opening credits, including the title of the movie itself; it ran close to 1.5 hours and I didn't notice that it was missing any of the content on my DVD. Is anyone going to release a proper version of this wonderful little film?!

George Melton (Harry Carey), Alan Chadwick (Aubrey Smith), and Michael O'Brien (Charles Winninger) are rich lonely owners of an engineering firm invite two young strangers named James Houston (Richard Carlson), and Jean Lawrence (Jean Parker) to spend the Christmas eve with them and enjoy a luxurious meal at their Manhattan home. James is a singer from Texas falls in love with Jean instantly. The two date under the watchful eye of three gentlemen and also their housekeepers, Madame Tanya (Maria Ouspenskaya) and the butler Josef (Alex Melesh).

During a business trip, when the tragedy strikes for the three gentlemen, they perish in a plane crash but they return home to "manage affairs" as ghosts. In the meanwhile, Jim is discovered as a singing sensation and is being seduced by the married actress Arlene Terry (Helen Vinson). Jean is increasingly left alone while Jim pursues his career. The ghosts fail to save the day but the jealous husband finishes the job by shooting his wife and James. The movie has an interesting Christmas tone when the three rich men offer to entertain two ordinary people in their palatial home. There is lot of love, romance, comedy and tragedy, and still proves to be a wonderful Christmas classic: Highly recommended.

Smaller brand DVDs as this offer no commentary, deleted scenes or other bonus features. Dubs are "best available source" and can vary from very good to only fair.

BEYOND TOMORROW is a charming, yet nearly forgotten holiday movie that features spirits helping mortals several years before IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE or THE BISHOP'S WIFE. The main difference here is these ghosts, unlike angels sent to Earth in those later films, remain invisible to people they actually knew in life.

As described above, in "Beyond Tomorrow" three older men, business partners for years, spend a lonely Christmas Eve in their Manhattan mansion when dinner guests unexpectedly cancel on them. Allan (C. Aubrey Smith) and Michael (Charles Winninger) make a wager with curmudgeonly George (Harry Carey) that honest strangers will return found wallets containing ten dollars and one of their cards.

Three billfolds are tossed out a window onto a snowy sidewalk. George's is kept by a society dame, but the other two are soon returned by down-on-his-luck Texan James Houston (Richard Carlson) and Miss Jean Lawrence (Jean Parker). The young folks are treated to a sumptuous feast. Afterward, a band of wandering musicians is invited into the old gents' cozy den for an evening of festive song led by James, who has a lovely voice.

A strong bond is formed between hosts, guests and servants Madame Tanya (Maria Ouspenskaya), a former member of the Russian aristocracy, and Josef (Alan Melesh), who left Russia with her after the 1917 Revolution. Jean, Charles and the elders see each other often, they go bowling and do other fun things.

George, Allan and Michael are called out of town on business, and despite Madame's entreaties to travel by train, they fly out. Their plane crashes on a mountaintop in a storm. Soon after, the ghosts of the old fellows appear in their home. Madame feels their presence but can't see them.

In the second, more somber half of the story, our spiritual benefactors watch over their young friends as they go through personal problems. The script throughout is sentimental without being saccharine, serious but never lugubrious. "Beyond Tomorrow" has a fine cast that deftly tells an interesting story. It's a motion picture that should be seen by all. Highly recommended!

This is in black and white,what a fun sweet movie with a few lessons to be learned as well,we really enjoyed it. It is about 3 old men who want to see the hearts of people when they throw their wallets out on the busy streets Christmas eve to see it they come back,they do by one man and one woman. Do not want to spoil the rest of it,very enjoyable and do recommend. This could easily be remade.