Three Comrades (1938)
Three Comrades (1938)
DVD5 | ISO+MDS | NTSC 4:3 | 01:38:35 | 4,02 Gb
Audio: English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subtitles: None
Genre: Drama | Nominated for Oscar | USA
DVD5 | ISO+MDS | NTSC 4:3 | 01:38:35 | 4,02 Gb
Audio: English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subtitles: None
Genre: Drama | Nominated for Oscar | USA
World War I is over, let the living begin. So three German soldiers open a repair ship and get on with their lives. Erich (Robert Taylor) finds unexpected love with frail Patricia (Margaret Sullavan), Gottfried (Robert Young) falls in with a verboten anti-nationalist group, Otto (Franchot Tone) approaches each day with worldly cynicism. And through all that's to come, the men know they will remain Three Comrades.
This lyrical adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's novel is one of F. Scott Fitzgerald's rare screenwriting credits. Melodrama virtuoso Frank Borzage (Seventh Heaven) directs. And as Patricia, Sullavan remains the film's luminous soul, its cherished fourth comrade.
IMDB
One of the best 10 films of 1938 (according to The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made), and one which I enjoyed thoroughly when I saw it on TCM. Robert Taylor, Franchot Tone, and Robert Young are the three men who all love Margaret Sullavan (who received her only Oscar nomination) in their own way. Guy Kibbee and Monty Woolley also play roles in this essential drama, as do Henry Hull & Charley Grapewin (who both play doctors; George Zucco also plays one, though he's uncredited). Directed by Frank Borzage (7th Heaven (1927) & Bad Girl (1931)), the Erich Maria Remarque novel was adapted by Edward Paramore Jr. and F. Scott Fitzgerald (his only screenwriting credit).
Three Comrades (1938)
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The three leads (Taylor, Tone, & Young) were soldiers for Germany in World War I and, now that it's over, they become auto mechanics. While out driving their car, they meet Sullavan, who's with Lionel Atwill. Taylor begins dating Sullavan, dining at Kibbee's establishment. But Sullavan is ill, and later needs help from a doctor at a sanitarium (Woolley). All of the drama occurs with a backdrop of an unsettled post war environment.
Three Comrades (1938)
Erich Maria Remarque's international best-seller was brought to the screen here with a stellar cast and a script cowritten by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The scene is post-WWI Germany, a time and place of want and astronomical inflation, where Deutschmarks are borne to the marketplace in wheelbarrows to be exchanged for a beefsteak. Three returning German soldiers–Taylor, Tone, and Young–are among the many war-weary, now homeless, hopeless young men who travel from the trenches of France to their war-ravaged homeland. Prewar friends, the three reunite and decide to try their luck in the republic-to-be's emerging automobile market, pooling their meager resources to set up a repair shop. Working with bits and pieces of salvaged wrecks, they put together a car of their own–which they affectionately dub "Heinrich"–and scramble for business in the intensely competitive field. Motoring on a highway, the three engage in an informal race with the owner of a shiny new automobile, Atwill.
Three Comrades (1938)
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Victorious, they stop to eat at an inn and are joined by the vanquished Atwill. Saying, "You wiped me off the map!" Atwill admires their scrap-heap amalgam and introduces them to his driving companion, the lovely Sullavan. The travelers dine together, and Taylor persuades Sullavan to give him her telephone number. He renews the acquaintance the following day, visiting her in the elegant apartment in which Atwill has established the beauty, a child of wealth now reduced to poverty. Sullavan ultimately joins the trio of comrades, but is reluctant to marry Taylor because she suffers from tuberculosis. Eventually, she is persuaded by Taylor's two friends to live what remains of her life to the fullest, and she and Taylor wed amidst the ominous setting of an unstable, pre-Hitler Germany. Young is killed in a street riot; Sullavan, refusing further treatment for her malady, hastens her own demise. As the film ends, Tone and Taylor–joined by the spirits of their late companions (in double exposure)–face a most uncertain future.
Three Comrades (1938)
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Sullavan is superb in this bleak drama, her throaty voice and striking looks at their very best. (She was to gain an Oscar nomination for her role and was named the year's best actress by the New York Film Critics Association.) The actress was a bit difficult during filming, however. According to a long-standing superstition, she refused to work until a rainfall occurred, and she also protested that some of coscripter Fitzgerald's dialogue was unspeakable. Producer Mankiewicz agreed with his star and, with the help of other studio writers, rewrote and excised much of the script, to Fitzgerald's great disgruntlement and later vilification of Mankiewicz. In fact, Mankiewicz was himself a talented screenwriter and understood far better than the proud novelist the basic elements of a good visual presentation. (Other scenes were edited out for less obvious reasons, among them several that concerned the rise of Naziism. Objections were raised by the Breen Office–the industry's self-censorship group–and the film was also cut as a result of studio chief Louis B. Mayer's reluctance to offend the Germans and lose the export market).
Three Comrades (1938)
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Although he continued to write screenplays, and was even signed by the studio at the enormously high salary (for the time) of $1,250 weekly, this was to be Fitzgerald's only credited sceenwriting assignment. Sullavan's leading man, Taylor, is unconvincing in his role, which he had not wanted to play. Cinemogul Mayer had to persuade the actor that the part would lend him prestige and help to erase the pretty-boy image he had developed over the course of his career. The picture is well directed by romance-drama specialist Borzage, but overlong, and only partly redeemed by Sullavan's splendid performance.
Three Comrades (1938)
Extras: Trailer only
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