Main Cast: Robert Taylor, Margaret Sullavan, Franchot Tone, Robert Young, Guy Kibbee, Lionel Atwill
Release Year: 1938
Country: US
Run Time: 99 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
Based on a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, Three Comrades represented one of the few successful screenwriting efforts of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in Germany in the years just following World War I, the film stars Robert Taylor, Franchot Tone and Robert Young as three battle-weary, thoroughly disillusioned returning soldiers. The three friends pool their savings and open an auto-repair shop, and it is this that brings them in contact with wealthy motorist Lionel Atwill--and with Atwill's lovely travelling companion Margaret Sullavan. Taylor begins a romance with Sullavan, who soon joins the three comrades, making the group a jovial, fun-seeking foursome (this plot element bears traces of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, as well as the 1931 film The Last Flight). Though Sullavan suffers from tuberculosis (her shady past is only alluded to), she is encouraged by her male companions to fully enjoy what is left of her life. This becomes increasingly difficult when one of the comrades, Young, is killed during a political riot (it's a Nazi riot, though not so-labelled by ever-careful MGM). In the end, the four comrades are only two in number, with nothing but memories to see them through the cataclysmic years to come. Despite its Hollywoodized bowdlerization of the Remarque original, Three Comrades remains a poignant, haunting experience. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Although a great deal of F. Scott Fitzgerald's screenplay for Three Comrades was rewritten (by both credited scenarist Edward E. Paramore, Jr. and a number of uncredited writers, including producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz), the spirit of Fitzgerald hovers palpably over this excellent adaptation of the Erich Maria Remarque novel. Comrades is about another group of lost souls, and if only one of them has a connection to the privileged class that is often a Fitzgerald hallmark, they all share an obsession with escaping from the past and with finding a "Good" within and among themselves to take the place of an absent "god." There's the potential for all this to come across as pretentious or off-putting, but in fact Three Comrades is simple and totally involving. The characters live and breathe with a wonderful cinematic realism, and most viewers will soon find themselves quite wrapped up in their stories. A large part of the credit must go to Frank Borzage, who directs with a combination of strength and sensitivity and always keeps the film firmly on track, even making moving and inspirational an ending that could come across as hokey or mawkish . He's enormously helped by a quartet of actors who do exceptional work. Each of the stars commits him/herself completely to the part, making each character beautifully real. Equally important, there's an indescribable chemistry between the quartet as a whole and between each individual member. Comrades is a haunting, moving, deeply human film. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
The Pride and the Man •Dollars of Dross •Land o' Lizards •Immediate Lee •Flying Colors •Until They Get Me •The Gun Woman •The Curse of Iku •The Shoes That Danced •Innocent's Progress •Society for Sale •An Honest Man •Who Is to Blame? •The Ghost Flower •The Atom •Toton the Apache •Whom the Gods Would Destroy •Prudence on Broadway
1920s
Humoresque •The Duke of Chimney Butte •Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford •Back Pay •Billy Jim •The Good Provider •The Valley of Silent Men •The Pride of Palomar •The Nth Commandment •Children of the Dust •The Age of Desire •Secrets •The Lady •Daddy's Gone A-Hunting •The Circle •Lazybones •Wages for Wives •The First Year •The Dixie Merchant •Early to Wed •Marriage License? •Seventh Heaven •Street Angel •Lucky Star •They Had to See Paris •The River
