One Year Later (1933) User Reviews (8)

A Forgotten Classic

[Athanatos · 8/10 · 17 August 2007]

This film starts somewhat inauspiciously, but develops into something well worth watching.

The core story of One Year Later is that of Molly, a young woman desperate to reconcile with her husband before she loses him finally and terribly to the electric chair. Jim is to die for killing his former boss, the man with whom Jim thought his wife to have been having an affair. Sure that Molly was unfaithful, Jim will not so much as listen to her. Jim has been made to board a train headed to the prison in which he is to die. Molly has got a berth on the same train, trying as she might to talk to Jim.

Also riding towards death is Tony, a reporter dying of lung disease. Tony knows something of Jim and Molly's story, and wants to help in whatever way he can.

Secondary characters include J. Atwell Hunt, unfaithful to his own spouse, and Greggs, whom that spouse has hired to prove the infidelity.

One Year Later has its flaws. The beginning, as I indicated, is inauspicious. The secondary stories and characters should have been better developed or not developed at all. (Thus, by implication, the movie may be seen either as too short or as too long.) But the central story is rather well handled. Most of the acting is of fairly high quality and Mary Brian and Russell Hopton in particular do fine jobs with their roles. And the resolution was relatively novel and bittersweet, rather than being trite and saccharine as one might have expected.

From happily married young couple to convicted murderer and frantic wife in just one year.

[Paularoc · 7/10 · 9 April 2012]

I liked this movie better than I expected I would. I particularly liked the scenes in the train station – the hustle bustle of passengers, the newsstand, and the small vignettes of travelers. I was surprised at the large number of extras given my assumption that this was a low budget film. Since I'm a sucker for "train" movies, this movie was easy to like. The character actors got the best lines and the two lead characters were kinda bland although Mary Brian always does a nice job. The stock characters (obnoxious kid, call girl, unfaithful husband, wise-cracking entertainer, private detective) were all well played as was the reporter's role. The husband certainly was quick to assume his wife's infidelity and it seems not to have occurred to him that his boss was a lecherous old snake. And the wife acts like what happened was her fault - an attitude tough to understand. I liked the ending to the movie and was surprised by it.

This one starts off very slowly....force yourself to keep watching.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 24 July 2011]

I was not at all impressed by this movie early on and I had to fight my desire to turn it off and try something else. Well, I am glad I did as the movie turned out to be very satisfying--even with its tiny budget and cast of no-name actors.

The film begins with a couple just getting married and going on their honeymoon. Then, a year passes and suddenly the couple is a mess--the wife is upset because her husband is gone and then you find out it's because he's in prison--and about to be sent to death row! I kept thinking that I'd missed something or the reels of the film were being shown out of sequence by accident. However, why this occurred eventually made sense. The film makers deliberately wanted to confuse the audience and the sad wife eventually sits down with a reporter and recounts what has transpired. This worked...I just needed to be more patient.

What had happened is that shortly after their marriage, the man got a job--not realizing his new boss was a pervert. Every chance he got, the boss kept pushing himself on the new bride. Eventually, the husband catches his boss and thinks that what was in progress was consensual. So, after killing his boss, he wanted nothing to do with his wife and refused to talk with her. I could tell you where this goes next, but don't want to spoil it. Suffice to say that the plot is actually reminiscent of "A Tale of Two Cities" and the ending is amazing. You have to see it to know what I mean. Overall, a very well made cheap film and since it's free to download from the link on IMDb, I suggest you give it a try.

Great shocking ending unusual style makes you think you missed something

Well-done potboiler

[suttonstreet-google · 21 August 2020]

Interesting little movie, starting with a young lovey-dovey couple just married, then all of a sudden the film jumps one year ahead and everything has changed. This works really well -- you are left wondering what the heck happened. Then the story slowly starts to fill in the missing pieces. Everything has gone wrong.

And just about all of the action takes place on s couple of train rides. That's right, the characters are all stuck together for a day or so, so you know things are going to happen. Those were the days -- if you want the train experience today, go to Europe or Asia.

OK, there are some weak moments. The movie uses the same tired old Hollywood script device -- a misunderstanding that the protagonist doesn't make any effort to explain. Now if you were a woman being harassed by your husband's boss, you wouldn't say anything to your husband? Really? And your husband wouldn't understand? OK, so let that one slide -- but it's a cheap plot device by the script writers when they could make it a bit more true-to-life.

A little Dickens of a B movie.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 13 December 2019]

Mary Brian would do anything for her husband, even compromised her reputation in order to aid him when he is fired for threatening the boss for making a pass at his wife. A fight endues, a gun sitting on the floor is grabbed, a shot is fired, and the boss is dead. The husband is on his way to death row, hitting his wife for what he believes to be infidelity, and she wants to convince him of her loyalty even as he faces the electric chair. A dying reporter who has been following the story is also on the train and makes a decision in an attempt to give them one chance at a bit of happiness.

I thought after 10 minutes that I had missed something, but I was then proven wrong when the film sunk into flashback. Brian and husband Don Dillaway are celebrating a bright future, she meets the boss, and all of a sudden he's being taken away. What happened?, I wondered. Don't let this happen to you. The film's narrative wisely fills in all the missing details, and thanks to Russell Hopton's ailing reporter, we get the entire story as seen through both his eyes and through Brian's.

There are some distractions on the train involving other passengers, and perhaps the writers intended a sort of "Grand Hotel" structure that doesn't really add anything to the story. But what happens is a complete surprise that you do not want to give away, and I happen to see it as soon as that plot development began to make its way into the story. Still, it's well done, and the performances are all very good.

Brian is an appealing leading lady, and as Hopton's character is developed, he becomes more complex. The role of the boss is played by an actor made to appear so vile that you root for him to be dispatched and for Dillaway to get away with it. The ending certainly could not have been done as is a year later because of the code, and certain other aspects of the conclusion come in a shocking way. That helps make this film so much better so that it's easy to forgive the plot twists that don't quite ring true.

"Get Me "Snappy Stories", "Ballyhoo" and "Jim Jam Jem"....

[kidboots · 8/10 · 15 August 2014]

....or life goes on at the railway station!!

Every so often a fantastic little movie comes along courtesy of poverty row just to show that sometimes everything clicks together - whether the right stars (in this case all solid performers), the story, or even a surprising bit of inspired direction (from the usual journeyman E. Mason Hopper).

Starting off on a train with blissful newly weds Jim (Don Dillaway) and Molly (Mary Brian) in a cute sequence where they set up their sleeping quarters as a house and play at being an old married couple. Molly writes sweet nothings in her diary but the ink spills and all too soon (one year later actually) Mary is seen alone at the station, fighting back tears and rebuffing reporter Tony Richard's (Russell Hopton) apologies for dragging her name through the mud!! What a mystery!!

Jim is also at the station - in custody and being escorted to prison where he faces the electric chair!! It's the old story - Jim finds a good job under a boss who has his eye (and sometimes his arms) on a very unwilling Mary and of course Jim thinks she is encouraging him - hasn't he seen any of Mary Brian's movies, doesn't he realise that she is as sweet and true as an apple pie??? A showdown occurs, hence Jim's present situation!

Aside from that dramatic main plot Hopton gives his usual splendid performance as Tony, a consumptive reporter who wants to right the terrible wrong he did to Mary and finds a way to help both her and Jim in a very extraordinary way. In fact the only weak character in the story is Jim and it's easy to see why Donald Dillaway never became a star. As well there are various peoples popping up on the train. Jackie Searle as a pesky kid, Pauline Garon as a travelling showgirl but most interesting subplot involves businessman (George Irving) who thinks he has his wife fooled when he sets off for a naughty weekend but wife has a detective on his tail. Girl proves not quite as old as he thought (as she informs him "Did you ever hear of the Mann Act, well for $25,000 I've never heard of it either"!!!) Finding who he thinks is a sympathetic listener, after telling all of his troubles he is presented with the man's card .......!!!

Mary Brian was not called the "sweetest girl in pictures" for nothing and even if she was not a great actress, any film she appeared in benefited enormously just by her appeal!!

Frustrating

[view_and_review · 2/10 · 4 January 2024]

This movie frustrated the hell out of me, which I guess is good because I have no more hell left in me. "One Year Later" isn't the only movie guilty of this particular frustration, but they seemed to amplify it. I'm referring to individuals (women mostly in the old movies) making a bad situation worse with every intention of making it better.

It usually goes like this: the woman does something questionable or has done something questionable in her past which makes the man a little bit guarded and suspicious. Woman promises to never do said thing again. A difficult situation arises. Woman does something sneakily in order to correct the situation. Man finds out and things get ugly.

In "One Year Later" the woman was Molly Collins (Mary Brian), wife of Jim Collins (Don Dillaway).

Jim innocently brought his boss Grant (Edward Keane) by his house for lunch one day. When Grant saw Molly he wanted her. Grant would call Molly and Molly felt helpless because she didn't want to get her husband, Jim, to lose his job. Consequently, she didn't tell her husband what his boss, Grant, was doing because her husband would probably react in a way to get himself fired. And, what I believe was even worse, she didn't put Grant on ice. Sure, she rebuffed him, but she did so in the kindest, gentlest, properest way--which many men only understood as playing hard to get. Molly should've gone ghetto on Grant (whatever ghetto was for a white woman in the '30's) so that he got the picture.

One day Grant came by the house unannounced while Jim wasn't home. Molly tried, feebly, to prevent Grant from coming in but didn't succeed. She gave all the "you musn'ts" and "I shan'ts" she could muster to no avail. Then, naively, she asked if he would leave if she made him a drink, to which he said yes.

This was such a foolish bargain. Making him a drink only allowed him to stay longer. That wasn't the time for any kind of manners or bargains, that was the time for action--screaming, cussing, throwing things, or even calling the police--things had gotten too far for her to consider her husband's employment.

While Molly was making Grant's drink her husband came in.

Uh oh!

Grant made up some phony excuse for why he was there and then made his leave, but Jim was now suspicious. Now was the time for Molly to spill the beans about Grant's behavior, but she didn't.

"What's he doing here?" Jim asked probingly.

"Nothing," Molly answered like a five-year-old who'd just been caught eating candy before dinner.

I don't think I have to tell you that "nothing" is not a good answer. That is such an insult to someone's intelligence AND it makes the person being asked look guilty. Had Molly either A.) come up with a good lie, or better yet B.) told the truth it would've been a lot better. Instead, she lied which made Jim extremely skeptical which puts their marriage in jeopardy.

In spite of Molly's coverup Jim got fired when he threatened his boss, Grant. Molly's "nothing" and other attempts to cover up what her boss was trying to do didn't work anyway. It only succeeded in making her look like a willing participant in the affair.

That was Molly's first attempt at trying to make a bad situation better but only making it worse. Then she tried again.

Jim couldn't find work, so Molly decided to do what? Call Grant.

Ladies, let me tell you something. If a guy lost his job because he threatened his boss for trying to sleep with his wife, HE WILL NOT GO BACK TO WORK FOR HIM, and he certainly doesn't want his wife calling the dude to beg for his job back. I can't believe how incredibly dense Molly was.

But it got worse!

Grant called Molly back. He told her to come over to his place to discuss the matter.

WeeeOoooWeeeOooo!! (siren noises)

Alarm bells should've been going off in this woman's head, but clearly her brain didn't function correctly.

She accepted the invitation AND she lied to her husband about where she was going.

You know what? Good intentions or not, at some point you have to be smart enough to know that you just may not be doing the right thing. I like to use Hanlon's Razor* as much as possible, but even it has its limits.

Jim was suspicious so he followed her. Sure enough he found her at Grant's home. Even though she wasn't doing anything but talking, the lying and her presence there was enough to send him over the edge. He killed his boss while the two were struggling over Grant's gun.

Again, Molly made things worse instead of better and it was really inexcusable. What was a best case scenario with her going to Jim's ex-boss? I'm sure in her pea brain it was that Jim would get his job back, but the real best case scenario was that Grant would be a gentleman and tell her no and they'd be no worse off than they already were. Because if Grant said yes, Jim would find out how he got his job back, if he even took the job back, which would lead to a further erosion of their marriage.

Molly was just too dumb for me to like. It didn't take a lot of intelligence, emotional or otherwise, for her to know that lying to her husband and going behind his back to plead with Grant wasn't a wise course of action. She would've been so much better off reasoning with her husband, Jim, to perhaps persuade him that going back to his old job was what was best. But to take matters in her own hands... bad move.

And because of that, this was a bad movie. Sure, there was more to it than what I just described, but these events were the most crucial. I don't like movies that rely upon the idiocy of a character to create a conflict to advance the plot. It happens quite frequently in horror movies, but somehow it's worse in a drama.

*Hanlon's Razor is an axiom which is essentially "never attribute to malice what you can just as easily attribute to stupidity."

Free on YouTube.

Worth seeing just for that wonderful ending!

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 12 August 2018]

"One Year Later" is a shockingly good picture. After all, it's a cheap B-movie, so you'd expect nothing special....and boy was I wrong!

The film begins with a couple getting married. Things look great. Then, a year passes and what a change....the husband is boarding a train headed to prison--where he's to be executed! You have no idea what happened and only through the course of the film do you learn when the wife tells a reporter their sad tale. Apparently, the husband's boss was a real pervert and he kept making overtures towards the young bride. When the husband began to suspect, he confronted the boss--and the boss fired him. However, the boss WAS willing to give the guy his job back if the wife would sleep with him! The husband arrives during this attempted rape and he attacks the boss. The boss pulls a gun but he is killed in the process. The case appears to be justifiable homicide or self-defense....but the jury didn't see it that way and he's going to die. But one of the reporters is also on the train because he's seriously ill and heading to a sanitarium....and he is shaken by the wife's story and decides to do something decent. What that is...well, you'll have to see the film.

If loved everything about the ending--it was riveting, suspenseful and tied everything together perfectly. Despite the film's humble roots, it's darned good entertainment...B-movie or not.