Remember the Day (1941)

Great Film overall

Brilliant and touching

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

This begins at a political party convention in Washington, D.C., as candidate Dewey Roberts (Shepperd Strudwick) prepares to deliver his speech to accept his party's nomination for a U.S. Presidential bid, when his former schoolteacher, Nora Trinell (Claudette Colbert), arrives to attempt to capture a glimpse of and to offer a note of congratulations to one of whom she feels proud to have influenced during his formative years.But the program experiences delay, as attendees and a national radio hookup await the arrival of Candidate Roberts, Miss Trinell reminisces of her arriving from Connecticut into a rural Indiana community back in 1915, to instruct her eighth-grade class, which includes three lively pupils: Young Dewey Roberts (Douglas Croft), Kate Hill (Ann E. Todd), and Peter (William Henderson), Nora detaining the three for misconduct after dismissal.In the meantime, when Nora announces to her class a field trip to the park for a Shakespeare play this coming Saturday, Dewey reports that the school's baseball team has a scheduling conflict, asks to be excused, and runs down the staircase to report to his Coach, Dan Hopkins (John Payne), who decides to have a word with the adamant yet flexible Miss Trinell.Nora and Dan resolve their differences for now before school Principal, Mr. Steele (Francis Pierlot), as the two instructors begin their secret courtship, beginning with an independent Nora's prioritizing career over romance, and soon jeopardizing each of their careers, as marriage is forbidden for a teacher, according to school policy mandates, in 1915.Dewey's parents, Mrs. Roberts (Jane Seymour) and Mr. Roberts (Harry Hayden) demonstrate a liking to his caring instructor, as Nora delivers Dewey's assignments during his bout with a brief illness. Upon her visit, Dewey shows Nora the model boats, which his father has helped him to construct, as ship-making has become a common bond between the two from the onset (since Dewey and Peter argued about the brig, the bark and ship rigged vessels, which, of course, Nora would correct, as her grandfather had been a Naval officer. Kate could not mind her own business during the debate, and had something to say about it, which is the reason as to why she had been detained that day.)Well, fellow instructor Miss Nadine Price (Anne Revere) shares residence at a boarding house with Nora and serves as her confidante of sorts although Nora keeps her mounting feeling about Dan to herself for the most part. Dewey, by now, also admires Nora greatly and dismisses any notion that Nora and Dan are weak enough to fall for each other.Nora completes her partial term of the academic year to vacation for the summer with Nadine and other female instructors at a resort, at which Nora expresses a lack of interest in playing croquet with Nadine or lounging with the other ladies, so when Dan drives by to rescue Nora, they decide to elope in secret, and to spend the remainder of the summer at a different resort, from whence they each send Dewey a postcard featuring the sailboat, "The Mabel." Later in the autumn, when Dewey shows Principal Steele the postcards to prove his point after another argument with Peter, Mr. Steele puts two and two together to confront Dan Hopkins, who secretly sacrifices his career to permit Nora to stay on at her post, and so he enlists in the Service and receives his orders to sail to France.Seasoned with a nice touch of nostalgia, Nora and Nadine light wax candles upon the Christmas spruce, as the boarding house rings in New Year 1916. Dan stops by for a visit, to stroll around the town square with Nora, before his train arrives to deliver him to the docks to sail to France before the U.S. enters WWI.Eventually, Nora transfers from Indiana to a school in Washington, D.C., at which she teaches for the remainder of her career, and garners additional classroom alumni who attend the gathering for Candidate Dewey Roberts. But amid all of the pressure of facing a national audience, will Dewey also "Remember the Day?" This also features Frieda Inescort as Mrs. Dewey Roberts, Marie Blake as Miss Cartwright, Selmer Jackson as Graham, William Halligan as Tom Hanlon, and Chick Chandler as Mr. Mason the Reporter.And the film is released on Christmas Day, 1941, soon after the U.S. enters WWII, to reaffirm sentimental values of patriotism through the eyes of dedicated adults and youths alike.

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.

The depiction of the characters being dramatically more "aged" than we'd expect today is not an error. In those days people DID age more... but more importantly, they looked older than our "seniors" of today. The thinking in those days was once you are an adult you act and look like one. It was an outdated attitude, true, but none the less, it is how they "thought". I remember my own mother at age 38 in the 60s acted like a woman of 70 would act today...and also the way she "looked" as well. I remember my older relatives of the 60s wouldn't get on a bicycle because it was for "kids". That was an ignorant way of thinking, but it was how they thought. This movie was right on for the times. Sometimes you have to be more open to "others" views of things before you draw a conclusion and form an opinion that you state on this website.

This was a sweet film about romance during WW I, and I happened to see on a movie channel while staying at a hotel recently. The acting was good, but I am surprised at the accolades of other reviewers. The plot was sort of simple, but my main problem was the ending. So I guess this is a spoiler, although other reviewers have mentioned how it ends.The story begins in 1916, when Colbert is a very young school teacher, probably early 20s. Her student who is going to be the presidential candidate is about 10 or 12. Now at the end, they say that a quarter of a century has passed. That's 25 years. The movie was made in 1941, so that would be just about right. However, Colbert is now an elderly woman, complete with these awful glasses and gray hair in a bun. Her student, who is now the presidential candidate, is a middle aged man with graying hair. His wife, who was also Colbert's student, is an overweight middled aged woman who looks about 50.Uh, excuse me, but if Colber was about 23 at the start, let's do the math. Now she is 48 years old--hardly a dottering old bag who looks like she's ready for a nursing home. Her students were not that much younger than her, and both of them would still be quite young at age 35.What were the producer and director thinking? Didn't anyone else notice this? It's also a little hard to imagine that by age 35, especially in that time period, that the former student would be running for president.