Suggested by Frederick Lewis Allen's informal history of the Twenties, Only Yesterday features Margaret Sullavan in her first screen role. Humor and naturalism in John M. Stahl's direction plus “a strange, mocking wisdom” in Margaret Sullavan's face are what give this romantic drama its enjoyable edge. The story is told in flashback from the 1929 Depression. Sullavan plays a young woman who has the illegitimate child of a World War I soldier. She takes it in her stride until he fails to recognize her on his return. Billie Burke is wonderful as the broadminded aunt who takes her in when she is pregnant.