Next Time We Love (1936) User Reviews (15)

Preston Sturges worked on the screenplay, but don't expect 'The Lady Eve'

[wmorrow59 · 5/10 · 8 October 2006]

Sight unseen this movie has a number of factors in its favor: 1) it stars two of the most charismatic performers of Hollywood's Golden Age, James Stewart & Margaret Sullavan, paired for the first time; 2) it features the underrated Ray Milland as Jimmy's best friend, who becomes the third player in their romantic triangle; 3) several of Hollywood's familiar character actors appear in supporting roles (Grant Mitchell, Hattie McDaniel, Christian Rub, etc.), and 4) its story was born in the typewriter of the legendary Preston Sturges, one of the all-time great screenwriters. According to various biographies of Sturges he spent a couple of weeks on the first draft of this drama while simultaneously cranking out a comedy for Carole Lombard called Love Before Breakfast. Sturges' script for Next Time We Love was then handed off to an obscure writer named Melville Baker who revised it, but in the end only Baker received screen credit. It would appear that this project meant little to Sturges, but, bearing in mind the memorable results when Margaret Sullavan took the title role of his brilliant adaptation of The Good Fairy in 1935, I sat down to watch this one hoping it might also be something special.

Unfortunately, and despite a decent opening half-hour or so, this film ultimately disappoints. Stewart and Sullavan have good chemistry and make a believable couple. We follow the course of their relationship with interest as they marry on impulse and Stewart aggressively pursues a career in journalism while Sullavan takes a more casual interest in stage acting, while best friend Milland maintains a steady presence in the background. Stewart & Sullavan have a baby, but trouble soon develops: her career in the theater suddenly takes off just as his progress at the newspaper hits a brick wall. Tension mounts as she becomes the breadwinner after he screws up a major assignment and is fired. They separate, and Sullavan flourishes while Stewart avoids coming home and stays out of the picture. Milland, at this point, finally steps forward and makes his feelings known.

More plot twists come along, but for me the movie starts to fizzle along about the time Sullavan's acting career takes off. Important events occur too abruptly, without the appropriate build-up: all of a sudden, she's a famous and powerful Broadway star. It looks as if some backstage scenes were filmed but then cut, suggested by the fact that Grant Mitchell, who plays a theatrical producer, receives fourth billing in the credits though he appears in only one brief scene. From that point onward Sullavan's stardom seems unreal while the behavior of Stewart's character becomes increasingly melodramatic and unbelievable. In the later scenes none of the main characters behave like recognizable human beings, and despite the best efforts of these estimable actors we no longer buy anything they're saying or doing by the climax. The story raises a provocative issue, i.e. the conflict that results when a wife earns more money than her husband and thus wields more power, but the filmmakers chickened out without really addressing the matter, choosing a sappy "Hollywood" resolution over anything genuinely satisfying.

Next Time We Love is fairly interesting nonetheless, worth seeing if you enjoy Hollywood melodramas of the '30s and certainly if you're a fan of the stars, but in the end it doesn't amount to much. Fans of Preston Sturges will be hard pressed to recognize his contribution, and may prefer to skip this one and enjoy one of his more characteristic works instead.

Two career-minded people moving in opposite directions.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 6 September 2016]

Among all of Jimmy Stewart's films, "Next Time We Love" is among the more obscure...even though there is some really terrific acting in it as well as three top actors (Margaret Sullavan, Jimmy Stewart and Ray Milland). As far as why it's not a popular film, I have a strong guess....it's not a particularly enjoyable picture and you have a hard time really caring about the characters.

The story itself is a great illustration of the old saying, "Act in haste, repent at leisure". This is because Cicely and Chris (Sullavan and Stewart) meet and decide to get married only a few days later. It's clearly an impulsive move and even before the honeymoon it's clear this will NOT be an easy marriage. Chris is a newspaper correspondent and likes the idea of traveling the world to report the news. This is clearly NOT a career conducive to a great marriage. But to make it worse, Cicely soon takes up acting and she likes it...and it pays well. In fact, when Chris loses a job, she carries them. This SHOULD make them happy but it doesn't. After all, it's the 1930s and a man, a 'real man', was expected to be the bread-winner and a wife was to stay home, make babies and wait for her man to come home from work--which was impossible with being a correspondent and her being an actress. So, years pass and Chris roams the world while Cicely becomes famous...and they barely have any time for each other. Both have created their own separate lives...and all the while, their good friend Tommy (Milland) is there to help Cicely...and soon it becomes apparent Tommy wants to be more than just a friend.

So basically you have two strong-willed people who are more concerned with their careers than each other...something hardly the stuff of a romance or fun film. In many ways, I wonder how much this story was influenced by the Hollywood life...and broken marriages. Either way, the acting is stupendous (particularly by Sullavan)...but the film is still unpleasant and not particularly involving for me. As for me, I just wanted to slap them both and tell them to grow up! After all, they had a child and yet they seemed a bit childish themselves.

Romantic Melodrama Ahead of Time

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 27 November 2013]

In New York, the rookie newsman Christopher "Chris" Tyler (James Stewart) dreams on becoming a famous journalist. When his girlfriend Cicely (Margaret Sullavan) spends a couple of days with him, they decide to get married and Cicely leaves college. Chris's best friend Tommy Abbott (Raymond Milland) is his best man and becomes a family's friend. Chris has his great chance when his editor Frank Carteret (Robert McWade) sends him to Rome assigned as a foreign correspondent. Cicely stays in New York with Tommy and does not tell to Chris that she is pregnant. When she delivers the baby Kit, Chris celebrates and loses a big scoop and his boss fires him. Chris falls in disgrace and the couple has economic difficulties; however Tommy lends money to Cicely and offers an opportunity on the stage as an actress. Cicely is hired and becomes successful and Chris is depressed with the situation. Cicely seeks out Frank Carteret and explains the situation, and he offers a job opportunity to Chris in Russia. He accepts the job but Cicely stays in New York with their son. Along the years, their marriage ends with the distance, but they are still in love with each other.

"Next Time We Love" is a romantic melodrama ahead of time with a mature story of career conflict with marriage, causing separation, reconciliation and infidelity of the two leads. This theme is impressive for a 1936 movie, where usually the woman is submissive and dependable of man's possessions. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Amemos Outra Vez" ("We Love Again")

Diverged careers strain a marriage

[ClaudetteColbertFan · 7/10 · 4 November 2018]

Stewart's first breakout role. The magnetism between Sullavan and Stewart is undeniable in this sophisticated story about a couple whose careers don't quite mesh. Their divergent careers inevitably causes their marriage to be a rocky one with many ups and downs. The plot, although a progressive one ahead of its time, is not an appealing one. I wanted to like this movie, but the plot kept me from it. It fell flat and seemed rushed.

The First In A Long Line Of Female Hearts

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 23 January 2011]

By the time her fifth film was ready to be launched Margaret Sullavan had achieved a position of some clout with her original studio Universal Pictures. She used that clout to get as her leading man, a young player she knew from Broadway as the best friend of her then husband Henry Fonda. Sullavan got Carl Laemmle to get Louis B. Mayer to loan him James Stewart and from Paramount as the second lead she got Ray Milland.

But Stewart was her project and she more than director Edward Griffith got him through Next Time We Love to favorable notices. This was Stewart's highest billing yet, co-starring to Margaret Sullavan and he made the most of it. They did three more films together and in only one of them did either Sullavan or Stewart not die in. They were the king and queen of bittersweet romances back in the day.

Sullavan is highly successful stage star and Stewart is a reporter with ambitions to be an international correspondent. Sullavan might have been better off marrying Ray Milland who is a producer, but something about the shy and stammering Jimmy wins her heart and that would be the first in a long line of female hearts on the screen to feel that way.

Of course being an international correspondent does keep Stewart away a lot and Margaret does not want to give up a successful stage career that's just getting started. Even with the arrival of a baby boy the problems only increase until a really heavy crisis comes on that overwhelms all.

Next Time We Love is an intelligent mature drama that holds up well and I'm surprised has not been remade. I could see a Cate Blanchett or a Gwyneth Paltrow in Sullavan's role with possibly Matthew McConaughey in the Stewart part in a remake today. Somebody in Hollywood take note.

James Stewart in an early breakout role

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 25 June 2015]

This is a very early Stewart film that really gave him his first big break with a leading role. Sixth billed in "Murder Man" and fifth billed in "Rose Marie", he was barely visible in his first two features at MGM. On loan to Universal, here he was teamed with Margaret Sullivan, and together they play a couple that marries on impulse and then begin pursuing their own individual careers - she is an actress, he is a journalist. Conflict develops when her career takes off and his does not. This film is very typical of those melodramas that were so common in the 1930's, but it is still interesting to see what Stewart does with this early role in his career. Stewart and Sullivan have a better chance to show off their chemistry in 1938's "Shopworn Angel", still it is a good look at a film made right before the Laemmle's lost Universal to creditors. I'd recommend it mainly for the performances.

Not a wonderful start to a fantastic career

[Zoooma · 6/10 · 15 September 2014]

Jimmy Stewart's first big role. This is not a romance we are used to with a happily ever after ending. Not even close. Maybe that would make it interesting and worthwhile but meh, I'm not all that impressed with this. You can see the immense talent in the young 27 year old Jimmy but he is still very much coming into his own here. Not the best vehicle for him considering I would never guess his character to be a man under at least 30. Quite a mature role for such a youngster to Hollywood. Still an okay, quick film that isn't his best but is from such a great era that it's hard to say it's bad!

5.7 / 10 stars

--Zoooma, a Kat Pirate Screener

I didn't know they made movies like this in the 30s (or the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s...)

[rooprect · 8/10 · 2 March 2009]

This is a very progressive film with themes way ahead of the times even for today. What does that mean? Usually when someone calls a film "progressive" it means it's hypersexed, banned by the Pope or has gratuitous shots of belly buttons. Right, well, none of that. NEXT TIME WE LOVE is progressive because it delves into interpersonal issues that simply "didn't exist" in the golden age of Hollywood.

A wife who chooses career over family? Preposterous. A husband/father who neglects the upbringing of his child? Outrageous. A marriage that is mutually tolerant of infidelity? Sacrilegious. Hollywood has historically depicted the marriage ceremony as the proverbial "happily ever after"; yet in this film we get a sober and realistic view of how life really works.

There are no dramatic fireworks, no cartoonish liaisons, no screaming or breaking things like we might get in a modern film dealing with this subject. Instead, it's extremely subtle and believable. There's not much flashy plot to sink your MTV-starved mind into, but if instead you like to digest your films slowly and comprehend the meaning behind every gesture--the tension in Margaret Sullivan's spine, the repressed torment in Jimmy Stewart's posture, the way a cigarette can be worth a thousand words when lit at the perfect moment--then this film is for you.

One thing worth mentioning... this is one of the few films that handles the aging of characters in a credible manner. Margaret goes from a giddy schoolgirl to a mature woman of the world. Jimmy goes from a brash adventurer to a pensive introvert. The makeup, hairstyles, clothes and especially the way the actors carry themselves convey the passage of time as the film progresses over a decade (perhaps mirroring the awakening of a nation from the roaring 20s to the tougher times that followed). The climactic hotel meeting near the end of the film presents two completely different personalities from what we originally met; you could almost believe that it was played by two new actors, but no, we owe it all to the fantastic acting & direction of this film.

What happens when the two parties in a marriage change paths.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 4 April 2014]

There's no doubt in your mind that when pretty schoolteacher Margaret Sullavan gets on a train and off again that she's soon to become reporter James Stewart's bride. He's a rising star on his paper, and when they first settle down, everything is fine. But she's bitten by the acting bug thanks to their movie actor pal (Ray Milland) and ends up becoming a hit on the stage. He's sent to Rome and she decides to remain behind. But when the news hits that she's had a baby, he comes rushing home and looses his job. By this time, they are practically strangers, even though they are new parents. Sullavan intervenes on Stewart's behalf in his career, and this leads to situations which threaten to separate them even more.

This is a likable drama that suffers from a lack of light-hearted moments to retain consistent interest. One moment stands out when Stewart visits Sullavan backstage just as she is about to go on. He doesn't understand the bad timing and keeps talking to her in a distractive way just as she is about to make her entrance. It is one of those oh-so-uncomfortable moments to watch (because you can just imagine it happening) that makes his character annoying, but real. It is at this moment that you realize that these two may be in love but have nothing really in common, and you wonder, "How can this love survive?"

Obvious other than the lack of humor is the lack of familiar character performers. Of the rather small cast, only Grant Mitchell is recognizable, the others very obscure, mostly from bit parts in other films but given larger ones here. Anna Demetrio, as the big-hearted Italian landlady, stands out amongst them. This is the type of film that I really wanted to like a lot more but just couldn't feel emotion for. The team of Stewart and Sullavan would do a lot better in their two 1940 MGM releases together, "The Mortal Storm" and "The Shop Around the Corner".

Surprisingly sophisticated romantic drama.

[lqualls-dchin · 9/10 · 13 July 2000]

Though in many ways a soapy tearjerker, this movie is one of many 1930s dramas with a surprisingly adult perspective, with sophisticated attitudes towards marriage, infidelity and divorce. It helps that James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan are incredibly well-matched: you're able to sympathize with both partners. All in all, an entertaining melodrama about how clashing careers can strain a marriage, and a remarkably modern look at love versus ambition.

An under-appreciated, sophisticated gem from the 1930s

[1953calif · 9/10 · 21 July 2014]

******************SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT***********************

This is a surprisingly excellent little film from Universal starring Margaret Sullavan and Jimmy Stewart. The two leads play a young married couple whose careers end up keeping them apart throughout most of their marriage despite the fact that they have a child together whom Sullavan's character ends up raising pretty much on her own.

The film was released in 1936 and shows the clear influence of the first wave of the modern feminist movement in the U.S.. Sullavan is a successful actress who supports and even helps facilitate her husband Stewart's career as a globe-trotting foreign correspondent, but she doesn't sacrifice her own career to the usual trope of the "good little wife" following wherever he goes.

The choices and hard decisions of each of the partners in this marriage are portrayed mostly realistically (until the unnecessarily melodramatic ending, that is), and the film doesn't pull any punches about how difficult it is for both Sullavan and Stewart, who are genuinely in love, to pursue what's best for each of them individually, even at the expense of their happiness and their opportunities to live together in the marriage.

The movie takes a sophisticated attitude toward the challenges of a two-career couple in a way that was fairly ahead of its time. It doesn't pander to the usual Hollywood formula and there's certainly not a happy ending. Both Stewart's and Sullavan's characters suffer and experience regrets, but there's no disproportionate punishment for the woman character for choosing her own independence and career.

These two actors clearly portray the couple as spouses who are determined to respect one another's choices even when they're hurt by them. They also clearly maintain their love for each other even through the years of separation. But in the final analysis, their choices mean they don't get to have one another present in their everyday lives in the way I think that each of them would ultimately have wanted for their marriage.

Sullavan and Stewart are terrific in playing off one another and they each bring great credibility and feeling to their scenes together. Ray Milland also gives a strong performance in an important supporting role.

See this far too-little known 1936 gem. If you're a fan of the golden age of classic films and of these two fine actors at a relatively young stage of their respective careers, you won't spend a more interesting hour and a half at the movies. Highly recommended.

Career conflict impacting relationship

[CCsito · 8/10 · 25 October 2010]

This movie is Jimmy Stewart's first leading male character role. Supposedly, Margaret Sullavan had helped in recruiting him for the movie. The movie deals with a couple whose relationship is tested by the career aspirations of each other. The movie deals with a subject that is ground breaking for its time. Married women were relegated to being housewives prior to World War II. Women had also gotten the right to vote in the previous decade. The relationship between the spouses after their marriage becomes strained as the husband aspires to be a reporter (and getting stationed overseas) while the wife aspires to be a stage star. Their baby's birth becomes an additional dilemma for the couple. Ray Milland also stars as a friend of the couple who also falls in love with Margaret Sullavan. As the couple drifts apart, they start to contemplate divorce. Jimmy's character develops a serious respiratory infection from being overseas and realizes that he doesn't want to be a burden to his wife. He encourages her to marry his friend and to break off with him in a move of self sacrifice. However, they both still are in love with each other and she stays with him after finding out about his condition. The two of them never forgot about their past experiences with each other and as one character in the movie had stated that they shared a special type of love with each other. The movie title is suitably named since it relates to delaying a relationship until a later time period. The couple's competing career aspirations resulted in a delaying of spending time to share love with each other. The movie spans the time period from 1927 to 1935 and opens and concludes at a hotel where the couple had spent time together. Jimmy mentions the Lindbergh transatlantic flight at the beginning of the movie. It is a coincidence that he would play Charles Lindbergh later in his movie career. There are also references to the turmoil developing in Europe and the Japanese invasion into Asia which forbodes World War II.

Jimmy Stewart's First Lead Role

[springfieldrental · 8/10 · 6 July 2023]

Friendships help when it comes time for actors and actresses to advance their careers. James Stewart had friends at just the right places in his first year working in film. His friendship with actress Margaret Sullivan proved a crucial step to his becoming one of Hollywood's most popular actors when she heavily lobbied her studio for him as a replacement in January 1936's "Next Time We Love." It was the first of four films the two appeared in together.

Stewart had met Sullivan in his first stage acting gig with the University Players in Cape Cod in the summer of 1932. He worked alongside Sullivan and her husband Henry Fonda with the same Massachusetts company. Sullivan's marriage with Fonda didn't last long, but Stewart's friendship with both endured well after the Cape's theatre summer season ended. Stewart moved to New York City with the now-single Fonda as a roommate to find steady employment on Broadway. Meanwhile Sullivan, relocating to Hollywood, always kept in contact with the two after she signed a short contract with Universal Pictures in 1933. Stewart, after spotted by an MGM talent scout, followed her footpath to Tinseltown, and played in a couple of small roles with the studio, including 1936's "Rose Marie." After seeing her co-star bow out of "Next Time We Love," Sullivan twisted Universal's arm to get MGM to loan-out Stewart as his replacement. The studio agreed, and made arrangements to get Stewart his biggest role on the screen yet.

Filming the early scenes for "Next Time We Love" did not go well for Stewart in the eyes of its director Edward Griffith. He started hectoring the young actor, making him nervous and causing him to stumble over his lines. Sullivan, seeing her friend's career flushing down the toilet right before her eyes, spent the following nights coaching Stewart, instructing him to tamper down his unsteady mannerisms and his clipped delivery Of speaking. After a few days, the director could see a huge difference. "It was Margaret Sullivan who made James Stewart a star," Griffith later said. When the actor returned to his contracted studio, MGM talent scout Bill Grady, who had picked out Stewart on the Broadway stage, noticed a new person. "That boy came back from Universal so changed I hardly recognized him."

"Next Time We Love," adapted from Ursula Parrott's 1935 British novel 'Next Time We Live,' involves Stewart as Christopher Tyler, a reporter who is offered a lucrative overseas position he can't refuse. Meanwhile, his wife Cicely (Sullivan)stays home while pursuing a stage career assisted by Stewart's best friend, Tommy Abbott (Raymond Milland), an insider to Broadway's biggest honchos.

It's a newly refreshed Stewart that makes "Next Time We Live" so noteworthy. Film reviewer David Krauss was startled by the transformation of the new star. "Confident, relaxed, and seemingly so attuned to the finer points of film acting, he comes across as the consummate professional and files a deeply sensitive, unaffected performance that previews the gallery of diverse yet natural characterizations he would etch on celluloid over the next half century." Krauss was equally effusive about Sullivan. "Whether warm, loving, noble, headstrong, resentful, recalcitrant, or devastated, Sullavan is always genuine, and the chemistry she creates with Stewart is both comfortable and crackling. It's not surprising the two made four movies together. I only wish they made more."

The most accurate movie title

[InstaNetCo · 8/10 · 29 August 2022]

I spent days trying to find a way to watch this movie, I'm glad I put the time and effort to find it.

I am really surprised this movie was made in the 30s. Some of the things you'll see in this movie are way ahead of its time. A girl that wants to make a life for self. A couple that understands that spending so much time apart may eventually lead to breaking from monogamy.

This movie was wonderfully acted and directed. Stewart and Sullivan keep showing that a good chemistry looks like on the big screen.

As the movie progresses you are more lively to understand the title and at the end it just makes total sense. Completely underrated drama / romance from the 30s.

Next time we part and reunite

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 7 October 2022]

This classic melodrama from Universal is a real tearjerker. Maybe it's just me, but this studio seemed to do these kinds of pictures best in the 1930s...the original BACK STREET with Irene Dunne; the original IMITATION OF LIFE with Claudette Colbert; don't forget the original MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION again with Irene Dunne...you get the idea. A stone would cry watching these pictures.

NEXT TIME WE LOVE is based on a story called Next Time We Live. I guess the central idea here is that if you're going to live, you're going to have to love, as painful as it might be. It all starts rather simply and sweet. Margaret Sullavan is in love with James Stewart. She attends college with dreams of being an actress; he's a budding reporter.

They soon marry, and he gets sent off by his boss (Robert McWade) to a post as a foreign correspondent in Europe. Of course, this means a separation as she will remain behind to pursue her goal of becoming a legitimate stage actress.

Oh, there's another guy in the picture, their mutual pal (Ray Milland) who is able to pull some strings which helps Sullavan get her big break while Stewart's chasing down scoops halfway around the world. Of course Milland is also smitten with Sullavan, and he's more than willing to be a support for her when it turns out she's pregnant.

It's a woman's picture, or at least predominately marketed towards female movie patrons. So the focus is on Sullavan balancing career and motherhood. Stewart finds out about the birth, gets drunk, misses a big story and loses his job. He returns to the nest but is unable to financially provide for wife and baby. Sullavan heads back to her work in the theater and her increasing success makes her more important than her husband.

Most of these stories are about the woman in question being made to feel as if her life outside the home is a threat to domestic tranquility and marital bliss. As a result, she does the right thing and helps Stewart get another newspaper job. He then leaves again, and she's once again consoled by Milland.

Years go by, and we see that while Sullavan and Stewart love each other very much they are basically stuck in a holding pattern, living their lives apart more than living together. These two performers work so well with each other, they are perfectly in sync in all their scenes, that every bit of emotion they register in the given scenario resonates strongly with us.

If this had been a film made at Columbia, Stewart would have been paired with Jean Arthur. If it had been made at his home studio, the bosses at MGM would have probably cast him alongside Jean Harlow. Interestingly, when Sullavan's contract ended with Universal she moved to Metro and appeared in three more pictures with Stewart. They obviously enjoyed collaborating, and audiences adored them.

Sullavan repeated this particular role twice on radio, while Stewart also did a radio remake of the story with another actress. They knew they had a hit with the material and kept going back to the well. And audiences kept welling up with tears. Next time we watch, let's make sure to have some tissues handy.