Tomorrow Is Another Day is such a bad title it’s not surprising the film has escaped critical reappraisal – and viewers. Which is unfortunate, because this movie is brimming with stylish pleasures and surprisingly deep feeling. The ‘lovers on the run’ premise will be familiar to anyone who has seen Lang’s You Only Live Once, Ray’s They Live by Night, Lewis’ Gun Crazy or Sirk’s Shockproof. In fact, Samuel Fuller, writer of Shockproof, could have sued for plagiarism, since much of Tomorrow Is Another Day seems lifted from his script, made two years earlier. But it’s not the story that makes this film special, it’s Feist’s direction. He’d shown a flair for volatile action in confined spaces in the B-films The Devil Thumbs a Ride and The Threat, but this Warner Bros. picture was born from bigger plans, having been tailored for John Garfield. The male lead was eventually played by Steve Cochran instead, who typically played sinister and sexy supporting studs in movies such as White Heat, The Damned Don’t Cry and Storm Warning. Here he gives a troubled, vulnerable performance, which may have convinced Antonioni to cast Cochran in his existential drama Il grido. Costar Ruth Roman had appeared in major movies without ever playing a memorable character. Here she makes the most out of tough taxi dancer Cay Higgins, a hard-as-nails dame who gradually opens up to the possibility of kindness and affection. DP Robert Burks, who’d just shot Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, shows his facility with difficult camera set-ups and an ability to integrate location footage with back projection. He and Feist concoct several unexpected and thrilling set pieces. You’ll never again see a car-carrier on the road and not think of this film. This is not a groundbreaking film, it’s more like a familiar jazz standard rendered in a fresh and soulful way, in a minor key. You’ve taken the trip before, but this time the journey is revelatory and memorable. It’s Feist’s best film.

Eddie Muller