NR | 1h 22 min | Drama | 1944
The year 2023 marks the 80th anniversary of the Broadway play “Tomorrow, the World!” that inspired the eponymous film that critiques the insidious impact of fascist propaganda.
Orphaned child Emil (Skip Homeier), indoctrinated for years by Hitler’s “Jungfolk” (Hitler Youth) in Nazi Germany, acts out his antisemitism even after he’s adopted by a kind American family headed by his uncle, professor Mike (Frederic March). In spite of Emil’s provocative ways, Mike’s Jewish fiancée Leona (Betty Field), Mike’s daughter and Emil’s cousin, Pat (Joan Carroll), try to impart empathy to him.
(L–R) Pat (Joan Carroll) introduces Emil (Skip Homeier) to townsperson (Tom Fadden), in “Tomorrow, the World!” (United Artists)
Emil’s intransigence shocks them, but what strikes them more is his borrowed falsehoods about his late father Karl, killed in a concentration camp for defying Nazism and upholding tolerance and peace. Emil appears to have unquestioningly swallowed Nazi propaganda that Karl was a traitorous coward who’d committed suicide….