René Clair - It Happened Tomorrow (1944)

An ambitious newspaper reporter, eager to scoop the competition, wishes he could know the news before it happens. A mysterious old man grants the reporter that power, even as he cautions against using it. Now able to predict the news 24 hours in advance, the reporter goes about scooping all the other papers, picking sure-fire winners at the race track, and enjoying life... until he learns -- in advance, of course -- of his own death. Our hero's problem: How can he keep the future from happening?







Reporter Dick Powell in the gaslight era of 1896 big city America would like to have the knowledge of the future. Well, think of all the scoops he could have on his job. Later on that evening another staffer on the paper John Philliber gives him a copy of tomorrow's evening addition. And for the next three days Powell's life is turned topsy turvy trying to take advantage of this most inside of information.

At this point in Dick Powell's career he was looking desperately to rejuvenate his career. His musical days were over, he left Warner Brothers, signed with Paramount looking for some straight acting parts, but Paramount mostly put him musicals and not as good as the ones he did with Warner Brothers.

Powell had scored some success in Preston Sturges's "Christmas in July" with no songs and he grabbed this one. He did well in the role here, but soon he'd change his screen image for all time later that year in "Murder, My Sweet".

Exiled Rene Clair helmed this whimsical tale and got good results from his cast. Linda Darnell is as lovely as ever with her uncle Jack Oakie as a mind reading carnival act. And Edgar Kennedy does his patented slow burn as a police inspector who suspects the worst when Powell is scooping the police on some crime stories.

The plot has quite a few twists and turns and it would be a sin to give even one of them away. Powell and Darnell learn a most valuable lesson to take the future as it comes day by day. A little knowledge can indeed be a dangerous thing. (IMDB comment)









Sucedió mañana
En el aniversario de sus bodas de oro, el periodista Larry Stevens y su esposa Silvia, narran a su familia un extraño hecho que les sucedió cuando se conocieron. Todo empezó cuando a Larry le entregó, un anciano compañero, un ejemplar del periódico del día siguiente antes de que este fuese editado. Larry aprovechando la información y anticipándose a los acontecimientos relata, para su periódico, un suceso que está por acontecer. Desde ese momento, Larry se convierte en un prestigioso periodista gracias a que su buen compañero todas las noches le proporciona el periódico con las noticias que aun no han sucedido.






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