Men of Tomorrow

BFI Most Wanted: the hunt for Britain's missing films

Directed by Leontine Sagan, 1932

Robert Donat made his cinema debut in this Oxford University-set romantic drama, from the director of cult Weimar-era classic Mädchen in Uniform.

Julian Angell (Robert Donat) and Jane Anderson (Joan Gardner) in the laboratory.

Credits

Director Production Company Producer Screenplay Based on the novel 'Young Apollo' by Photography Editor Designer Music	Leontine Sagan London Films Alexander Korda Anthony Gibbs, Leontine Sagan, Arthur Wimperis Anthony Gibbs Bernard Browne, Philip Tannura Stephen Harrison Vincent Korda Kurt Schroeder
Cast: Maurice Braddell (Allan Shepherd); Joan Gardner (Jane Anderson); Merle Oberon (Ysobel d'Aunay); Emlyn Williams (Horners); Robert Donat (Julian Angell)
88 mins, 8,000 ft, sound, black & white

Why are we so keen to find it?

This was the first British film by Budapest-born director Leontine Sagan, most famous for Mädchen in Uniform (1931), the German film adaptation of openly gay writer Christa Winsloe's play 'Gestern und heute'. Set in a girls' boarding school, Mädchen in Uniform remains a milestone in lesbian representation. The film was banned by the Nazis and Sagan fled to England, where Alexander Korda hired her to direct Men of Tomorrow, which she also co-adapted from Anthony Gibbs' novel 'Young Apollo'. She was one of very few female directors working in British cinema in the early 1930s. Contemporary reviews point to a considerable respect for Sagan's talent as a filmmaker, and while the source material may have proved conventional in some respects, critics praised Men of Tomorrow for its refreshing take on university life and rebellion against the establishment.

The film is also notable for its impressive cast, with Robert Donat making his screen debut as the rowdy captain of the Oxford rowing team. Merle Oberon, already an established leading lady, must have relished the role of the glamorous and sardonic socialite-cum-student Ysobel, while Emlyn Williams, who went on to forge a successful career as a character actor and screenwriter, provided the comic relief.

What's it about?

Kinematograph Weekly of 6 October 1932 summarised the plot as follows:

"Allan, studious youth, is definitely unpopular with his fellow-undergraduates, and, following a ragging, writes a slanderous article concerning Oxford, for which he is sent down. He comes to London, marries Jane, a fellow-graduate, and tries to break into journalism, but fails. Jane is eventually forced to leave him and takes a job at Oxford, but Allan, at last spurred to effort, writes a successful book. He then returns to Jane and views Oxford from an entirely different light."

This synopsis is efficient enough but does not detail the role of the three supporting characters who serve to complicate the romance between Allan and Jane. Thanks to a surviving copy of the post-production script, we know that Horners, whose shopkeeper father sent him to Oxford to "make a gentleman out of him", and who must work on a department store lingerie counter to support himself, is in love with the exotic, haughty Ysobel. Ysobel, on the other hand, is in love with Allan, and jealous of the rather prim Jane, who she considers "almost too nymphlike, very dangerous to a mortal" - though she admits that this view is down to "sheer cattyness I expect". Julian - a character in the sport-mad Oxbridge cad tradition - loves (who else?) Jane.

Romantic entanglements aside, Men of Tomorrow is about class - the clearly left-leaning (anti-?)hero Allan has spent all his savings putting himself through Oxford, but the growing chip on his shoulder sees him turn to his magazine 'The Torch' to rail at overprivileged and workshy students, as a result finding himself ejected unceremoniously into the real world. Sagan also managed to retain a comment on the entrenched inequality between the sexes; one female undergraduate is heard complaining, "Of course it's all right for the men - Oxford belongs to them".

Last seen?

Men of Tomorrow was first trade shown some time between late September and early October 1932, and scheduled for UK release by Paramount on 20 March 1933. Yet BFI Special Collections holds a brochure for the Plaza Cinema in Piccadilly Circus which advertised screenings of the film during the week commencing 30 September 1932; even taking into account a film making its debut at West End cinemas in advance of the rest of the country, this date - almost six months ahead of the official release - is an intriguing anomaly.

It appears to have been distributed in the US in 1935, where unsurprisingly (if misleadingly) Robert Donat and Merle Oberon were given star billing. There is no record of the film being screened at the National Film Theatre in London.

What else do we know about it?

Some sources credit Zoltan Korda as co-director with Sagan. Neither the post-production script nor contemporary reviews corroborate this. but Zoltan's brother Vincent is credited as designer, and it was not unusual for all three Korda brothers to work together on the same film. Highbrow journal Close-up refers to 'difficulties' in the production (see reviews below) - we can only speculate whether these had anything to do with Sagan or her working relationship with the Kordas.

Legal documents held by the BFI show that London Films assigned motion picture rights in the novel 'Young Apollo' to Paramount in an agreement dated 1 September 1932. We also know that Alexander Korda wrote to Paramount in 1936 to enquire about rights in this and four other features he made for distribution by them, with a view to possibly re-making one of them. Korda was informed that Paramount's rights in Men of Tomorrow would expire in 1947: it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the film's eventual disappearance was due at least in part to its ownership becoming mired in bureaucracy. Even masterpieces of world cinema have languished unseen for decades on a legal technicality, though in the case of Men of Tomorrow that does not wholly explain the apparent absence of surviving prints or negatives.

Does anything survive?

The BFI National Archive holds no film elements for Men of Tomorrow. However, an extensive collection of original stills survives, including some beautiful portrait shots and publicity stills, some of which can be seen here. We are also extremely fortunate to hold a copy of the post-production script in BFI Special Collections, giving an unusually detailed and tantalising flavour of this entry in BFI Most Wanted.

Reviews

Kinematograph Weekly praised the "amazing understanding and imagination" of Sagan's direction and a "flawless" cast, while drawing particular attention to the way in which the film explored the effect of an Oxford education on the lives of its alumni: "The story is not only illuminative, but it is charged with shrewd observation". Hinting at Men of Tomorrow's likely audience, the trade paper's glowing review concluded that "Every department of the picture is beyond criticism, and its typical English character is certain to win the approbation of the better-class patron".

Picturegoer believed Sagan had "achieved the rare distinction of being the first person to deal faithfully and dramatically with the life of an English university... When you consider that it has taken a German director to accomplish this, the achievement appears even greater". Maurice Braddell was praised as "brilliant in this rather unsympathetic role," while Emlyn Williams "gives an outstanding performance as an undergraduate with a strong sense of humour".

Close-up was less effusive in its praise, assuming an infringement of Sagan's artistic freedom: "One suspects that she was not given a free hand - one knows that filming was attended by what are politely called 'difficulties' and it would seem that the 'toning down' of the hero and the featuring of young married bliss almost exactly reverses the director's own feelings in the matter." Yet the review conceded that "the film has distinction," echoing Picturegoer in the view that "it is the first time anyone has dared to get away from the usual English idea of an English hero".

Simon McCallum, Curator (Mediatheque), BFI National Archive

You can find more about British films of the early 1930s, including entries on surviving films and video clips for users in UK schools, colleges, universities and public libraries, at BFI Screenonline. You can also view similar titles at the BFI Mediatheques.