Only Yesterday (1933)

Brilliant and touching

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

"Only Yesterday" was simply outstanding! One of the best pre-code movies ever made. Margaret Sullavan received the chance of a lifetime in this plum role as a simple, trusting young girl who loves a soldier (John Boles) during World War One, becomes pregnant by him during a one night stand, and when he returns he doesn't recognize her (or perhaps more cruelly, pretends he doesn't). In disgrace she is sent to her independent minded aunt in New York City, who gets her a job and helps her get on her feet again and raise her child. Billie Burke is absolutely delicious in the role and Reginald Denny charmingly plays the younger man who is in love with her and devoted to her. A delightful scene with them at the piano together had me grinning from ear to ear and saying "Awww....that's so cute!" How refreshing that Hollywood knew how to charm audiences in those days with extra little scenes like this as comic relief.The rest of the cast is stellar, and boasts MANY fine actors in cameo appearances who were popular in the silent days of cinema. Just see how many you can recognize now in the sound era, milling about in the suspenseful crowd scenes, including Marie Prevost, Jason Robards Sr., Louise Beavers, Joyce Compton, Ruth Clifford, Walter Catlett, Arthur Hoyt, George Hackathorne, King Baggot. Even Irene Dunne in a bit part. This must have been seen as a big production for this studio, to have all these stars in one picture.Special mention also goes to child actor Jimmy Butler who played the young son. What an terrific natural actor he was! After seeing him in this I sought out other films he was in and discovered he was exceptional in those films too. Unfortunately he died as a soldier in Europe in the last year of World War Two, dead way too soon for a young lad.This film has never been put on VHS or DVD. I was reduced to buying a bootleg of it, which I hate to do, but if these video and DVD companies refuse to spend the money to put these pre-code masterpieces out on the market, that is what the old time film fan has to resort to in order to obtain a film they long to see. A shame.I gave this film a 10 out of 10.

Failing to acknowledge the fact that the script is based on Stefan Zweig's "Letter from an unknown woman" notwithstanding, Stahl's "Only yesterday" is a jewel of a film.Beautifully written, directed and acted - it is refreshing to see how real films of the golden age of pre-Hayes Code could be. Absolutely no moral judgment is made of the unwed pregnancy of the character after her one night stand with the man she is fascinated with. Leaving Virginia and her crying mother behind for New York and her suffragette aunt (delightfully played by the talented and often typecast Billie Burke) who basically puts it down as a "biological occurrence", something to be lived through - something that happens. The film is full of little touches of real emotions and actions despite the heavy cinematic conventions of the era.A comparison with Max Ophuls' masterpiece "Letter from an unknown woman" (1948) is too thrilling to resist. In Stahl's more "realistic" version the character played by Margaret Sullavan goes from wide eyed ingénue to become the sophisticated witty Mary Lane - a woman who's been through it and kids herself no longer. Beffiting Ophuls' dark and moody amour foux fable - Liza Berndl (Joan Fontaine) though also going from naive to sophisticate (with some hints of prostitution) never gets over the romantic -almost neurotic- obsession with Stefan Brand (Louis Jourdan - the doomed don Giovanni of "Letter" as opposed to "Yesterday"'s regular Wall Street dilettante played by John Bole). Their reaction to a second chance with the object of their desire is as different as their characters...If you should come across this film in a midnight television screening or at your local cinemateque DO NOT MISS IT. Unfortunately you will not be able to find it in VHS or DVD. Time has been kinder to Ophuls' amazing film - if not quite fair either. Maybe one of these days the guys at the Criterion Collection will see to it...

I love Black and White movies having gained an interest from older parents and far too many afternoons watching BBC2 and Channel 4 rather than studying. 15 years ago I switched on expecting to see sport when the joyful news of rain meant a movie was on instead. That movie was 'Only Yesterday' and I remember it fondly to this day. I was utterly entranced by the film with its' sensitive handling of relationships, the difference between male and female attitudes to sex, and of course the heartrending story of a woman who seems doomed to lose out on love. SPOILERS: The ending is a masterpiece in understated emotion which still haunts me. Mum and I were left crying over so many lost chances. I wish more people could see it. Laura

This is a great film with an absolutely amazing script. While Margaret Sulivan has a tremendous break out performance, in my opinion it is John Boles as the philandering Jim and Billie Burke as the suffragist aunt that really make the film. John Boles in particular has some really great lines. My favorite line of the film was when the married Jim is trying to seduce Margaret on New Year's Eve and he takes her to his secret bachelor pad and tells Margaret that this is where he lives. Margaret says something like, `Strange it doesn't have a woman's touch.' And Jim replies that while he doesn't eat, sleep, or hang out with his family here, this is where he LIVES. Jim is just a pimp. While this film is difficult to see since they don't have it on video or show it on cable, it is really a must see movie for anyone interested in pre-code film. It is an absolutely wonderful movie.