Next Voice You Hear | James Whitmore, Nancy Davis | Nostalgic, Comforting, and Somehow Believable.

Next Voice You Hear | James Whitmore, Nancy Davis | the next voice you hear

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Next Voice You Hear

	Next Voice You Hear James Whitmore, Nancy Davis MGM (Warner), 1993 average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Nostalgic, Comforting, and Somehow Believable.

This little film is really a remarkable artifact from 1950. There is an innocence to it that you couldn't recreate today. It manages to use a controversial theme like the voice of God manifesting over the radiowaves of the world over a six day period, yet there is no real partisan sense of controversy. You accept that it is really the voice of God. Moreover, there is no dogma attached- no mention of specific scriptures, or even specific prophets- just God speaking plainly for himself to the average man and woman. The message itself is no profound, radical, Last Days revelation- just a simple one of kindness, goodness, and love. Given the chaotic times that the world had just passed through, it makes sense that the message would be a calming and reassuring one. Any panic it causes in the story seems to be the result of the personal guilt and misunderstanding of the listeners.

The secondary significance to this film is the perfect picture it paints of the its time. This was five years after the end of the war. The G.I.'s and defense workers were just beginning to settle into domesticity after some wild and scary times. Suburbia was just coming into existance. Nor was this a time of complacent prosperity- the average Joe was a factory worker that was under pressure to just get by. There are also all of the little things of typical American life- bowling with friends, listening to the radio (no television for the masses, yet), starters on the floorboards of cars, a husband going out for cigarettes (and asking his pregnant wife if she would like him to get her a pack....)

Whitmore is perfect as Mr. Average Joe (Joe Smith, actually)- and is likeable and believable. Nowadays most people would classify him as a lower class, factory-working loser- but then he was Mr. Average American- the salt of the earth. His wife, Nancy Davis (Nancy Reagan) is the perfect stay at home, hard working, housewife (not yet a negative stereotype.) The son is as clean-cut an example of the all-American boy as you could wish. And yet, together, they never come across as phoney or contrived. Infact, they come across as far more real than the vast majority of families today.

You never actually hear the actual voice of God, but this is for the best. An actual voice would have been a distraction and a let down compared to what the viewer can picture in his own mind and heart. Afterall, that is where God has always spoken to the little guy all down through the ages.

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the next voice you hear

this is a great midnight movie (especially when it rains) since one of the highlights of the movie is the "rain sequence" when god demonstrates his power. A definite feel good movie, abit dated, but reminds us all that the "family" (whatever that means to each individual) whether it's a gay couple, a widow and her pet doggie, or a single mom with 3 kids, is what we basically all have and should cherish the moments and work through our fears (movie time is during the beginning of the cold war). I enjoyed it and liked it in black and white (pretty good acting too).

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Great

Very good movie. No bad words...no sexual situations (totally opposite of most of the movies being produced today), just a very good clean movie that makes you think about your life and your struggles and prompts you to consider that there is indeed a God who is watching over you..

I highly recommended it. I just want it on DVD!

A Few More Thoughts

I'm agreeing with the other reviewers of this little movie. It's a pretty nice movie and a bit Twilight Zonish (imho).

It's a peek back to 1950 that fits in some of the stresses and feelings that real people deal with and manages to avoid the idealized world of the Cleavers and Andersons that so many seem to yearn for today.

It has a nice universal message but there are Biblical references, rain for 40 days and nights, I am Who I am, miracles, and chapter and verse from the Book of John at the very end. Thankfully, it doesn't dwell on them.

There are visuals that struck me like Joe Smith still wearing his leather bomber jacket, Joe's son sanding a bomber in the boss/neighbor's workshop. I'm guessing that bomber took more than a Sunday afternoon to get to that stage so Johnny and his dad's boss have been friends for awhile.

The neighborhood looks much older than the subdivisions that popped up right after WWII would have been in 1950. The Johnny Smith character played by Gary Gray, who was born in 1936, is quite a bit older than we Boomers who were born in 1946. Maybe this is more a story about a guy named Joe who had a young family before the war and made it back.

Did anyone notice a very young Sherry Jackson (Make Room for Daddy) in the church scene at the end of the movie?

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Subtle, effective, interesting.

The Next Voice You Hear shows a typical small American family's reaction to a subtle worldwide miracle. The title refers to the voice of God, miraculously broadcast worldwide via AM radio. At the time the film was made, few people had television yet, but almost everyone in the world had access to a radio. The story is told from the point of view of the Smith family, played by James Whitmore (Face of Fire, The Shawshank Redemption), Nancy Davis Reagan (Donovan's Brain, Hellcats of the Navy), and Gary Gray (Rachel And The Stranger). At first they, along with everyone else, think it's a hoax. But the miracle is repeated for six nights.

You might think you wouldn't be interested in The Next Voice You Hear if you're not religious. But to me it's more like a Twilight Zone episode. Almost like the Cleavers or the Andersons plunged into the twilight zone. The film is effective because it's subtle; they don't hit you over the head with religion. You, the viewer, never hear the voice of God, only His words repeated by characters and radio announcers.

The acting is very good, directing and production values competent. I think the script could have been a little better, but it keeps your interest throughout.

Chet Huntley, who was later co-anchor of NBC news with David Brinkley, performed the voice of the radio announcer.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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