Director: A. Edward Sutherland
In its early goings, Beyond Tomorrow lays on the schmaltz thick enough to make a claim for its spot in the Christmas movie pantheon. The characters are exceedingly friendly and much of the conversation involves how grateful they are to have one another. Mawkish as it may be, one misses the simple-minded sentimentality once the three old men (Harry Carey, C. Aubrey Smith, and Charles Winninger) die and return as ghosts to reunite the young couple (Jean Parker and Richard Carlson) that they brought together on Christmas Eve. It’s a familiar formula, but strangely the old men are little more than passive observers–they linger about and mourn the direction Carlson is going in without having the ability to cast much influence on his life. A little humor might have aided the deadly-serious proceedings–in fact, things get rather frightening in a scene in which Carey enters the “darkness”, not to mention the misery of Carlson’s descent into the evils that come with fame. For a Christmas movie, it’s all rather grim.
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