DVDs in Review

There's Always Tomorrow

Title: There's Always Tomorrow (1956)

Release date: February 22 2010

Certificate: PG

Format: DVD

DVD RRP: £17.99

Rating: 4/5

While Douglas Sirk's melodramatic masterworks such as 'Written on the Wind', 'Imitation of Life' and 'All That Heaven Allows' focused on the fragile, repressed female condition shot with blistering contrast heavy Technicolor, Sirk made the odd jump back into shadowy black and white as well as examining the male's problems - 'There's Always Tomorrow' is a fantastic example and a triumph in its own right.

Sirk is the kind of director who seems to relish style, and while a quick glance at his work would make his movies seem exaggerated and overshot, what he's expertly doing is revealing substance through style. The style represents the veil, the fake smiles and unwanted roles in society, that his characters are living behind. Many of his films are like soap operas, but with high production values and top notch actors.

The dream team of Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray (who set film noir on fire in the unequaled 'Double Indemnity' back in 1944) return for more illicit love in 'There's Always Tomorrow'.

MacMurray plays an executive toy manufacturer who by chance is reunited with his old flame and co-worker (Stanwyck), but the man's children and wife quickly become suspicious as the seemingly innocent relationship begins to threaten his professional and personal standing within the tight, eavesdropping community.

The fact that this is shot by the same cinematographer who did Orson Welles' 'Touch of Evil' gives the viewer an idea of just how dark white collar suburbia can become with a brilliant technical crew shooting it for all of its cracks.

Fans of Sirk or the two tantalizing lead actors will want to seek out this underrated diamond in the rough, while the remastered disc should satisfy the film buffs. Eureka's classy transfer is backed up with an hour long documentary entitled 'Days With Sirk'.