Tomorrow We Live (II) (1942) User Reviews

Worthy propaganda film and a decent thriller to boot

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 1 November 2016]

TOMORROW WE LIVE is an odd and obscure little wartime thriller that was made slap bang in the middle of WW2 when an Allied victory was hardly assured. Thus the film serves as something of a propaganda movie particularly in its depiction of the French resistance tirelessly fighting against the Nazi oppressors in occupied France. The movie was made with the cooperation of the Charles de Gaulle government (exiled in London at the time) and thus in itself serves as an important historical document of its time.

It's also a pretty good thriller and as with many resistance thrillers there's plenty of suspense inherent in the proceedings. While the settings and characters might scream 'ALLO 'ALLO a bit, there's an air of authenticity to the proceedings and a cast of actors all of whom give it their best in their roles. John Clements headlines as Jean Baptiste, a man desperately trying to avoid the Nazis and escape to Britain. Greta Gynt bags the most interesting part as the daughter of a loyal mayor with a few dark secrets of her own. The likes of Herbert Lom and Walter Gotell have little early career cameos. TOMORROW WE LIVE is the kind of film that just gets better as it goes on, building to a climax which is equally thrilling and moving.

Resistance drama

[malcolmgsw · 5/10 · 29 March 2008]

Somewhat out of the blue this wartime resistance drama has recently surfaced on Movies4Men.It is one of numerous similar films made around the same time of the war eg Flemish Farm,Freedom Radio which purported to show to English audiences what it was like to live in Occupied Europe.One wonders at this remove what their purpose was.Were they just rousing adventure stories or were they meant to show to the English audiences just how beastly the Nazis were and how the occupied nations were resisting them.I suppose the one standout of this film is the performance of Yvonne Arnaud.She is truly head and shoulders above the rest of the cast.This film is reasonably entertaining and worth a viewing

World War Two Drama

[ZeddaZogenau · 6/10 · 15 November 2023]

War time drama about a French Resistance Group

Very interesting British film from the 1940s that can be seen on NETFLIX! A young man arrives in a French town occupied by the National Socialists who has explosive information from the Nazi troops that the British could put to good use. At first everything seems to be going quite smoothly, but after an attack by the Resistance, the SS takes care of the matter...

What was initially a tranquil film turns into a grim war drama in the second half, with surprising levels of harshness for the 1940s.

Not a masterpiece, but definitely worth discovering as a film document of the time!

Has slack moments, but worth seeing!

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 14 October 2017]

Script continuity: Katherine Strueby. Made with the co-operation of General De Gaulle. Associate producer: John Stafford. Producer: George King. Executive producer: S.W. Smith. A British Aviation Production. (Available on a very good, full-length Odeon DVD).

Copyright 20 March 1943 in the USA by Republic Pictures Corp. New York opening at the Abbey: 7 May 1943. U.K. release through British Lion: 5 April 1943. London trade show: December 1942. Australian release through G.B.D./20th Century-Fox: 31 March 1944. 7,882 feet. 87½ minutes. Cut to 78 minutes in the U.S.A.

U.S. release title: AT DAWN WE DIE.

SYNOPSIS: The daughter of a French mayor poses as a collaborator to allow a spy to escape to England with vital U-boat information.

COMMENT: Although allegedly based on a true story, the plot follows a well-grooved path. Greta Gynt makes a surprisingly charming and attractive heroine. But John Clements is most unbelievable, while Godfrey Tearle seems unaccountably to be doing a masquerade part with a dubbed voice! Some of the other players are better, particularly and surprisingly Stepanek, who makes up for his late entrance with a full-blooded if conventional portrait of a sarcastic, sadistic villain. Sinclair is as unconvincing as usual, but Wendhausen is ideally cast and one is sorry when he is killed.

However, too much of Yvonne Arnaud's French-type mother-figure doesn't help. The film would certainly benefit by some astute cutting, though the action scenes are fine. Direction, while mostly routine, does have occasional flashes of style. Photography is first-class, and so is art direction. Production values, despite the obvious use of models in some sequences, are quite fair.

Stereotypical Resistance Movie

[boblipton · 5/10 · 23 January 2018]

One of the titles this movie played under is AT DAWN WE DIE; confusingly, another is TOMORROW WE LIVE. It's directed by George King, who made his mark with cheap quota quickies in the 1930s, most notably the Tod Slaughter melodramas; it stars John Clements, the distinguished stage actor-manager, whose best-known movie role was as Harry Faversham in the great 1939 THE FOUR FEATHERS. That was British film making in the War, when the cinematic world turned upside down, and this story of how Clements wandered into town and found himself in the middle of underground operations and sabotage that was invariably forewarned with the Cross of Lorraine (the symbol of the Free French), drives everyone crazy.

It's certainly not a subtle movie on any terms; the mystery, of who was actually in charge of the Resistance in town and who were the collaborators were easy to figure out, simply by assuming this would hit every stereotype of the genre. Yet I found it carried out with such easy confidence in its competent cast, that it rolled right along, as easily as any American movie of the period. If you're in the mood for one of those movies with evil Nazis, freedom-loving Frenchmen who face a firing squad singing "Le Marseillaise" and the inevitable triumph of good over evil, this should fit the bill.

Surprisingly brutal for its time

[TondaCoolwal · 8/10 · 10 April 2017]

One's first thoughts are how clichéd this film is. But then you realise, as with Shakespeare, that the characters and situations only became clichés because of the constant copying of the theme in subsequent movies. Whereas things appear to fall into the hero's lap as per usual, the action is, at times, surprisingly realistic. A female collaborator is viciously slapped about by the SS and later gunned down by the Resistance. In turn two German officers are shot in the back without compassion and in retaliation fifty hostages are rounded up and shot. Thankfully off-screen. However in the midst of all of this is a hilarious scene in a cinema when the French clientele,at being subjected to a newsreel of Hitler, begin catcalling and making shadows on the screen. These include a V-sign, a fist punching Hitler in the face, and fingers tugging at the Furher's hair. All in all an enjoyable propaganda film

Feeble Attempt at Wartime Propaganda

[richardchatten · 3/10 · 27 May 2017]

Director George King, who regularly delivered the goods in his rousing Victorian Tod Slaughter vehicles of the thirties seriously comes a cropper attempting here to address grim contemporary events in Occupied Europe on a shoestring. Cardboard characters strike poses and mouth banalities against a backdrop of cardboard studio exteriors, failing utterly to rise to the challenge presented by the enormities depicted abroad, doubtless inspired by the recent destruction by the Germans of the Czech town of Lidice.

King did a considerably better job with similar subject matter on his next film 'Candlelight in Algeria' (1944).

Cruel but efficient resistance drama

[clanciai · 8/10 · 14 October 2020]

What is striking in this film is the grim realism which makes a very authentic impression. You might object against the outrageous cruelties, and there are no small number of casualties here, but rarher a majority of all the actors. Still there are some breaths of fresh air, some puffs of good humour, some moments of humanity, but we have to remember that 1943 was perhaps the grimmest of the war years, and we who live so long afterwards can have no idea of how it really was, except by films such as this, made in the middle of horrendous crisis; and another idea to cheer it up could be that the leading actor John Clements actually looks like James Stewart, and James Stewart would have been perfect in the role. He never made any French parts except one, which was a failure, but John Clements is perfect as a Frenchman and could be a good replacement for James Stewart.