Tomorrow (Filmgroup 1971, Robert Duvall, Olga Bellin)

Robert Duvall’s first major film role in Tomorrow reveals the talent that would blossom in one of the screen’s most affecting actors. Based on the William Faulkner story, and scripted with understated elegance by Foote, the quiet, somber story follows a solitary backcountry farmer who encounters a pregnant young girl, cares for her, and then loses her soon after her child is delivered and their marriage.

After years of caring for the boy, he again faces a wrenching loss when the woman’s kin come for the child. Duvall finds the tiny nuances that reveal emotion in a stoic man unaccustomed to expression. Horton Foote had written the story once before for a Playhouse 90 adaptation.

A failure when first released in theaters Tomorrow was rescued from obscurity by a well-received special showing on public television in December 1984, 13 years after it was filmed.

production details
USA | Filmgroup | 103 minutes | 1972
Director: Joseph Anthony
Script: William Faulkner, Horton Foote,

cast
Robert Duvall as Jackson Fentry
Olga Bellin as Sarah Eubanks
Sudie Bond as Mrs. Hulie
Richard McConnell as Isham Russell
Peter Masterson as Lawyer Douglas
William Hawley as Papa Fentry