Till We Meet Again (Frank Borzage, 1944)

Catalogue note (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2025) on the restored version of Till We Meet Again (Frank Borzage, 1944). — EK

Ray Milland’s John, a grounded American pilot in Nazi-occupied France, is helped by a young nun (Barbara Britton) who, in order to facilitate his escape, dresses as a civilian. In doing so, the two develop an unspoken desire for each other.

Despite being a war film largely oblivious to the geopolitical realities of its setting – and somewhat dampened by studio artifice that mutes director Frank Borzage’s signature style – Till We Meet Again is thematically as rich as Borzage’s finest films of the 1930s. The film explores the meaning of religious spirituality during wartime: if the innocent must suffer for the guilty, then the Christian notion of sacrifice finds a clear parallel in the brutal realities of war. Yet what is truly at stake here is the allegorical transcendence of bodily love. The film asserts, with remarkable clarity, that loving someone can serve as a substitute for loving God – and that heaven is home, where one feels safe. There are unforgettable sequences that build a bridge between home and heaven, desire and divinity. In one, John and the nun board a bus full of German soldiers. When she notices that a wound on John’s chest has begun to bleed, staining his jacket and threatening to expose him, she gently rests her head on his chest to conceal it. Milland, unaware of her true intention, misinterprets it as a gesture of passion and responds by holding her hand. Once the soldiers disembark, she quickly lifts her head. “You were frightened too,” she says to Milland. “Your heart was pounding.” Only we know why his heart was pounding. Borzage always shares the secrets of his protagonists’ souls, and because of that, the film’s more conventional elements are easily forgotten or forgiven.

When John explains his love for his wife, it feels as though he is making love to the nun, in words. In their fear of death and their shared displacement, they metaphorically become husband and wife. That’s pure Borzage.