TaryBiggBall
It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.
Kaydan Christian
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
Kamila Bell
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
Jemima
It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.
vincentlynch-moonoi
I'm trying to think if I ever saw a film starring Claudette Colbert that I didn't like. None that I can remember, and this film is no exception. It's an utterly charming story of a school teacher with 2 men -- an elementary school boy that has a crush on her, and a fellow-teacher who marries her. Along the way, the teacher almost loses her job when she spends a summer in the same resort (gasp!) as her future husband. A scandal is averted when the male teacher resigns, but before too long they secretly marry. Eventually, the young boy grows up to be a presidential candidate, and the husband disappears in World War I. At the beginning of the film, the teacher is trying to meet the presidential candidate to wish him well, and at the end of the film she succeeds. In between, the back-story is told via flashback.Claudette Colbert is wonderful as the teacher...but she was always wonderful! John Payne was excellent as her future husband, and Payne is an actor who may not have been given his due; always dependable. Shepperd Strudwick plays the boy as an adult, while Douglas Croft plays him exceptionally well as the boy.While I can't quite say this is a "great" film, it's certainly a very, very good one. It only finally popped up on TCM very recently.
dbdumonteil
This movie may seem old-fashioned today.Two teachers having an affair (this was also the subject of "these three" by William Wyler )causing a scandal ! These three are here a man,a woman and a boy;the movie begins when Claudette Colbert is an old teacher and the rest is a very long flashback ;it is interesting to notice there's something similar in a more recent work such as "Mr Holland's opus" in which a clumsy girl ,Holland's former pupil,becomes a senator.More than a propaganda movie (WW1 and when the movie was produced WW2),this is a tribute to the teachers:Mrs Prinell is the kind of mistress every boy and girl would like to have (or would have liked to have).Her word reaches far when she tells Dewey he "stands out" but ,like any human being,he is on his own .Perhaps the ending is too good to be true and in real life people who make their way of life often forget the people who helped them along the way,but this is a wonderful ending:I love the moment when Deway mumbles "Mrs Trinell...Nora Trinell..." The boy writing "I beg your pardon" on the blackboard,the white Xmas ,the "auld Lang Syne" on the last day of the year and the train leaving the little town :we'll remember these days.
blanche-2
Claudette Colbert is a schoolteacher thinking about her past life in "Remember the Day," a 1941 film also starring John Payne, Shepperd Strudwick, Ann E. Todd, Jane Seymour and Anne Revere. As she waits to catch a glimpse of a former student, Dewey Peters, now running for President, Nora Trinell (Colbert) thinks back to 1916, when Dewey was a child in her class, and she had just met another teacher in the school, Mr. Hopkins (Payne). Dewey has a terrible crush on Nora, who sees his true worth right away; Hopkins is in love with her. Kay, a student in Dewey's class, is crazy about him, but Dewey is at an age where he doesn't want any girls around. Besides, he's in love with Nora. Nora and Hopkins eventually marry secretly, and he signs up for World War I. Dewey is heartbroken when he sees them together. Before going away to prep school, Nora encourages him in his goals and tells him that he is like a son to her. At his request, she goes to see him off at the train, the same train her husband is on en route to battle. The last time we see her in the flashback, she is waving goodbye.This is a very touching movie with some nice performances, particularly by Colbert, Payne, and Douglas Croft, who plays the young Dewey. The fashions don't look particularly of the period, and as usual, everyone is aged much more than the 25 years that are supposed to have passed. It is true that people look younger today at 50, partly because we fight aging and also because of a youthful attitude, as one of the reviewers states. I still think everyone looked too old, and that includes young Dewey's parents during the flashback, who looked like his grandparents. It's unusual for Twentieth Century Fox to have permitted any aging at all - Zanuck would barely let Tyrone Power have gray at the temples in films with long time spans.Colbert was actually 9 years older than John Payne, but I was aware of it only because I knew it. She was cast opposite younger men more than once. She is very lovely in this, looking much younger than her 38 years. She really carries the film. Payne, a very well-built hunk, gives a wonderful performance.The acting really uplifts this film as does the solid directing of Henry King. You may shed a tear or two - if you don't mind that, "Remember the Day" is well worth seeing.
Neil Doyle
In the vein of CHEERS FOR MISS BISHOP, GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS and GOOD MORNING, MISS DOVE, Fox gave CLAUDETTE COLBERT and JOHN PAYNE a chance to show what they could do in another sentimental tale about the passage of time in a schoolmarm's life and her effect on faculty and students, as well as her remembrance of a lost love.The good thing about REMEMBER THE DAY is it doesn't wallow in cheap sentiment the way some of the sudsers mentioned above had a tendency to do. Nor is it quite as cheerless. Instead, the script is bright and pleasant for most of the time, giving Claudette and John Payne a chance to create likable characters.Like so many '40s romances, it's told in flashback as Claudette recalls her romance with football coach Payne at a school where both of them are teachers who never met before. Both have a natural charm that really comes across here with Claudette being the sort of dream teacher everyone should have--warm and thoughtful. And little DOUGLAS CROFT is excellent as her most promising student.Of course, true love never does run smooth in these sort of things and soon a hint of scandal puts a damper on the Colbert/Payne romance when their moral conduct leads the school president to believe they spent the summer together violating school rules. Colbert rejects Payne's proposal of marriage at first, but later they do wed and he goes off to war.ANNE REVERE is excellent as a prim and proper spinsterish teacher who misunderstands gossip about Colbert's romance. The period flavor is nicely captured but Alfred Newman's overly busy background score is a bit too schmaltzy for comfort, with old time songs constantly playing away in the backgroundWith Payne joining the service (the Royal Canadian engineers), you know something has to happen to make it an ill-fated romance. Fortunately, the lighter side of the romance keeps the picture from falling into the bathos of many a tear-jerker, saving it from the fate of a film like CHEERS FOR MISS BISHOP.Summing up: Well wrought sentiment nicely directed by Henry Koster with Colbert at her charming best and Payne as a promising newcomer.