Charles Laughton & Jessie Matthews - 'Forever and a Day' (1943)

"Forever and a Day" was made in Hollywood during World War II by many of the British actors and actresses who were advised to remain there and make films conducive to the war effort back home. This film told the stories of the occupants of a house built in Napoleonic times up to its destruction during the London blitz of 1941. The stars included Anna Neagle, Ray Milland, Claude Rains, Gladys Cooper, Merle Oberon, Herbert Marshall, Elsa Lanchester, Victor McGlaglen, C. Aubrey Smith, Dame May Whitty, Edmund Gwenn, Ida Lupino, Roland Young, and many others. In this sequence, Jessie Matthews arrives at the house to obtain the portrait of one of her ancestors, a former occupant. Instead, she marries the current one, played by Ian Hunter, whose butler is played by Charles Laughton, and has a newly-invented bath installed by Sir Cedric Hardwicke, with Buster Keaton as his plumber's mate.

• Category

  Film & Animation

[Dale Chapman]

I wouldn't want the Hunchback of Notre Dame as my butler.

[littleshoemaker]

Brilliant. Love Jessie.

[tcmamc]

Thank you for sharing. That's a lot of talent in an eight minute movie clip.