Years To Come

Series: Snub Pollard

Director: William Watson (supervised by Charles Parrott)

Producer: Hal Roach

Titles:

Photography:

Editor:

Stars: Snub Pollard, Marie Mosquini, Noah Young

Company: Pathé Exchange

Released: 29 January 1922

Length: 1 reel

Production No.: H-92

Filming dates: October 4-11, 1921

Rating: 3/10

Years To Come

Available on DVD:

Noah Young and Snub Pollard in Years To Come (1922)

In the future men and women have reversed roles in both the work place and the home. Examples are seen early on with women directing traffic in the street, as a father (I think this may be Eddie Boland?) pushes his baby in a pram. A road jam is caused by a man in his car and he is reprimanded by the female cop. Snub is a newly married housekeeper, walking home when he is accosted by a wealthy cigarette-smoking widow (Noah Young in drag) who won't take no for an answer when (s)he follows Snub along the street. Snub points out that he is married before hiring a flying taxi to take him home where his businesswoman of a wife awaits his arrival impatiently. Snub heads straight for the kitchen and begins making dinner. Whilst washing his hands the soap slips out of his hands and lands in the kettle. After popping next door to borrow some eggs from his male gossiping neighbor Snub returns home to give his wife her cup of tea - which of course tastes of soap. She storms out.
As Snub sulks there is a knock at the door. It's the widow he met previously, arriving with a bunch of flowers for him and forcing herself into his house. She doesn't stop there either. The widow (remember this is NOAH YOUNG!) tries to weaken Snub with the lure of liquor, which works a treat. The widow forces herself onto Snub with a kiss (oh dear god) which Snub instantly regrets. Snub's wife returns home and the widow has to hide in a closet but the wife discovers her and beats the living shit out of the intruder before turning on Snub and doing the same. Fast forward and we see that this was all a vision of what is to come as Snub is actually reading a book called "A Glimpse Of The Future".

Snub Pollard and Marie Mosquini in Years To Come (1922)

Favourite bit
Snub taking a massive smack to the mouth from his dominating, violent wife (and that's after she has already beaten Noah Young senseless!)

Trivia
• Copyrighted January 26, 1922.
• Snub wears an apron with the word "Snub" on it.
• When we first see Snub he walks along the street and past a billboard which has the sign The T.H. Holmes Electrical Company on it. A little search for this on line provided no clues to this company ever existing.
• The cost of hiring a taxi is $1 per hour.
• Noah Young catches Snub Pollard in mid-air. Pretty impressive stuff.
• With the plot of the film portraying the men and women in reversed roles it is heavily implied that the men were violent towards their wives in the way that Marie Mosquini beats the crap out of both Noah Young and Snub Pollard. This scene in particular, though fitting with the story and used for comic license, I found quite disturbing.
• The book Snub finds himself reading is A Glimpse Of The Future by Lydia Pinkman.
• Regarding the print of the film available from Alpha Video DVD, it is slightly cropped and a bit washed out in places but it appears to be complete. However, a different print is available with much better picture quality, less cropping but with a fake title card and is missing the opening 40 seconds and the final scene of the film. Oh well, I'm sure not too many people will be losing much sleep over that. If I really wanted to, I could make a complete edit of the film using the best sources. But like I said.... that was if I really wanted to. Fortunately, I have much better things to do with my life!!

My opinion
• Utterly tedious. Noah Young in drag looks both good and disturbing, and let's not talk about that kiss he and Snub Pollard share! But to be fair to him, Young is superb here and almost believable. But apart from his odd appearance the film is your pretty standard Snub stuff: dreary.

	Snub Pollard Bridegroom
	Marie Mosquini Bride
	Noah Young Stage door Jennie
	Wallace Howe Neighbor
	Merta Sterling Traffic woman

UNIDENTIFIED CAST
Unknowns in Years To Come (1922)

CREDITS (click image to enlarge)	INTERTITLES (click image to enlarge)

SHOT ON LOCATION
(click any image to enlarge)

Acknowledgements:
Tommie Hicks (help)
Tommie Hinterwalderz (identification of Merta Sterling, Wallace Howe)

This page was last updated on: 30 July 2022