When Tomorrow Comes (film)

When Tomorrow Comes
Directed byJohn M. Stahl
Screenplay byDwight Taylor
Story by"A Modern Cinderella"
by James M. Cain
Produced byJohn M. Stahl
Starring
CinematographyJohn J. Mescall
Edited byMilton Carruth
Production
company
Universal Pictures
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release date
  • August 11, 1939 (1939-08-11) (United States)
Running time
90 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1 million

When Tomorrow Comes is a 1939 American romantic melodrama film directed by John M. Stahl, and starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer. The screenplay concerns a waitress who falls in love with a man who later turns out to be a married concert pianist. Bernard B. Brown won the Academy Award for Best Sound.

A scene in the film where the two protagonists take refuge from a storm in a church was the subject of Cain v. Universal Pictures, a case in which the writer James M. Cain sued Universal Pictures, the scriptwriter and the director for copyright infringement. Judge Leon Rene Yankwich ruled that there was no resemblance between the scenes in the book and the film other than incidental "scènes à faire", or natural similarities due to the situation, establishing an important legal precedent.