Three Comrades (1938)

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

"Three Comrades" could be summed up as a sequel to "All Quiet on the Western Front". "Western Front" being about WWI from the German side (written by a German serviceman), this film starts with the day the war is over and three surviving airmen must get on with civilian life.Unfortunately, in comparison with the classic "All Quiet on the Western Front", "Three Comrades" is pretty bad. It has no "A" actors, it feels rushed through, and only the dialogue sparkles, the result of being written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Margaret Sullavan's character in the film is to personify the health of Germany, with her health deteriorating as Germany deteriorates. The film is perceptive in diagnosing what will be the outcome of things from a 1938 perspective. But the film feels muddled nonetheless.An interesting sidenote: Eric Maria Remarque, who wrote the novels upon which both above mentioned films were based, had to leave Germany because of his views. Later, during the war, his sister was beheaded by the Nazis as punishment for Remarque, who they could not reach.

My mother, a movie fan who loved "women's pictures" used to say nobody could cry as beautifully and elegantly as M.S. who both cried and gave audiences a chance to weep in many films. The tragic ending for the love triangle in this movie, must be seen to be believed. Margaret's character is in a hospital room with a balcony(?!!) and she decides she wants to perish while she's young and beautiful, so she goes to the window and gives herself a fatal chill, then collapses in Robert Taylor's arms, all while wearing an ethereal white dress...they don't make them like that anymore.But I would recommend this film especially to W Scott Fitzgerald fans,as they will enjoy his work on the screenplay.

Three Comrades, a story of three men and the girl who marries one of them and the bleak future they face in post World War I Germany, is a tender a touching story brought to the screen by some great talents. You can't do too much better than an Erich Maris Remarque novel and a screenplay by none other than F. Scott Fitzgerald. The whole thing is directed by Frank Borzage who is a master at directing tender romances.Erich Maria Remarque is better known for writing All Quiet on the Western Front. That story is about a group of young men who enlist in the German Army in World War I and the illusions that are quickly shattered with military service at the Western Front. Three Comrades essentially picks up where All Quiet on the Western Front leaves off. The characters played by Robert Taylor, Franchot Tone, and Robert Young could easily be those same kids grown up now, three survivors of those who marched to war in 1914-1915.These are working class people who just want to get back to civilian life. They want to go in business together, a car repair garage seems the thing, taking advantage of something useful the military taught them. All react differently to the war. Robert Taylor finds the girl of his dreams in Margaret Sullavan and their love makes them both forget or at least put on the back burner, the horror of World War I. Robert Young is an idealist who still looks for a cause to believe in and finds it in some of the left wing parties of the Weimar Republic. Franchot Tone acts like an older brother figure to both Taylor and Young. He's cynical, but not bitter. He wants a life of peace, but as we see in the film, he's quite capable of using his military training to exact some revenge. Tone's performance in fact is the best in the film.I won't say more, except that for two of the protagonists things end tragically. For which two, buy or rent the film. The Nazis are there also, their movement is just getting started. In 1938 with the Nazis in power in Germany, the audience knew what the two surviving protagonists did not, that their worst fears are realized.As we see the two survivors, accompanied by the ghostly apparitions of their dead comrades, the future is bleak and uncertain. The audience hopes that both survivors are in a place of refuge and peace, as unlikely as that might be.

Yes, but between whom? THREE COMRADES is remembered today for it's classy acting by Margaret Sullivan, Robert Taylor, Robert Young, and Franchot Tone, for it's setting in Germany after World War I, and for it's screenplay, which is the closest thing to a complete movie script that F. Scott Fitzgerald ever wrote. Actually his original script has been published (about twenty five years ago), and shows it was far more outspoken in pinpointing politics than this film is. Hollywood, in 1938, was aware of the Nazis and of their racial and political policies, but they were also aware of the opposition to any type of open criticism of the right in Europe by the U.S. Congress. So Fitzgerald's script was toned down. His work is still pretty good, but one misses the bite he would have fully given if the script had not been tampered with. It does give a pretty good view of the political confusion and economic dislocation following the end of the World War, but for all an audience knows the fighting in the city might be over rival soccer teams!