Meteoric Ladd Back From Service

Love, Sacrifice, and More Sacrifice: And Now Tomorrow (1944)

Alan Ladd's the doctor of love to struck deaf Loretta Young in this melodrama directed by Irving Pichel and co-written by Raymond Chandler. Putting the latter with Ladd makes one think noir, or at the least rough play, but this is a plush chair after design of Dark Victory, with AL more concerned with class distinctions than a jammed .45. His bedside manner could use work, at one point blowing out a match and saying, Kids die like that all the time. Was Chandler having sport with work he found lachrymose? Cures come by way of a "serum," a term I never hear in present-day clinics, but maybe it was more common to medical discourse then. Everyone's fixed on doing the "honorable" thing, thus delay in appropriate couples getting together. And Now Tomorrow was catnip to fan mag trade, being popular novel-derived and featuring Ladd just back from his service hitch. Loretta Young had by this time ossified to phony-baloney "movie star" posturing, not a hint of reality in characters she played. Realization on her rich girl part that it's better to be poor but proud comes off absurd as it would in actual life (spoiler: she gets to keep wrong-side-of-tracks Ladd plus the money). AL takes first billing; they had teamed a year before for China, where Young got top placement. Wonder if respective agents quarreled over this. And Now Tomorrow can be had on Region 2 from England, but it could use a fresh transfer. Seems like corporate pride, if nothing else, would inspire negative owner Universal to clean up DVD acts.