Till We Meet Again
(1936)
70, 72 or 80 mins | Romance | 17 April 1936
Director:
Robert FloreyWriters:
Edwin Justus Mayer, Franklin Coen, Brian Marlow, Morton BarteauxProducer:
Albert LewisCinematographer:
Victor MilnerEditor:
Richard CurrierProduction Designers:
Hans Dreier, Roland AndersonProduction Company:
Paramount Pictures, Inc.The film's working title was Reunion ; it was changed to Till We Meet Again as the film was being released. FD erroneously reviewed this film under the title Forgotten Faces , which was the title of another 1936 Paramount film starring Herbert Marshall and Gertrude Michael (see above). According to the modern reminiscences of director Robert Florey, Sylvia Sidney was to play the role of "Elsa Daranyi," but she was detained on another film and the part was assumed by Gertrude Michael. According to publicity, stage star Guy Bates Post made his first sound film appearance in Till We Meet Again . HR production charts list Barbara Penny, Harry Allen, John Blood and Robert Middlemass in the cast, but their appearance in the final film has not been confirmed. The NYT review states that the title Till We Meet Again "leaves us reasonably certain we have not seen the last of these recurring World War romances in which the lovers, separated by patriotic barriers, meet later as rival spies in enemy territory. There have been a dozen minor embellishments of the formula in the last three ... More Less
The film's working title was Reunion ; it was changed to Till We Meet Again as the film was being released. FD erroneously reviewed this film under the title Forgotten Faces , which was the title of another 1936 Paramount film starring Herbert Marshall and Gertrude Michael (see above). According to the modern reminiscences of director Robert Florey, Sylvia Sidney was to play the role of "Elsa Daranyi," but she was detained on another film and the part was assumed by Gertrude Michael. According to publicity, stage star Guy Bates Post made his first sound film appearance in Till We Meet Again . HR production charts list Barbara Penny, Harry Allen, John Blood and Robert Middlemass in the cast, but their appearance in the final film has not been confirmed. The NYT review states that the title Till We Meet Again "leaves us reasonably certain we have not seen the last of these recurring World War romances in which the lovers, separated by patriotic barriers, meet later as rival spies in enemy territory. There have been a dozen minor embellishments of the formula in the last three years." More Less
In August, 1914, two sophisticated London stage actors without family or relations, Englishman Alan Barclow and Austrian Elsa Daranyi, are about to be married when England declares war on Germany. Upon returning to her apartment, Elsa finds Herr Ludwig, an officer of the German Secret Service, waiting to request that she resume her former service as a spy. He tells her that Alan will grow to hate her if by staying she kept him from serving his own country, so she leaves Alan a goodbye note and heads for Paris. Discovering Elsa's disappearance the next morning, the heartbroken Alan agrees to become a secret agent for England, and both he and Elsa are trained as spies. Alan agrees to have his death announced after he is passed surreptitiously into Germany as the shell-shocked "Hans Teller" during a prisoner exchange. In Paris, Elsa is grief-stricken when Ludwig gently breaks the news of Alan's death and becomes ardent in her work, seducing officers into revealing their secrets, then betraying them to Ludwig. Alan, meanwhile, contacts Karl Schrottle, a German officer who is dismayed at his fatherland's killing of innocent civilians. Karl secures Alan a job as a trash collector in a German munitions factory, and they arrange to sabotage a giant cannon that is bombarding Paris. Elsa discovers Karl's complicity and forces him to commit suicide. However, she then recognizes Hans Teller as her beloved Alan, and they renounce war and plan to flee together. While trying to warn his fellow spies, Alan is almost captured. He and Elsa head for Holland disguised as a blind soldier and his nurse. Later on a train, they are ... + −
In August, 1914, two sophisticated London stage actors without family or relations, Englishman Alan Barclow and Austrian Elsa Daranyi, are about to be married when England declares war on Germany. Upon returning to her apartment, Elsa finds Herr Ludwig, an officer of the German Secret Service, waiting to request that she resume her former service as a spy. He tells her that Alan will grow to hate her if by staying she kept him from serving his own country, so she leaves Alan a goodbye note and heads for Paris. Discovering Elsa's disappearance the next morning, the heartbroken Alan agrees to become a secret agent for England, and both he and Elsa are trained as spies. Alan agrees to have his death announced after he is passed surreptitiously into Germany as the shell-shocked "Hans Teller" during a prisoner exchange. In Paris, Elsa is grief-stricken when Ludwig gently breaks the news of Alan's death and becomes ardent in her work, seducing officers into revealing their secrets, then betraying them to Ludwig. Alan, meanwhile, contacts Karl Schrottle, a German officer who is dismayed at his fatherland's killing of innocent civilians. Karl secures Alan a job as a trash collector in a German munitions factory, and they arrange to sabotage a giant cannon that is bombarding Paris. Elsa discovers Karl's complicity and forces him to commit suicide. However, she then recognizes Hans Teller as her beloved Alan, and they renounce war and plan to flee together. While trying to warn his fellow spies, Alan is almost captured. He and Elsa head for Holland disguised as a blind soldier and his nurse. Later on a train, they are forced to separate, and Elsa maintains to Ludwig that she was uncovering a British spy network. Ludwig, however, is not taken in, and when he spots a coffin lid ajar, he suspects the coffin is Alan's hiding place and shoots the corpse. Elsa's display of fake grief makes Ludwig suspect that the body is not Alan's, and he gives her a gun to shoot herself for betraying her country by protecting an enemy spy. Alan steps from his real hiding place and covers Ludwig with a gun as all three jump from the speeding train. Ludwig breaks his back in the fall and is carried by the couple to a farmhouse. The dying Ludwig, moved by the plight of the lovers, directs his soldiers away from the farmhouse as Alan and Elsa hurry, hand in hand, across the frontier toward freedom and love in neutral Holland. + −
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