From This Day Forward
| From This Day Forward | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | John Berry |
| Produced by |
Jack J. Gross (executive producer) William Pereira (producer) |
| Written by |
Garson Kanin (adaption) Hugo Butler (screenplay) Clifford Odets (uncredited) |
| Starring |
Joan Fontaine Mark Stevens Rosemary DeCamp Harry Morgan |
| Music by | Leigh Harline |
| Cinematography | George Barnes |
| Edited by | Frank Doyle |
| Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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95 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $650,000 |
From This Day Forward is a 1946 American drama film directed by John Berry, starring Joan Fontaine and Mark Stevens.
Army sergeant Bill Cummings (Mark Stevens) is about to be discharged after service in World War II. He was a blue collar worker in civilian life and is seeking employment. As he fills out forms and speaks to personnel at the United States Employment Service, he thinks back on the life events that brought him to this point.
Flashbacks show him at various times in his prewar life. He is shown meeting and marrying his wife Susan (Joan Fontaine) in 1938. Other flashbacks describe their hardscrabble life in a poor neighborhood of New York City during the Great Depression. He and various relatives are shown as frequently unemployed and having difficulty making a living.
He and Susan's financial ups and downs are depicted, as are the humiliation of being supported by Susan's bookstore clerking job, and unfairly being prosecuted as a pornographer.
At the conclusion of the film, he is shown being referred to a badly needed job interview, and that Susan is pregnant.
Called "the most expressively optimistic film of the postwar Left" and "literally working-class cinema", the screenplay was adapted from the 1936 novel "All Brides are Beautiful" by working-class immigrant novelist Thomas Bell. Director Berry and screenwriter Hugo Butler would both be caught in the Hollywood blacklist, and the uncredited writer Odets appeared as a HUAC friendly witness.
The New York Times reviewer called the film "a plotless succession of episodes," and said "there may be some purpose in all this but we couldn't quite make it out—unless it is simply to demonstrate that unemployment is a very bad thing." The critic said that Fontaine's performance as a Bronx housewife was unconvincing.
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