Next Time, We Love is a romantic drama from 1936 that stars three screen legends in Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, and Ray Milland. This was the first of six films Sullavan and Stewart were paired together in. The film was directed by Edward H. Griffith. This is a story about a couple whose careers start to outweigh the love for each other.
The film takes place over the course of several years where an aspiring actress, Cicely Hunt Tyler (Margaret Sullavan, The Shop Around the Corner, The Mortal Storm) marries a newsman, Christopher Tyler (James Stewart, Rear Window, Vertigo, Broken Arrow), and are both happy together and very much in love with each other. But things start to go awry as Christopher gets assigned to a great position in Rome, which he goes to, but his wife stays behind. Cicely, alone, spends a great amount of time with Chris’ good friend Tommy Abbott (Ray Milland, The Lost Weekend, Premature Burial, Frogs) while he is in Rome. Cicely gives birth a child, Kit that Chris isn’t aware of at first, but when he finds out, they celebrate at the cost of his job as he misses a big scoop. Financially struggling, Tommy gives Cicely some money to help her career and becomes a successful actress. She goes to Chris’ former boss Frank Carteret (Robert McWade, The Kennel Murder Case) to try to get his job back. He offers Chris a job as a foreign correspondent in Russia, which he accepts, but it keeps him away from Cicely as declines to go with him. The married couple are mostly apart as the years go by, having chosen careers over love. Their successful careers have caused a strain in their relationship that they might not recover from. And then of course Tommy has falling for Cicely to make things nice and complicated for the couple!
Despite the three major stars James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan and Ray Milland, in this movie, I felt Next Time, We Love was flat without any life to it. The film started off well, but as the life between the married couple starts to dwindle, so does the film and the characters and story become rather dreary. I thought this was going to be a great discover for me as I had never seen this movie, but it just did not click. One would think this movie would have been great because of the star power, but it wasn’t. I think if the movie were shot in the pre-code era, I suspect that Tommy and Cecily might have had some steamy (for the thirties) scenes together implying they were having an affair among other possible startling scenes to give the film some spice to it. Instead, they kept it dialogue heavy and kept it ‘classy’ without anything controversial happening during the picture.
Next Time, We Love receives a Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber. Given a new 2K Master, the movie looks superb with a nice clean, polished image. Blacks look nice and inky with clear whites and grays to balance it all out. Scenery has plenty of detail with excellent texturing and a higher contrast. Grain is apparent throughout the presentation; thus, the movie retains its film-like appearance. No DNR has been applied to the video.
The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track is perfectly clear with the dialogue coming in clearly. Background sounds and music are perfectly balanced with the dialogue with nothing overly aggressive. No audio drop-offs, hissing or crackling were detected. English subtitles are available.
This release has a commentary track by author/film historian Lee Gambin and costume historian Elissa Rose who discuss the film in detail and its lead performers.
Trailers for other Kino Lorber releases round out the extras.
While I didn’t care for the film as much as I hoped, the film is still recommended because of the cast, and other viewers tastes will differ than mine. The movie does have excellent audio and video quality and a commentary track to make this a recommended release!
Next Time, We Love
Director- Edward H. Griffith
Cast- Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Ray Milland
Country of Origin- USA
Distributor – Kino Lorber
Number of Discs – 1
Reviewed by – David Steigman
Date –8/14/22