471 Now and Forever

[MichaelB]

NOW AND FOREVER
(Henry Hathaway, 1934)
Release date: 17 February 2025
Limited Edition Blu-ray (UK premiere)

Pre-order here

Gary Cooper (Desire), Carole Lombard (Twentieth Century), and Shirley Temple (Fort Apache) star in Now and Forever, a heart-warming tale which combines elements of screwball comedy, melodrama, and social commentary.

Jerry (Cooper) and Toni (Lombard) are a pair of small-time crooks who are swindling their way around the world. When they meet Jerry’s estranged daughter, Penny (Temple), they resolve to go straight to secure her future, but find that making an honest living isn’t easy.

Directed by the great Henry Hathaway (The Shepherd of the Hills), and with acting support from Sir Guy Standing (The Lives of a Bengal Lancer) and Charlotte Granville (Werewolf of London), Now and Forever features impressive turns by its leads, and elevated the young Shirley Temple to superstardom.

INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES

• High Definition remaster
• Original mono audio
• Audio commentary with film historian Pamela Hutchinson (2025)
• Christina Newland on Shirley Temple (2025): the critic and writer examines the career of Now and Forever’s young rising star
• Original theatrical trailer
• Image gallery: promotional and publicity material
• New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Limited edition exclusive booklet with new essay by Nathalie Morris, archival writing by Henry Hathaway, archival news reports on Shirley Temple, extracts from an archival interview with Hathaway, an overview of contemporary critical responses, and film credits
• UK premiere on Blu-ray
• Limited edition of 3,000 copies for the UK
• All features subject to change

#PHILE471B
BBFC cert: TBC
REGION B
EAN: 5060697924787

[domino harvey]

My write up from the complete Carole Lombard annotated filmography

Now and Forever (Henry Hathaway 1934)
Conman Gary Cooper nixes selling his estranged daughter Shirley Temple after meeting and falling for her. But he’s not much of a father figure on his own. Cooper’s wife Lombard helps some, but it takes…

SpoilerShow

shooting a man to death and taking a bullet himself

to see how best to provide for Temple. Oh-kay… I don’t find Temple charming, and like the popularity of Deena Durbin, her career as a star is inexplicable to me. I’ve enjoyed other Temple movies (though not this one), but certainly I would rather eat glass than participate in a complete viewing of Temple’s works. Lombard here is her usual dead weight in the same kind of Paramount-dictated nothing roles she was always getting. Cooper however is as lively as I’ve ever seen him, and whatever small charms are present in the film are thanks to him, not the moppet. (R1 Universal, the Shirley Temple Little Darling Pack)

[soundchaser]

As domino suggests, this is completely and utterly forgettable — to the point where I genuinely have nothing to say about the film itself other than my surprise it merits an individual release from Kino or Indicator! It looks like Temple is the big draw here, based on the Special Features, and that’s probably a fair assessment.

[Aunt Peg]

I have to admit I've always found the young Shirley Temple generally insufferable. Her films played endlessly on TV on Saturday and Sunday afternoons when I was a child.