NOW AND FOREVER On Blu-ray From Kino

 

NOW AND FOREVER is a 1934 Paramount film, directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, and Shirley Temple. Despite the famous names who worked on it, the movie doesn't live up to expectations. 

Gary Cooper plays Jerry Day (no relation to me), a middling con artist. Jerry's constant scheming annoys his wife Toni (Carole Lombard), who leaves him. Jerry decides to go to his late first wife's in-laws and pressure them into giving him a large sum of money in order to take care of his daughter Penny (Shirley Temple), who he has not seen since she was a baby. When Jerry meets up with Penny, he's so charmed by her he decides to bring her up himself. Jerry and Penny travel to Paris to reunite with Toni, and he promises to go straight--but his desire to give Penny a proper upbringing drives him back to his con artist ways. 

The big problem with NOW AND FOREVER is that Gary Cooper is miscast as Jerry. The actor appears uncomfortable in the role--his Jerry is too soft-spoken and retiring to be a dynamic rogue. Jerry comes off as someone who doesn't want to work for a living, and (other than the fact that he's Gary Cooper) one wonders why his wife and daughter are so devoted to him. 

Another problem is that the viewer is supposed to feel sympathetic toward Jerry and his family--but they live in Paris, and they wear (and apparently have) all sorts of fashionable clothes, despite the fact that Jerry's honest job as a realtor pays him only $35 a week. (It never seems to occur to anyone in the film that Jerry could always take his family back to America and live a normal and more affordable life.) 

Carole Lombard doesn't all that much to do, other than spend most of the time being exasperated at Jerry. (She does get to have plenty of costume changes.) Shirley Temple gets more of a chance to shine than either Cooper and Lombard--she gets a song and dance number, and she also gets plenty of chances to tug at the viewer's heartstrings. 

The movie gets rather melodramatic toward the end, with Jerry being "punished" for his dishonest ways. NOW AND FOREVER does have plenty of early 30s Paramount gloss, but one wonders if the story might have worked better without it. (The script was co-written by Irving Thalberg's sister Sylvia.) 

I wondered why Kino didn't include this on their recent two Carole Lombard box sets, but I assume the company figured that the combination of Lombard, Cooper and Shirley Temple would rate a stand-alone release. The disc case claims that this Region A Blu-ray features a brand new 2K master of the film, but the print used here doesn't look very clean, and it isn't very sharp. 

The only extra (other than a collection of trailers) is a new audio commentary by Lee Gambin and Elissa Rose. They give out various background info on the film, and they spend a lot of time talking about Paramount costume designer Travis Banton. During the talk Gambin discusses a different, darker ending for the film that was changed before it was released--I own several books on Carole Lombard, and none of them mention this. 

I'm glad that Kino is releasing lesser-known Carole Lombard on home video, but I also wish the combination of Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, and Shirley Temple had been showcased in a better movie.