And Now Tomorrow

I don't usually like Loretta Young, but I admit when actors or actresses I don't care for give objectively good performances. Loretta plays a deaf woman, ill with meningitis, and she's very good. Her eyes are glued to her fellow actors' lips, and when they turn away from her for a moment, she gets a bewildered look on her face until they return to face her. She wipes the fear and shame away and asks, even though it humiliates her to do it, them to repeat themselves. It's very realistic and natural.

When she falls ill, Loretta breaks her engagement to Barry Sullivan, so that his quality of life isn't diminished for having to care for a sick person. Alan Ladd, a new, unknown doctor, wants to experiment on Loretta to see if he can cure her, and in the many months of the treatment, Barry falls in love with Loretta's sister, Susan Hayward.

And Now Tomorrow is very similar to Dark Victory, so if you liked one, there's a good chance you'll like the other. Part medical drama, part love story, and chalk full of beautiful clothes from Edith Head, this is an overlooked classic that's great to watch with a bowl of popcorn on a rainy afternoon.