Men Must Fight

During the Great War (aka World War I), British-accented nurse Diana Wynyard (as Laura Mattson) suffers tragically. Understandably, she becomes a fervent pacifist. In 1918, many believed the "war to end war" had occurred. Decades later, it's 1940. Looking great for her advanced years, Ms. Wynyard is married to US Secretary of State Lewis Stone (as Edward "Ned" Seward). They have raised a pacifist son, handsome chemical engineer Phillips Holmes (as Robert "Bob" Seward). When a Second World War breaks out in Europe, the pacifist ideals of Wynyard and the draft-aged Mr. Holmes are tested...

From a short-lived 1932 Broadway play, this film predicts what many people once considered unlikely - that another "world war" would follow the "war to end all wars." There were fewer predicting this in the 1930s than the countless speculation about World War III. We don't use the "picture phone" depicted, but the writers and adapters were remarkably correct in some main events. However, this is not really a film about picture phones and chemical weapons...

Living up to its title, "Men Must Fight" is a pro-war story. The thesis is that pacifists are wrong...

Moreover, a clearly sexist attitude explains Wynyard and her ilk. Also representing the "weaker" gender are director Edgar Selwyn's pretty wife Ruth, and the inimitable May Robson. Holmes is brought up hating war, but this threatens to render him a spineless sissy; in order to be valued and accepted, the character must reform. Considering all this, the closing scene is despicable. The arguments for why people "must fight" wars, which the film makes more subtly, are undermined by the heavy-handedness. In an ironically sad postscript, Holmes enlisted in the real World War II and died in a 1942 plane crash.

****** Men Must Fight (2/17/33) Edgar Selwyn ~ Diana Wynyard, Phillips Holmes, Lewis Stone, May Robson

This brilliant film deserves to be re-discovered. Made in 1933 it predicts a world war in 1940, and even shows a catastrophic air-raid on a major city (in this case New York, but it certainly echoes the destruction soon to be unleashed on London, Berlin etc). The film carefully presents the pacifist and nationalist arguments in an amazingly contemporary way, embodying the argument in the character of a young pacifist man who must decide whether to fight or not. The irony that the actor playing this part, Phillips Holmes, was later to die in the real World War 2, adds to the power of this remarkable film. Diana Wynyard is extraordinary as his mother - indeed the strength of the female characters is one of the film's greatest achievements - few people will not applaud the sentiments of the final scene. Great futuristic design too - including televisions and video telephones. It is very sad to see this film now, knowing that the warning it gave to the world went unheeded. I urge you to watch it. I imagine that the reason it is so little known today is that MGM found its anti-war themes embarrassing when they found themselves having to support the war effort, and buried it in the vaults. Now it should be seen to warn others not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

The future (1940) as seen from the vantage point of 1933. A movie about preparedness for war, the main characters are woman who became a pacifist after her beau died in WWI; her husband, the Secretary of State, a pacifist who turns hawk when war is imminent; her son, also a pacifist, who disappoints his stepfather by refusing to use his knowledge of chemistry to create better poison gases ("the weapon of the future"); the boy's fiance, who refuses to continue the engagement because the boy won't join in the war effort; a dotty pacifist grandma; and Hedda Hopper as the girl's hawkish mom.

With a bizarre cast of characters like this, you can just imagine the plot. It takes the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building, plus the revelation that his real father was a war hero, plus the abandonment by his stepfather, to make the pacifist son realize that he must fight, and likely die (as the enemy, Eurasia, has already invaded New York and seems to be equipped with deadly poison gas).

This is a gem, and thank god we have oddball cable stations that show such stuff in the middle of the night. It is a movie about patriotism that exalts ambivalence, which is the strongest feeling that most of us possess. Although ultimately the movie comes down on the side of the fighters ("Men Must Fight"), the notion that it would be better for all nations (led by the world's mothers) to refuse to go to war is a major theme of the movie. It is mildly based on Lysistrata.

The sci-fi elements stand out as particularly amusing from the vantage point of 2003: both television and picture phones are the norm, but nothing else (and especially the grand old prop planes) is the least bit modern. The prediction that whoever controls poison gas controls the world is in line with the misguided Sadaam-aphobia of our own decade.

For any number of reasons, this flick is well worth watching.

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.

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.