Tomorrow We Live (1942)

I see so far I'm in a minority here for some folks are finding all kinds of murky and mysterious meanings in Tomorrow We Live. All I'm looking at is a Grade Z piece of melodramatic claptrap. Poor Ricardo Cortez's career had come to a pretty pass here for a guy who was the last player billed OVER Greta Garbo back in silent days. And a rival in the Latin lover department to Rudolph Valentino besides.

Cortez's character 'the Ghost' is a veiled reference to Lucky Luciano who got his nickname by surviving a hit attempt as did Cortez. He's got himself a nice little gambling spot out on the desert in some unnamed western state that I think we can assume is Nevada. He's got the hots for Jean Parker and he's also got a hold on her father Emmett Lynn who runs a nearby truck-stop greasy spoon like café. The kind that Cecil Kellaway had in The Postman Always Rings Twice.

Anyway Cortez has Lynn working in a black market tire racket and Parker submitting herself to his Snidely Whiplash advances. She actually throws over her all American soldier boyfriend William Marshall for Cortez. But Marshall tells off Cortez that he's going overseas to fight guys like him.

Anyway the film was made too soon because Lucky Luciano due to efforts by the War Department got himself paroled and deported to Cuba for allegedly setting up contacts with the Italian Mafia for OSS operatives in Italy. That came after Tomorrow We Live was inflicted on the movie going public which does give this film a certain amount historical curiosity.

But definitely not worth the little over an hour of my life I'll not get back.