From This Day Forward
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
John Berry
Joan Fontaine
Rosemary Decamp
Henry Morgan
Wally Brown
Arline Judge
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
After New Yorker Bill Cummings is discharged from the army, he goes to the U.S. Employment Service Center to apply for a job. Overwhelmed by the paperwork and the number of other unemployed veterans there, Bill finds himself recalling his past: In 1938, Bill and his girl friend Susan go to Susan's older sister Martha's for dinner. While the harried Martha, who is meeting Bill for the first time, advises Susan to wait before marrying, Hank Beesley, Martha's chatty, out-of-work husband, discusses his domestic theories with machinist Bill. Later that day, Bill proposes to Susan, but states that he may not be able to make her happy. Despite Bill's apprehensions about his economic future, Susan accepts his proposal, and the newlyweds relish the first blissful days of their married life. Soon, however, Bill is laid off from his factory job when his employer goes bankrupt, and he is unable to find another. Although Susan's job as a bookstore clerk covers most of their bills, Bill is humiliated by his situation, especially after Hank and Martha's young son Timmy offers to beg for a soup bone from the local butcher because he believes that Bill "doesn't know where his next meal is coming from." Determined to help her husband, Susan, an aspiring artist, convinces her boss, Hinkler, to hire Bill to illustrate a book he is publishing. Bill receives a fifty dollar advance and eagerly executes the assignment. Bill and Susan's modest prosperity is short-lived, however, as Bill is arrested on obscenity charges. Unknown to Bill, the text of Hinkler's book contains censorable material, and he is advised by Martha's lawyer brother-in-law Jake to plead guilty and receive probation. Now broke and jobless, the couple is forced to move into a tenement. Despite their poverty, Bill gives Susan a bracelet for their first anniversary with money he collected by pawning his tool box. Soon after, Bill's union notifies him that a munitions factory job is available but requires that he bring his own tools. With help from Martha and Hank's miserly mother, Bill collects enough cash to reclaim his tool box and happily returns to work. Once back on their feet, Bill and Susan discuss the possibility of starting a family, but their plans are waylaid when Bill is inducted into the army at the start of World War II. Back in the employment office, where he has been telling the end of his story to various sympathetic employees, Bill is finally awarded a job interview. As Bill rushes to the Beesleys' with his good news, Susan confides to Martha that she is pregnant. Although Bill confesses that he is scared, both he and Susan face the future together with hope.
Director
John Berry
Cast
Joan Fontaine
Rosemary Decamp
Henry Morgan
Wally Brown
Arline Judge
Renny Mcevoy
Bobby Driscoll
Mary Treen
Queenie Smith
Doreen Mccann
Erskine Sanford
Mark Stevens
Polly Bailey
Alan Ward
Sam Lufkin
Virginia Engels
Ellen Corby
Amelia Romano
Jack Gargan
Pat Hennigan
Vincent Graeff
Tim Hawkins
Bobby Barber
Tom Noonan
Moroni Olsen
Doreen Tryden
Lucille Sayre
Tex Mooney
Rose Plumer
Peter Storm
Ralph Dunn
Guy Beach
Danny Leeds
Joey Ray
Charles Campbell
Eric Hanson
Ida Moore
Johnny Indrisano
Alf Haugan
Shimen Ruskin
Tom Quinn
Robert Manning
Theodore Newton
Doria Caron
Johnny Duncan
Peter Kass
Charles Wagenheim
William Challee
Milt Kibbee
Manny Harmon
Sally Gordon
Patricia Prest
Marjean Neville
Mila Samarzich
Arda Neib
George Magrill
Leota Lorraine
Carl Faulkner
Chester Morrison
Louis Payne
Mike Lally
Nan Leslie
Frances Morris
Carol Forman
Irene Mack
Jean Andren
Ashley Cowan
Crew
C. Bakaleinikoff
George Barnes
Hugo Butler
Russell A. Cully
Albert S. D'agostino
Frank Doyle
Lynn Dunn
Mort Greene
Jack J. Gross
Leigh Harline
Leigh Harline
Alfred H. Herman
Garson Kanin
Earl B. Mounce
William L. Pereira
Clem Portman
Edwin L. Pyle
Sam Ruman
Charles Schnee
Darrell Silvera
Al Simpson
Edith R. Sommer
Edward Stevenson
Roy Stockston
Sherman Todd
Vernon L. Walker
Earl Wolcott
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working title of this film was All Brides Are Beautiful. According to contemporary sources, RKO bought the rights to Thomas Bell's novel in 1940 and updated it to include World War II. RKO borrowed Mark Stevens, who made his screen debut in the picture, and Henry Morgan from Twentieth Century-Fox, and Joan Fontaine from David O. Selznick's company. Director John Berry was borrowed from Paramount. According to a Hollywood Reporter news item, Sally Gettleman was cast in the picture, but her appearance in the final film has not been confirmed. Hollywood Reporter also notes that at the time of the picture's release, advisor Roy Stockston, the head of the California Veteran Division of the USES, conducted radio interviews of ex-servicemen and counseled them about employment problems. Modern sources note that while the film received lukewarm reviews, it was a box office hit. Joan Fontaine and Mark Stevens reprised their roles in a Lux Radio Theatre broadcast on October 28, 1946.
