There's Always Tomorrow

Another of director Sirk's melodramatic, bitter attacks on the values of American middle-class life in the 1950s, this one stars MacMurray as a middle-aged milquetoast who lives in a claustrophobic home with his token wife, Bennett, and their three self-absorbed children. At the toy company where he works, he okays production of a robot, Rex, which walks and talks. Its line, "Push me and steer me wherever you can," clearly summarizes MacMurray's life. He finds new hope when he is reunited with an old flame, Stanwyck. Although their reunion begins innocently enough, MacMurray's teenage son, Reynolds, is determined to catch his father in an embarrassing circumstance....