It Happened Tomorrow

Larry Stevens works at a newspaper at the turn of the century and receives a strange gift from the old man in the archive: tomorrow's edition. He knows the news a day early. First he uses it for money, then he prevents a murder and becomes famous. Then he reads the report of his own death. René Clair directs. Dick Powell plays Larry and Linda Darnell plays Sylvia. Clair was a French director working in Hollywood during the war years, and the films he made then combine American comedy with a French lightness. This is the best known of them. The idea has been used repeatedly since. The man reading tomorrow's paper became a widely repeated template across television and film; the best known instance is the nineties series Early Edition. The question underneath is whether fate can be altered. The harder Larry works to prevent the report of his death, the closer he gets to it, and the film builds that loop as comedy rather than tragedy. It received an Oscar nomination for its score. Who it is for: viewers curious about classical Hollywood fantasy comedy and about René Clair. Who it is not for: the humour is very light, there is no tension, and the resolution takes the easy route.