Themes: Women During Wartime, Life on the Homefront
Main Cast: Ginger Rogers, Robert Ryan, Ruth Hussey, Patricia Collinge, Mady Christians
Release Year: 1943
Country: US
Run Time: 101 minutes
Plot
A bit treacly at times, Tender Comrade is nonetheless a fascinating distillation of the American mindset during WW2. Ginger Rogers is at her noblest and most self-sacrificial as Jo, whose husband Chris (Robert Ryan) is off fighting the war. Though pregnant, Jo finds a job at Douglas Aircraft, saving her money by living in a group home with several of her female co-workers. Delivering lines like "Share and share alike, that's democracy", Jo and her friends pool their salaries and divvy up responsibilities, as wait for news from the Front about their husbands and sweethearts. When news arrives that Chris has been killed, Jo delivers an impassioned cheer-up speech to her infant son, which will either leave the viewer in tears or in giggles, depending upon one's frame of mind. The "collectivism" implicit in Tender Comrade (not to mention its politically chancy title!) would later cause a lot of trouble for screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and director Edward Dmytrk during the HUAC "Communist witchhunt" era. In 1943, however, audiences didn't worry about such things, and the film posted a huge profit for RKO Radio. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Tender Comrade (1943) is a black and white movie released by RKO Radio Pictures, showing women on the home front living communally when their husbands are away at war. The film was pulled from distribution in the late 1940s due to the film's blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and director Edward Dmytryk. The film starred Ginger Rogers, Robert Ryan, Ruth Hussey, and Kim Hunter. In 1949, her mother Lela Rogers testified before HUAC that Ginger was "duped" into making the film, which was full of what she considered "Communist propaganda".[1]
Watching the movie nowadays (it's often aired on TCM), it seems reasonable and natural for 4 working girls to pool their rent money and share a house for duration of the war. It's difficult to understand why the film caused such a controversy after the war (it apparently didn't during the war).
References
^Dick, Bernard F. (1988). Radical innocence: a critical study of the Hollywood Ten. University Press of Kentucky. p. 195. ISBN0813116600.
