Stubs - Tomorrow is Another Day

Tomorrow is Another Day (1951) Starring Ruth Roman, Steve Cochran, Lurene Tuttle, Ray Teal. Directed by Felix E. Feist. Screenplay by Art Cohn, Guy Endore. Produced by Henry Blanke. Run time: 92 minutes. USA. Black and White. Melodrama, Romance, Film Noir

For some reason, Ruth Roman didn't strike me as the type of actress I would expect to see in a film noir, so when TCM's Summer of Darkness highlighted her in one several years ago, I was intrigued enough to record it for future viewing. I will admit I was glad I did, but sorry I waited so long to actually watch it.

Having served eighteen years in prison for killing his father, Bill Clark (Steve Cochran) is now a free man. Now 31, he had been sent to prison at the age of 13. Rather than heading far away as he can, Bill decides to return to his nearby hometown.

So much has changed for the town and for Bill. He notices the new cars and he notices women. He also indulges himself with three pieces of pie and a beer, the latter he doesn’t like. Since his release, Bill has been followed by a man who finally makes himself known. Dan Monroe (John Kellog) befriends Bill. When he learns Bill is a welder, he drives out to a company hiring welders. Bill is almost certain to get the job, too. But his celebration is short-lived when he sees a report in the newspaper about his release. Turns out Dan was a newspaper reporter out to get a scoop.

Just out of prison, Bill Clark (Steve Cochran) almost gets arrested.

Angry, Bill goes down to the paper and punches out Dan for his betrayal. When a policeman starts to arrest Bill, Dan insists that he let him go, saying that he deserved what he got.

In New York City, Bill meets taxi dancer Catherine (Ruth Roman).

With nowhere else to go, Bill buys a ticket to New York City. Looking for some sort of contact, Bill goes into a taxi dance hall and develops a crush on a platinum blonde taxi dancer, Catherine (Ruth Roman). He uses all of his tickets to talk to her and when she asks for a present to keep her attention, he goes and buys her a watch.

Bill makes a clumsy attempt to kiss her and Catherine throws the watch in his face. But he manages to talk her into showing him New York City in exchange for it.

They spend the next day together and Catherine starts to like Bill; he already does her. Since he has no place to go, she invites him up to her apartment while she gets ready for work. But waiting in there is George Conover (Hugh Sanders), who doesn’t cotton to having Bill in her apartment. Things start to get rough and George pulls a gun.

Bill gets the gun, but can't bring himself to use it.

With Catherine’s help, Bill manages to get it away from him, but holding a gun again is almost too much for him. He sort of blanks out remembering shooting his father. George takes advantage of Bill and knocks him out. He then turns his attention to Catherine, who accidentally shoots George. Wounded, George grabs his things and leaves, catching a cab down on the street.

Scared, Catherine packs her things and leaves. After borrowing $50 from Bill, she gives him her brother’s address in New Jersey and flees.

Against his wife Janet Higgins' (Lee Patrick) wishes, Catherine's
brother Frank (Stuart Randall) loans his car to her.

Bill goes back to his room and reads in the paper that the police are curious about how George got shot. Turns out he’s a policeman. Panicked, Bill takes a taxi to New Jersey and confronts Catherine there. Her sister-in-law Janet Higgins (Lee Patrick) wants her brother Frank (Stuart Randall) to throw them out. Against Janet’s wishes, Frank loans them his car and they promise to leave it nearby.

Bill and Catherine stow away in a car being transported across country.

Bill can’t drive and is uncomfortable with how fast Catherine is driving. He gets an idea and has her follow a truck hauling automobiles. When it stops at a gas station/diner, Bill and Catherine sneak into one of the cars being hauled and settle there while the driver goes across country.

When it stops out west somewhere, Bill and Catherine get out and check into a hotel under the names Mike and Nikki Lewis. Catherine warns Bill that they are not really married and Bill goes off. He even catches a ride from the same truck driver.

He returns, having bought new clothes and a ring. He plans to marry her. It is only then that he discovers that Catherine had dyed her hair as part of her new identity.

Recently married, Catherine and Bill try hitch-hiking.

Married, the couple tries to catch a train but misses. While they wait for another chance, Bill tells Catherine how, at the age of thirteen, he passed out while defending his mother from one of his father's brutal beatings, and awakened to find him shot dead. Unable to express remorse for the death of his father, Bill's honesty led the jury to find him guilty and sentence him to prison, despite his age. She almost tells Bill then about shooting George, but chickens out.

Bill and Catherine catch a ride with the Dawsons, Johnny (Bobby
Hyatt), Henry (Ray Teal), and Stella (Lurene Tuttle).

With no destination in mind, Bill and Catherine continue to work their way west. While hitch-hiking, they help Henry Dawson (Ray Teal) with a flat tire so he and his wife Stella (Lurene Tuttle) offer them a ride and introduce them to their young son Johnny (Bobby Hyatt). They’re on their way to Salinas, California to work in the lettuce fields and invite Bill and Catherine to join them.

Picking lettuce is hard work and Bill almost quits.

Bill and Catherine set up in one of the cottages provided for the workers. Although they remain wary of the law, they find happiness in the hard work and community of laborers.

When Bill is offered a welding job, which will begin after the harvest season, and Catherine learns that she is pregnant, they seem content. Bill and Johnny seem to bond as well.

Bill and Henry go to get a haircut and Henry starts reading a story in a real crime journal. The barber lets him take the magazine home. When Henry and Stella leave Johnny alone for the night, he finds an article showing Bill as a suspect in George’s murder with a $1000 reward.

Johnny is nervous being alone with Bill, whom he thinks is a murderer.

Catherine is trying to sew a dress using a pattern, but doesn’t have any scissors. Bill goes over to the Dawsons’ cabin to borrow a pair, but Johnny is alone and is rude to Bill, which makes him suspect that the Dawsons know something.

Even though the Dawsons are fond of Bill and Catherine, Henry considers turning Bill in for the money, but Stella talks him out of it. Besides, the two men are supposed to go fishing in the morning. Feeling distrustful, Bill backs out of a fishing trip with Henry.

Thinking the policeman is here to arrest him, Bill arms himself.

Later that day, Bill's sense of paranoia increases when he sees police at the Dawsons' cottage, and even after Stella tells Catherine that Henry's car has collided with an oil truck, his wariness does not completely diminish. Catherine goes with Stella and Johnny to see Henry in the hospital.

The doctor (Morgan Farley) recommends an expensive medical treatment in Los Angeles for burns suffered in the crash.

In need of money, Stella decides to turn Bill in to the police.

After the police drive them back to the camp, Stella alerts the police officer about Bill, hoping to get the reward money.

Meanwhile, Bill and Catherine panic watching more police activity outside the Dawsons' cottage and Catherine finally tells him that she was the one who shot George. Disbelieving her, Bill plans to escape at all costs, and when the sheriff arrives at their door, Bill is armed with a scythe.

Bill is taken into custody.

To keep him from getting into more trouble, Catherine shoots Bill in the shoulder, and Bill is taken into custody in front of the other workers.

The two are taken back to New York. Trying to protect each other, both Bill and Catherine confess to killing George, but after listening to their stories, the New York district attorney finally tells them that George made a statement before he died, claiming that Catherine shot him in self-defense. Although their disappearance looked at first suspicious to the police, he explains, they were not being pursued until the pulp magazine printed the "half-cocked" story and created a need to clear up the misunderstanding. The case is therefore closed.

Now cleared, Bill and Catherine are free to resume their new life together.

Like most film noirs, much of the problems Bill and Catherine face are their own doings. If Catherine was aware that George might have been around, the wrong thing was to invite Bill up to her apartment. The confrontation gets out of hand when George gets tough and Bill reacts, hitting him. While Bill makes the right decision not to shoot George, Catherine doesn’t. When George is obviously wounded, the wrong thing was to let him leave. Then, of course, the worst thing is to run from the authorities. Pro tip, that never works in a film noir. And not telling Bill the truth only preys on his anxieties and makes him do things he might not have. Bill and Catherine’s whole relationship is based on a lie, so one has to wonder how they will do together with no outside forces keeping them together.

Since the ending was reshot after a preview, one can only imagine that the original ending was a happy confusing explanation, but probably something more akin to the death of one or both of Bill and Catherine. I’d vote on Bill, since Catherine is pregnant. One has to doubt that killing a pregnant woman would be acceptable under the Production Code.

Ruth Roman as Catherine Higgins, taxi dancer.

By the time of this film, Ruth Roman was already a star. Her film career began with bit parts in several films, including Stage Door Canteen (1943), Ladies Courageous (1944), Since You Went Away (1944), Song of Nevada (1944), and Storm Over Lisbon (1944). Despite having the starring role in the 13-episode serial Jungle Queen (1945), her roles continued to be small in features such as See My Lawyer (1945), The Affairs of Susan (1945), You Came Along (1945), Incendiary Blonde (1945), Gilda (1946), Without Reservations (1946), A Night in Casablanca (1946), and The Big Clock (1948).

Things began to change for her when she was cast in a featured role in the 1948 release Good Sam. The next year, she was chosen for the title role in Belle Starr's Daughter, as a killer in the thriller The Window, and as the wife of the central character in Champion, starring Kirk Douglas. A versatile actress, she played the rather aristocratic Anne Morton in Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, the same year she plays taxi dancer turned fugitive in Tomorrow is Another Day. To her credit, she is believable in both.

Steve Cochran as Bill Clark.

Steve Cochran got his start in summer stock. Though he was rejected for service in World War II, due to a heart murmur, he did direct and perform in plays at a variety of Army camps. He was appearing with Constance Bennett in a touring production of Without Love in December 1943 when he was signed by Sam Goldwyn.

His film career consisted of many roles as the heavy on the wrong side of the law. He might be best known for the role of Big Ed Somers opposite James Cagney in White Heat (1949). He also played gangsters and villains in The Chase (1946), A Song is Born (1948), and Highway 301 (1950), before Tomorrow is Another Day.

I think it might have been more interesting if Bill was portrayed as more of a 13-year-old in a 31-year-old body; he seems almost too familiar with adult life on the outside of prison. He knows how things work that I doubt a 13-year-old would know or subjects that would come up a lot in prison, like a Justice of the Peace can marry people. But Cochran does a fine job with the role.

Together, Ruth Roman and Steve Cochran make a rather stylish couple, especially when they dress in almost identical outfits. Their attractiveness almost makes the fact that they fall in love with little or nothing in common more believable.

The film’s most inventive sequence has to be when Bill and Catherine hide in a car about the carrier. I can’t imagine that would be a fun way to travel, but you have to give the concept credit. No one would look for anyone in one of those cars, so it would be a great way to avoid detection and still get from point to point.

Tomorrow is Another Day may not be a great film but it is a good film noir and one that you should watch if you get the opportunity.