Forever and a Day (1943) - Turner Classic Movies

Brief Synopsis

Read More

During World War II an American travels to Britain to sell an old house near London that belongs to his family. But he mets Susan Trimble who lives in the house and who is strictly against the sale. While they spend the night in an air-raid shelter she tells him the story of the building from it's construction in 1804 until present day.

Cast & Crew

Read More

René Clair

George Kirby

Doreen Munroe

May Beatty

Connie Leon

Joy Harrington

Film Details

Also Known As

This Changing World

Genre

Drama

Historical

Release Date

Mar 26, 1943

Premiere Information

not available

Production Company

Anglo-American Film Co., Ltd.

Distribution Company

RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.

Country

United States

Technical Specs

Duration

1h 44m

Sound

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color

Black and White

Theatrical Aspect Ratio

1.37 : 1

Film Length

9,391ft

Synopsis

During World War II, American reporter Gates Trimble Pomfret is about to leave London for home when he receives a cable from his father in New York, instructing him to sell the ancestral house and acquire the Trimble portrait. Following his father's orders, Gates proceeds to the house at 6 Pomfret Street. As he knocks at the door, German bombs begin to fall and he takes shelter in the cellar of the house. There he sees a plaque proclaiming that Eustace Trimble built the house. After the bombing ends, Gates returns upstairs and meets Lesley Trimble, the current occupant of the house. Lesley resents Gates's blatant disrespect for the old house and after telling him to discuss the sale with her solicitor, she climbs up the stairs, leaving him behind. After Gates follows her and apologizes for his insensitivity, she explains that she was born in the house when it was a hotel, and later she and her mother lovingly restored the edifice to its original purpose as a single family residence. After admonishing Gates to respect the memories of those that lived in the house, Lesley recounts the history of the dwelling: In 1804, Admiral Eustace Trimble buys an empty plot of land five miles from London. When the house is completed, he proudly displays it to his son Bill, noting the plaque he has installed in the cellar. During a raging storm one night, a woman collapses, exhausted, at the Trimble doorway. Later that evening, two men come looking for her, stating that she is Susan Trenchard, the ward of Ambrose Pomfret, who has betrothed her to William Barstow, one of the men who has come to claim her. Taking an instant dislike to the men, Bill refuses to let them see Susan, and Mrs. Trimble banishes them from her house at gunpoint. Soon after, Pomfret comes to claim his ward, and Susan announces that she is planning to marry Bill, thus freeing her from Pomfret's dictates. To Susan's surprise, Bill accepts her offhanded proposal and soon after their wedding, he is called to fight in the Napoleonic Wars. Susan gives birth to a son on the day that word arrives of Napoleon's defeat at Trafalger. The good news is followed by bad, however, when the family is notified that Bill has died in battle. As Susan's son grows to maturity, the family suffers financial setbacks and Pomfret buys the Trimble house out of vindictiveness. He never feels comfortable in the house, however, and one night, when he hears the voice of Admiral Trimble reclaiming his residence, Pomfret slashes the Admiral's portrait and the next morning is found dead. When Gates interrupts Lesley's story by asking if there were any good Pomfrets, she tells him about Dexter Pomfret, an iron manufacturer and amateur lepidopterist. One day, Mildred Trimble, the Admiral's great granddaughter, appears at the Pomfret house to buy back her great grandfather's portrait. Neither Mildred nor the portrait leave the house, however, because Mildred and Dexter marry. After Mildred suggests that Dexter build iron bathtubs, his business soars, raising the family to prominence. Dexter's son Anthony is knighted and Anthony's children, reared with great wealth and pretentions, lose touch with their heritage. Jim Trimble, a humble coal delivery man, retains his pride in the house that Eustace Trimble, his kinsman, built, however. When Jim decides to sail to America to start a new life, he asks Jenny Jones, the Pomfret's maid, to join him and she accepts. After the death of Lord and Lady Trimble- Pomfret, their son Augustus, who has moved to New York, puts the house up for sale. In 1917, the structure is called Trimble Hall and serves as a hotel run by Mrs. Ismay and her daughter Marjorie. On the night before Nan and Henry Barringer's son, Captain Archibald Barringer, a decorated war hero, is to return home and visit them at the hotel, Ned Trimble, an American soldier, arrives at the hotel, anxious to spend his twenty-four hour leave in his ancestral home. When Archie is delayed, the Barringers invite Ned to their table for dinner, and as Mrs. Barringer speaks fondly of her son, a telegram arrives, announcing his death. After Mrs. Barringer retires to her room to be alone, Mr. Barringer insists that Ned and Marjorie join him for dinner and together they solemnly toast Archie. After dinner, Marjorie gives Ned a tour of the hotel, ending in the cellar, where Ned sees Eustace's plaque. The next morning, Ned proposes to Marjorie and the two are wed before he returns to duty. When the armistice is declared, Marjorie retreats to the cellar and remembers Ned's endearments to her. Returning to the present, Lesley continues that she and her mother, Marjorie, restored the hotel with money left by her father. As Gates muses about how each generation of Trimbles and Pomfrets seems to find their way to the house, the bombs begin to fall once more. As soon as Lesley and Gates take shelter in the cellar, a direct hit by a bomb demolishes the house but leaves the cellar intact. After the bombing ceases, Gates and Lesley inspect the ruins of the house. When they find the portrait of the Admiral still hanging, Gates suggests that they rebuild the house because so many memories still live there.

Directors

René Clair

Edmund Goulding

Cedric Hardwicke

Frank Lloyd

Victor Saville

Robert Stevenson

Herbert Wilcox

Cast

George Kirby

Doreen Munroe

May Beatty

Connie Leon

Joy Harrington

Kent Smith

Gates T. [Trimble] Pomfret

Ernest Grooney

Reginald Gardiner

Assistant. hotel manager

Victor Mclaglen

Billy Bevan

Arthur Treacher

Harry Allen

Aubrey Mather

Ethel Griffies

Woman in shelter

June Lockhart

Young woman in shelter

Barbara Everest

Stuart Robertson

Ruth Warrick

Herbert Marshall

Charles Irwin

Gerald Oliver Smith

C. Aubrey Smith

Admiral [Eustace] Trimble

Edmund Gwenn

Lumsden Hare

Admiral Trimble's man

Ray Milland

Dame May Whitty

Gene Lockhart

Ben Webster

Anna Neagle

Susan [Trenchard]

Claud Allister

William Barstow, Susan's fiancé

Alan Edmiston

Doris Lloyd

Helena Pickard

Claude Rains

[Ambrose] Pomfret

Halliwell Hobbes

Clifford Severn

Master Trimble, Bill and Susan's son

Alec Craig

Pomfret's butler

Jessie Matthews

Mildred Trimble

Reginald Owen

Ian Hunter

Dexter [Pomfret]

Charles Laughton

Sir Cedric Hardwicke

Anna Lee

Buster Keaton

Montague Love

Edward Everett Horton

Sir Anthony [Trimble-Pomfret]

Daphne Moore

Patric Knowles

June Duprez

Julia [Trimble-Pomfret]

Cecil Kellaway

Man at dinner party

Isobel Elsom

Lady Timble-Pomfret

Ida Lupino

Wendy Barrie

Sir Anthony Trimble-Pomfret's daughter

Wendell Hulett

Augustus [Trimble-Pomfret]

Queenie Leonard

Eric Blore

Trimble-Pomfret's butler

Brian Aherne

Merle Oberon

Marjorie [Ismay]

Walter Kingsford

Dennis Hoey

Emily Fitzroy

Boarder at Trimble Hall

Una O'connor

Richard Haydn

Boarder at Trimble Hall

Odette Myrtil

Nigel Bruce

Elsa Lanchester

June

Ivan Simpson

Robert Coote

Anita Bolster

Roland Young

[Henry] Barringer

Gladys Cooper

Mrs. [Nan] Barringer

Pax Walker

Marta Gale

Arthur Mulliner

Jean Prescott

Robert Cummings

Clyde Cook

Donald Crisp

Mary Gordon

Woman in shelter

Crew

Charles Bennett

Alan Campbell

Claude Carpenter

Anthony Collins

Norman Corwin

George Crone

Albert S. D'agostino

Robert De Grasse

Director of Photography

Bailey Fesler

C. S. Forester

Lee Garmes

Director of Photography

Peter Godfrey

John Grubb

Jack Hartfield

Lawrence Hazard

Al Herman

S. M. Herzig

James Hilton

Michael Hogan

Christopher Isherwood

Emmet Lavery

W. P. Lipscomb

Gene Lockhart

Frederick Lonsdale

Russell Metty

Director of Photography

Alice Duer Miller

Nicholas Musuraca

Director of Photography

Walter Plunkett

C. S. Ramsay-hill

Technical Advisor

Renie

Lloyd Richards

Prod coordinator

R. C. Sherriff

Darrell Silvera

Edward Stevenson

Donald Ogden Stewart

Douglas Travers

John Tribby

John Van Druten

Richard Van Hessen

Vernon L. Walker

Special Effects

Claudine West

Elmo Williams

Lawrence P. Williams

Keith Winter

Earl Wolcott

Film Details

Also Known As

This Changing World

Genre

Drama

Historical

Release Date

Mar 26, 1943

Premiere Information

not available

Production Company

Anglo-American Film Co., Ltd.

Distribution Company

RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.

Country

United States

Technical Specs

Duration

1h 44m

Sound

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color

Black and White

Theatrical Aspect Ratio

1.37 : 1

Film Length

9,391ft

Articles

Ruth Warrick (1915-2005) - Ruth Warrick, (1915-2005)

January 21, 2005

Ruth Warrick, the actress who will forever be identified as the first Mrs. Kane in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) to film buffs; and Phoebe Wallingford, the meddlesome nosybody on the long-running soap opera All My Children, to modern television audiences, died at her Manhattan home on January 15 of complications from Pneumonia. She was 89.

She was born on June 29, 1915 in St. Joseph, Missouri. After attaining a degree in theatre from the University of Kansas City, she left for New York, where in 1938, she joined the Mercury Theater troupe, headed by a young artist on the rise by the name of Orson Welles. When Welles prepared to film Citizen Kane (1941) he took several players from his Mercury Theater (Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloan, Agnes Moorehead) and of course, Ruth Warrick. She made her film debut in Welles' cinematic epic as Emily Norton Kane. Indeed, to many film buffs, Warrick's icy charms are indispensable to the celebrated montage sequence opposite Welles at the breakfast table; particularly when he broaches the subject of her husband's infidelity:

Emily Kane: Charles, people will think...
Charles Kane: What I tell them to think!

Warrick received fine reviews for her performance, and she had good roles in her next two films The Corsican Brothers (1941), with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Journey Into Fear (1942), opposite Joseph Cotton. Sadly, Hollywood, not knowing what to do with a well-trained, mature actress like Warrick, began to cast her into routine, forgettable fare: Mr. Winkle Goes to War (1944), China Sky (1945), and Swell Guy (1946). Disney's Song of the South (1947), was a box-office hit, and was her best film in a while, but overall, the material she received over the next few years, simply wasn't worthy of her talents.

Things turned around for her in the mid-50s, when Warrick discovered the medium of television. She had regular roles on The Guiding Light (1953-54), As the World Turns (1956-60), Father of the Bride (1960-61), and was unforgettable as the sinister housekeeper, Hannah Cord, in Peyton Place (1965-67). Yet it was her 35-year run in the role of Phoebe Wallingford in All My Children (1970-2005), that Warrick achieved her greatest triumph. As the rich, intrusive matriarch of the fictitious, affluent town known as Pine Valley, Warrick found a role that could be at once gloriously hammy and quietly conniving - qualities that highlighted her renown versatility as an actress. To honor her contribution to television, Warrick received a lifetime achievement award from the Daytime Emmys last December. She is survived by three children, a grandson, and six great-grandchildren.

by Michael T. Toole

Ruth Warrick (1915-2005) - Ruth Warrick, (1915-2005)

Ruth Warrick (1915-2005) - Ruth Warrick, (1915-2005)

Ruth Warrick, the actress who will forever be identified as the first Mrs. Kane in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) to film buffs; and Phoebe Wallingford, the meddlesome nosybody on the long-running soap opera All My Children, to modern television audiences, died at her Manhattan home on January 15 of complications from Pneumonia. She was 89. She was born on June 29, 1915 in St. Joseph, Missouri. After attaining a degree in theatre from the University of Kansas City, she left for New York, where in 1938, she joined the Mercury Theater troupe, headed by a young artist on the rise by the name of Orson Welles. When Welles prepared to film Citizen Kane (1941) he took several players from his Mercury Theater (Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloan, Agnes Moorehead) and of course, Ruth Warrick. She made her film debut in Welles' cinematic epic as Emily Norton Kane. Indeed, to many film buffs, Warrick's icy charms are indispensable to the celebrated montage sequence opposite Welles at the breakfast table; particularly when he broaches the subject of her husband's infidelity: Emily Kane: Charles, people will think... Charles Kane: What I tell them to think! Warrick received fine reviews for her performance, and she had good roles in her next two films The Corsican Brothers (1941), with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Journey Into Fear (1942), opposite Joseph Cotton. Sadly, Hollywood, not knowing what to do with a well-trained, mature actress like Warrick, began to cast her into routine, forgettable fare: Mr. Winkle Goes to War (1944), China Sky (1945), and Swell Guy (1946). Disney's Song of the South (1947), was a box-office hit, and was her best film in a while, but overall, the material she received over the next few years, simply wasn't worthy of her talents. Things turned around for her in the mid-50s, when Warrick discovered the medium of television. She had regular roles on The Guiding Light (1953-54), As the World Turns (1956-60), Father of the Bride (1960-61), and was unforgettable as the sinister housekeeper, Hannah Cord, in Peyton Place (1965-67). Yet it was her 35-year run in the role of Phoebe Wallingford in All My Children (1970-2005), that Warrick achieved her greatest triumph. As the rich, intrusive matriarch of the fictitious, affluent town known as Pine Valley, Warrick found a role that could be at once gloriously hammy and quietly conniving - qualities that highlighted her renown versatility as an actress. To honor her contribution to television, Warrick received a lifetime achievement award from the Daytime Emmys last December. She is survived by three children, a grandson, and six great-grandchildren. by Michael T. Toole

Quotes

Trivia

'Alfred Hitchcock' prepared the sequence involving Ida Lupino, and was to have directed it; scheduling prevented him, and it was directed by Rene Clair, who used Hitchcock's script.

Notes

The working title of this film was This Changing World. The opening credits are presented by an offscreen narrator's voice speaking over an image of St. Paul's Cathedral. The narrator explains: "St. Paul's Cathedral, London...That's right...Happily still standing after so much that has taken place in recent years. And to many of us, it's a symbol of something that will surely survive any other trials that May yet be in store. This May be the reason why a number of people banded themselves together to make this picture possible. In order of their appearance, these are the players who took part. Many others offered their services, but could not eventually appear through no fault of their own. The main point was the eagerness of everyone to take part in a job of real teamwork..." The narration is followed by a list of actors in order of their appearance. The name of Sir Cedric Hardwicke, who appeared before Anna Lee and after Charles Laughton, is omitted from this list, however. His name is included in the end credits, which are not as all-inclusive as the opening credits. Doreen Munroe's name is misspelled as "Monroe" in the onscreen credits. The narrator then continues: "Of course, it takes more than actors to make a picture, and we were fortunate in being able to make use of many offers of assistance... among them, these writers..." This is followed by a list of the film's writers. The narrator continues: "Also these directors and producers contributed their time and skill." A list of the film's directors follows. The narrator then concludes:"[their cooperation] symbolizes the common efforts of ourselves and our allies to make secure the ideals for which the picture stands."
According to materials in the production file on the film in the AMPAS Library, this picture was based on an idea by Hardwicke. According to a May 1941 New York Times, however, article, the film was originally conceived by a group of British and French nationals living in Hollywood as a way to raise money for war refugees. After the collapse of France, the British writers and actors decided to carry on with the project. A Hollywood Reporter news item adds that the production was halted for rewrites in September 1942 after America's entry into the war. The Motion Picture Herald review notes that the players, writers and directors worked without pay and that RKO distributed the film at cost. The profits were distributed to British and American charities connected to the United Nations war effort. According to a September 21, 1942 item in Hollywood Reporter, Frank Lloyd directed the London blitz sequences that open and close the film. A production still for the film revealed that Charles Coburn appeared in a scene with Claude Rains, however Coburn was not in the released film. A November 1941 Hollywood Reporter news item adds that Edmund Goulding directed the sequence in which "the Ismays" are running the Trimble house as a hotel. In his biography, Herbert Wilcox stated that he directed the sequence depicting the building of the Trimble house and the meeting between "Bill" and "Lesley." This marked British actress Jessie Matthews' sole appearance in an American film. According to modern sources, Ray Bolger [who was not identified in the viewed print] played a sentry in the film and René Clair replaced Alfred Hitchcock as one of the directors.

By using this site, you agree to our updated Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use