Men Must Fight

Men Must Fight is an interesting if somewhat dated look at the future of the world as seen from 1933. At that time the thought of another total war like World War I turned out to be was abhorrent in the eyes of civilization. In fact World War I was simply called the Great War when referred to, that we'd have another was unthinkable.

Diana Wynyard plays a nurse on the front lines in the Great War who's in love with flier Robert Young. When Young's killed, he's left something permanent for Wynyard to remember him by. But good and stout friend Lewis Stone will marry her and raise the kid as their own.

Flash forward 20 years and the future in 1940 has folks using television and cellphones where one can talk and text. Lewis Stone is the US Secretary of State and curiously enough his character name is William Seward like another of our greatest Secretarys of State. Diana Wynyard is a pacifist activist and the two seem to work in tandem.

The film is purposely vague, not telling us exactly who the US rivals are out there. It's an amorphous amalgamation of countries called, Eurasia. Our ambassador to there is assassinated and this means war because national honor requires it. Interestingly enough a few of our ambassadors in the past centuries were assassinated and the USA did not go to war for national honor in real life.

This causes a conflict in Wynyard's grown son played by Phillips Holmes. Stone falls in line with the war declaration, Wynyard still works for peace, Holmes doesn't know what to do though he leans in Wynyard's direction. Holmes also is in conflict with his fiancé Ruth Selwyn who says America must fight.

At that time the ultimate weapon was poison gas and the fear was that the chemists on both sides would make even more lethal varieties. And air raids. New York in fact is bombed by air.

Men Must Fight is old fashioned and melodramatic. At the same time it's a sincere plea for international understanding and peace. My guess is that Louis B. Mayer buried this one deep in MGM's vaults when World War II came around. We're fortunate to have TCM show it, especially since leading lady Diana Wynyard made so very few films.

Lewis Stone, Diana Wynyard, Robert Young, and Phillips Holmes star in "Men Must Fight," a 1933 film. The movie starts with a young nurse, Laura (Wynyard) and her lover (Young) as he prepares to go off to World War I. He's killed; she's pregnant, and a rejected suitor, Ned Seward (Stone) offers to marry her and give the child his name. Laura vows that no son of hers will ever fight in a war.

Flash forward to 1940, and Seward is now Secretary of State, working on a peace treaty, with Laura's help. Their son Robert (Holmes) is a talented chemist and in love with Peggy (Ruth Selwyn). Unfortunately, the peace treaty fails, and the country is going to war with "Eurasia." Seward advises Laura that she will have to stop her peace-making attempts and objections to war, but she refuses. Having raised her son as a pacificist, Robert refuses to enlist, to the disgust of Peggy.

The film was made in 1933, but obviously the signs of conflict were already in the air; if one looks carefully at an anti-war rally that takes place in the film, one will see the Japanese sun and the Nazi swastika. Pretty amazing.

The acting by today's standards, with the exception of Stone, is quite melodramatic, as is the dialogue. The handsome Holmes, who himself died right after flight training in Canada, is good as the conflicted Robert. Diana Wynyard, too, is very good, but both actors have very over the top dialogue to say.

Very, very interesting film, and well worth seeing, with some excellent battle scenes.

... and by prescient when it concerns the next war, really, the only thing they got close to right was the date. In 1933, when Hitler was still considered just a buffoonish little man, this film predicts 1940 as the date of the next world conflict. They were only off by one year, so really not bad on the timing predictions.

The film begins with a real precode moment - a young flyer (Robert Young as Geoffrey Aiken) and a nurse (Diana Wynyard as Laura) are in the process of dressing in a dimly lit room, obviously after a session of love making. They are in love, but Geoffrey dies after his very first mission, before they can marry. Laura is pregnant, a fact discerned by Edward Seward (Lewis Stone). Edward has been tenaciously pursuing Laura up to this point. He knows she loves someone else, but after Geoffrey's death proposes marriage again to avoid scandal for Laura and her child, and be there to take care of her. She agrees. Geoffrey's son is born, and WWI ends.

The film picks up again in 1940, with Edward now Secretary of State, and the Seward marriage may not be a passionate one, but it does seem to be at least tender and loving. Laura's son (Philips Holmes as Bob) has grown up into a handsome young man who has already started to make a name for himself in the field of chemistry. This is where the trouble begins, and where the film gets the next world conflict wrong.

The film paints the next conflict - that of 1940 - as one in which all the countries of Europe and part of Asia have united into one country, and one that starts just as WWI began - with an assassination. It's all about patriotic posturing and defending one's honor and not about American interests being encroached upon. Maybe the advice given by the pacifists in this film might have worked in WWI, in which decades and even centuries of pointless bickering erupted into one pointless conflict, but as we all know, just refusing to fight would not have worked against Hitler or Japan.

There are several interesting pieces of futuristic technology including a video phone used by Secretary of State Seward when talking to Laura's now grown son. Yet when war erupts it is the old-style WWI prop planes that are being flown.

I'd recommend this as an offbeat kind of film, well done and well acted. Also, it is probably one of Philips Holmes' best roles and rather eery when you realize he would die nine years later in a mid-air collision while serving during the actual WWII. I just think this film is more about how people looked back on how WWI might have been prevented versus being helpful on how to prevent WWII. But then we all have the gift of hindsight.

I enjoyed some of the anti-war sentiment in this film, despite a muddled point of view that also included strong hawkish sentiments. The bombing of New York in 1940, with special effects showing the collapse of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building, was interesting but clearly done with miniatures. Considering this was a 1933 film, it came pretty close to predicting the actual start of WWII. And it must have been fun for 1933 audiences to see a television set and video telephones on screen. Performances were excellent, with Lewis Stone a standout as Secretary of State, Diana Wynyard as his dovish wife who lost her lover (Robert Young) in WWI, and Phillips Holmes as their son, caught in the middle of his parents' beliefs. Ironically, Holmes was actually killed in WWII from a mid-air collision.

While MEN MUST FIGHT wars, it is the women who wait and strive for peace.

This is a fascinating film, all but forgotten now, which both pleads for peace yet urges action against violent aggressor nations. By supplying strong characters to voice both sides, sometimes changing their minds mid-film, MEN MUST FIGHT tries to please everyone without alienating anyone. Politics aside, it is possible to enjoy the film strictly on the basis of its good acting and compelling production values.

Beginning during World War One, the movie quickly jumps to 1940, where it tries to predict not only the fashions but also the geopolitics seven years hence from its production. Although the future enemy is called ‘Eurasia,' careful observation during the Coliseum anti-war rally clearly shows the Nazi swastika and the Imperial Japanese Rising Sun flag among the montage of dangers, eight years before America's entry into the still-distant World War Two, proving the prescience of the film's creators.

Distinguished English actress Diana Wynyard is a standout as the woman who has seen too much of war's death and tries valiantly to convince others to renounce all warfare. She is well matched by Lewis Stone as her pacifist husband who must rethink his beliefs after high governmental office forces him to confront real dangers. These two excellent performers ably show the full force their decisions have on their most intimate relationships.

Phillips Holmes gives a compelling performance as Wynyard's conflicted son--caught between pacifism & patriotism, he shows the stress going through the mind of any young man facing a really difficult decision. Ironically, considering the film's conclusion, this fine young actor would be killed in a midair collision in Ontario in August of 1942, preparing to fight the Nazis as a member of the Canadian Air Force

Elderly May Robson makes one of her typically energetic film appearances as Lewis' sharp-tongued mother. Pretty Ruth Selwyn does well with her undemanding role as Holmes' patriotic fiancée; stately Hedda Hopper plays her strong-minded mother. Robert Young makes the most of his very brief role as the flier who is the great love of Wynyard's life. Rotund Robert Greig steals a few scenes as Robson's spirited butler.

Movie mavens will recognize Arthur Housman as a shipboard inebriate and Mary Gordon as a spectator during the Coliseum rally, both uncredited.

The film's pre-Code status is well demonstrated by its gentle mocking of patriotism and the way in which the opening scenes frankly present Wynyard & Young as unmarried lovers.