The Man from Yesterday: A classic melodrama that refuses to quit

Is it worth your time?

Honestly, it depends on how much patience you have for 1930s melodrama. If you enjoy movies where people stare intensely at each other while wearing very stiff collars, you'll be fine. If you need pacing that doesn't feel like it’s wading through molasses, you might want to skip this one.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Man from Yesterday (1932) through its definitive frames.

It’s a strange little relic. The Man from Yesterday feels like it’s trying to be a deep dive into trauma, but it mostly just wants to see how many times it can make Claudette Colbert look distressed in a fancy hat.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Man from Yesterday (1932) through its definitive frames.

The Setup

Colbert is waiting for a husband who went to WWI and never came back. It’s sad, sure, but the movie moves so quickly into her new romance with the doctor that you almost forget she’s technically still married.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Man from Yesterday (1932) through its definitive frames.

Then they go to Switzerland. Everyone always goes to Switzerland in these movies to have a nervous breakdown, don’t they? The hotel lobby reveal is the kind of stuff that would make a soap opera writer blush. It’s dramatic. It’s loud. It’s completely ridiculous.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Man from Yesterday (1932) through its definitive frames.

Some Thoughts

• Colbert is great, obviously. She’s doing a lot of heavy lifting for a script that feels like it was written on the back of a napkin during a lunch break.
• The doctor character is just… there. He’s the "safe" choice, which makes him about as exciting as room-temperature water.
• I kept thinking about The Broken Violin while watching this, mainly because both films deal with people trying to fix their lives after everything goes sideways.

There’s a scene about halfway through where they’re sitting in a parlor, and the silence is just heavy. Like, uncomfortably heavy. It felt like the actors were waiting for someone to shout "cut" so they could go get a coffee.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Man from Yesterday (1932) through its definitive frames.

The dialogue is very "of the era." People don't talk; they declare things. They announce their feelings like they’re reading a telegram to the back row of a theater. It’s charming, but also a bit exhausting after ninety minutes.

I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be rooting for the husband or the doctor. Usually, the movie makes it clear, but here, both guys are kind of a headache. The husband shows up with all this baggage, and the doctor is just waiting for the drama to clear so he can get his girl back. It's a mess.

If you like this sort of thing, check out Her Right to Live for a similar vibe. It’s not better, just different. Maybe don't watch them back-to-back unless you want to feel like you've aged ten years in an afternoon. ☕️