It Happened Tomorrow (1944)
What might superficially seem simply like a forgettable, light fantasy comedy is in fact a very clever time travel story.
Unfairly, the film doesn’t get much discussion today probably because no flashy science-fictional hardware is involved, (Michael Wheldon doesn’t even mention the title, John Stanley devotes one sentence in an early guide and doesn’t mention at all it in his updated edition); and in fact, it’s not science fiction at all; its time travel element is of supernatural origin.
The film also does not involve people traveling thru time, at least not overtly, (other than in the normal sense of everyone from the present travelling simultaneously into the future or because its story is told in a flashback,) and it is instead related to stories like Murray Leinster's The Doctor's Case where the importance is placed not so much even on the physical object traveling thru time, but rather that on the information it contains, (in Leinster’s case, future medical science.)
What’s strange to me is that flashier, better known and beloved time travel films are allowed to commit unforgivable faux pas, (George Pal’s immoveable time machine should not disappear, and instead should simply appear to merely freeze in time to people of the present; Biff Tannen should not be able to return to an alternative universe he’s just destroyed and which no longer exists, etc.) that in this case is limited to an All You Zombies-styled, (but AFAIK still science-fictionally valid,) paradox where the information contained in an article has no possible explained origin; it exists in its own time loop, but ultimately comes from nowhere, (aside from the problematic nature of the joke, this is also a situation occurring in Back to the Future.)
A newspaperman wishes he could have tomorrow’s newspaper and gets it, without realizing his wish has come true until its nearly too late for it to be useful. In fact, predicting a crime gets him in trouble with the law, as the only logical explanation is that he is an accomplice.
And this is just the beginning…
Interestingly, the film features a mind-reading, prognosticating act which is revealed to be a trick without explaining its Nightmare Alley-styled details as a reality-based contrast to the film’s fantasy future foretelling element.
Our protagonist not only has initial difficulty identifying and believing the miracle (and wasting valuable time in the process) until sufficient proof (of a kind) surfaces, but also finds himself in a Cassandra-like dilemma: he can tell the future (or as much of it as is detailed in the miraculous articles in his possession, articles which may contain errors!) but no one will believe him.
One fun, race-against-time aspect is that the predictions come with a deadline, the displaced-in-time newspaper is only good to the point in time that the issue comes out. Once that happens, all evidence of any miracle dissipates into the ordinariness of any other piece of daily newsprint. Time, and running out of it, are all important which, smartly, contributes to an always present sense of urgency.
The film is funny when it could have been much funnier, and exciting when it could have been even more so; but that’s not where its value is. What should be of interest to time travel or science fiction fans today, or fans of short fantasy pulp stories of this type (Weird Tales, and such) is how ingenious and carefully constructed it is.
I could be mistaken, but a couple of aspects which might have also inspired George Pal’s version of The Time Machine are its structure and the fact that it’s a period piece when it needn’t have been one, (though, because it's set in the past, some funny predictions we know didn't quite happen that way!)
This film should be better regarded as a genre offering.
With Dick Powell, Linda Darnell, Jack Oakie and Edgar Kennedy.
Check it out on Blu-ray, it looks and sounds great.
What might superficially seem simply like a forgettable, light fantasy comedy is in fact a very clever time travel story.
Unfairly, the film doesn’t get much discussion today probably because no flashy science-fictional hardware is involved, (Michael Wheldon doesn’t even mention the title, John Stanley devotes one sentence in an early guide and doesn’t mention at all it in his updated edition); and in fact, it’s not science fiction at all; its time travel element is of supernatural origin.
The film also does not involve people traveling thru time, at least not overtly, (other than in the normal sense of everyone from the present travelling simultaneously into the future or because its story is told in a flashback,) and it is instead related to stories like Murray Leinster's The Doctor's Case where the importance is placed not so much even on the physical object traveling thru time, but rather that on the information it contains, (in Leinster’s case, future medical science.)
What’s strange to me is that flashier, better known and beloved time travel films are allowed to commit unforgivable faux pas, (George Pal’s immoveable time machine should not disappear, and instead should simply appear to merely freeze in time to people of the present; Biff Tannen should not be able to return to an alternative universe he’s just destroyed and which no longer exists, etc.) that in this case is limited to an All You Zombies-styled, (but AFAIK still science-fictionally valid,) paradox where the information contained in an article has no possible explained origin; it exists in its own time loop, but ultimately comes from nowhere, (aside from the problematic nature of the joke, this is also a situation occurring in Back to the Future.)
A newspaperman wishes he could have tomorrow’s newspaper and gets it, without realizing his wish has come true until its nearly too late for it to be useful. In fact, predicting a crime gets him in trouble with the law, as the only logical explanation is that he is an accomplice.
And this is just the beginning…
Interestingly, the film features a mind-reading, prognosticating act which is revealed to be a trick without explaining its Nightmare Alley-styled details as a reality-based contrast to the film’s fantasy future foretelling element.
Our protagonist not only has initial difficulty identifying and believing the miracle (and wasting valuable time in the process) until sufficient proof (of a kind) surfaces, but also finds himself in a Cassandra-like dilemma: he can tell the future (or as much of it as is detailed in the miraculous articles in his possession, articles which may contain errors!) but no one will believe him.
One fun, race-against-time aspect is that the predictions come with a deadline, the displaced-in-time newspaper is only good to the point in time that the issue comes out. Once that happens, all evidence of any miracle dissipates into the ordinariness of any other piece of daily newsprint. Time, and running out of it, are all important which, smartly, contributes to an always present sense of urgency.
The film is funny when it could have been much funnier, and exciting when it could have been even more so; but that’s not where its value is. What should be of interest to time travel or science fiction fans today, or fans of short fantasy pulp stories of this type (Weird Tales, and such) is how ingenious and carefully constructed it is.
I could be mistaken, but a couple of aspects which might have also inspired George Pal’s version of The Time Machine are its structure and the fact that it’s a period piece when it needn’t have been one, (though, because it's set in the past, some funny predictions we know didn't quite happen that way!)
This film should be better regarded as a genre offering.
With Dick Powell, Linda Darnell, Jack Oakie and Edgar Kennedy.
Check it out on Blu-ray, it looks and sounds great.
statistics: Posted by hermanthegerm — 6:36 PM - Today — Replies 4 — Views 97