The Shining Future (1944)

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

As Good As It Gets

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Ouch. Scary. 1944 predicting the future of 1954. Son in future 1954 wants personal airplane to replace driving a car. Backtracking. 1954 skies are cluttered with personal flying vehicles. Shades of The Jetsons.The son said lets turn on the reverso-scope. Today, we might say retro-scope. It looked like a television, lol. This was creepy and bizarre. Parents said remember the old days of not so many personal luxuries. Remember the old days of doing without. This is 1944 predicting the future. It is now in today's reality, 2015, and those personal commuter airplanes never happened. This whiny kid came off as an ungrateful brat. There were some 1944 entertainers performing, to get people to buy war bonds. Frank Sinatra. Bing Crosby. Cary Grant. Jack Carson. I don't remember seeing Deanna Durbin. Either I was too sleepy, or perhaps she was in a Canadian war-bonds version. Wasn't she from Canada? Anyway, Frank was a very hot singer/crooner at the time. We were smack inside World War Two during this 1944 futuristic prediction. The scoop was that a confident military victory was in sight. That ugly war was to end the next year, in 1945. Economic prosperity was coming, but junior son of Charlie Ruggles wouldn't really be able to get a pilot's license for his backdoor sky-wheels. Can I have da keys, Dad, so I can fly Miss 1954 to da prom? It nevah happened. Wasn't this the kid I saw squeakingly-voiced romancing Elizabeth Taylor in "Life with Father"? Oh, yes, but my jaw originally dropped and I kept saying to myself, "Henry Aldrich," "Henry Aldrich."I am an historian and a futurist. Let us predict the 1954 kid's future. Say he went to college in 1958-1960. Did he graduate in 1962-1964? Did he go to NYC and become one of the Mad Men? Did he get married around 1967 and start having children around 1970? Did he then have to save up his own adult dough in order to buy his own commuter plane? Did everybody have a personal hangar on their own backyard landing strip? Was it ticklish to remember back in 1954 when he only wanted one itty-bitty plane instead of an old-fashioned car to drive around? Perhaps he now has two or more planes, with his children wanting their own personal Jetson-flymobiles when they get older. Perhaps each child by 1985 has her/his own TV on the wall tuned in to the old days of 1954, which is perceived to be so old-fashioned and archaic. Oh, how revolting. This was part of a series of films honoring the December 1915 birth of TCM Star of the Month Frank Sinatra. Happy 100th Birthday, Frankie!!!!!