Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)

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Make Way for Tomorrow (1937) – L. McCarey

An obvious influence on Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953), Leo McCarey’s film also shows the sad plight of elderly parents who realize that they cannot rely on their adult children.  In this case, Beulah Bondi and Victor Moore have had their house foreclosed on by the bank and must move out; this is the Depression, after all, and a number of the men in the film are also out of work.  This becomes an excuse justifying the decision not to take the parents in.  Instead, the couple is split up – after 50 years of marriage – and sent to separate houses.  Bondi slowly drives son Thomas Mitchell’s family crazy with incessant talking and good-natured meddling. Moore is also in the way in daughter Cora’s house.   Eventually, the kids plan to send him to California (where another daughter lives) and to put her in a nursing home for women.  Before they part again, the parents are allowed one last day in New York City, where they revisit the locations of their honeymoon decades earlier.  Yes, it’s a real tearjerker but the moments feel authentic and McCarey gives Bondi and Moore room to react to and reflect on their situation.  The adult children (and teen granddaughter) are also treated humanely.  The end result, as in Ozu’s film, is a profound condemnation of a society that does not value its elders, even as it leaves you feeling that every individual “has their reasons”.  A humanistic classic that resonates even more as we age.