Trois camarades

This MGM movie, based on a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, is the story of three German army buddies, tracing there comradeship from WWI into the years between the world wars.

After the Great War, three army buddies--Erich Lohkamp (Robert Taylor), Otto Koster (Franchot Tone) and Gottfried Lenz (Robert Young)--open an auto repair shop together. Although the story seems to center around the courtship and marriage of Erich Lohkampr and Oscar-nominee, Margaret Sullavan (Patricia Hollmann), it really demonstrates the closeness of all four friends; their individual hardships and struggles; and how much they all care for each other, as the harbingers of WWII start to show themselves in the streets of Germany between the wars.

The movie was OK, I can't say that it was great. In fact, the movie didn't even approach the greatness of Erich Maria Remarque's book, All Quiet on the Western Front and the movie based on that novel.

In the early sound era, one of the most respected directors in Hollywood was Frank Borzage: in fact, he won the very first Academy Award for Best Director (and would win a second one five years later). Yet his work is now virtually unknown. THREE COMRADES came during his tenure at MGM, where he would stay for the next five years (previously, he had been one of the star directors at Fox, and then worked at Columbia and Warner Brothers); it reunited him with Margaret Sullavan, with whom he had worked on LITTLE MAN WHAT NOW in 1934, and it would represent the only official screen credit for F. Scott Fitzgerald. There are moments (especially in the romance between the poor aristocrat Patricia and the young mechanic Erik) in which you can hear the lilt and romanticism of Fitzgerald's sensibility. THREE COMRADES was one of those movies that played a lot of television in late 1950s-early 1960s, and the moving story of three comrades (played by Robert Taylor, Robert Young and Franchot Tone) and the young woman who enters their lives (played by the great Sullavan, in her Academy Award-nominated performance) trying to find some solace and happiness in the rubble of Germany in the period immediately following the first World War is remarkably touching. Though often criticized for the (many) compromises that went into the making (this was a major studio production in 1938, beset with all the production code and commercial considerations of the era), there's still enough of Remarque's powerful story, Fitzgerald's elegant dialog, and Borzage's romanticism (as well as the superb performance by Margaret Sullavan) to make this one of the most memorable American movies of the 1930s.

Yes, but between whom? THREE COMRADES is remembered today for it's classy acting by Margaret Sullivan, Robert Taylor, Robert Young, and Franchot Tone, for it's setting in Germany after World War I, and for it's screenplay, which is the closest thing to a complete movie script that F. Scott Fitzgerald ever wrote. Actually his original script has been published (about twenty five years ago), and shows it was far more outspoken in pinpointing politics than this film is. Hollywood, in 1938, was aware of the Nazis and of their racial and political policies, but they were also aware of the opposition to any type of open criticism of the right in Europe by the U.S. Congress. So Fitzgerald's script was toned down. His work is still pretty good, but one misses the bite he would have fully given if the script had not been tampered with. It does give a pretty good view of the political confusion and economic dislocation following the end of the World War, but for all an audience knows the fighting in the city might be over rival soccer teams!

What a lovely movie, with such touching performances by all involved it will fill your heart. The three comradesin post war Germany, are Robert Taylor, Franchot Tone, and Robert Young. As the war has ended the three friends try to start life again by opening a auto repair shop. They are all three, different in their ideals and their goals, but are loyal to each other in a wonderful way. Along the way, they meet Margaret Sullivan, a young woman who's past is filled with illness and a mysterious friend by the name of Herr Schultz. He seems to be her benefactor, but the relationship is never defined by more than that. She falls in love with Erich (Taylor) but does not want to marry him, because she is ill, and knows that she will ultimately die. Otto (Tone) persuades her to marry him because even if their time together is short, love is all that matters. She marries him, and falls ill, having never told Erich about her fate. Gottfried (Young) is the idealist who falls the victim of the times, and is killed which breaks up the three comrades. They continue on not telling Pat (Sullivan) he is dead so that she will take an operation to get better. She does, but in the end, sacrifices herself, dying in the arms of her husband (Taylor). It is all and all a beautiful movie, that tells of love and friendship, without selfishness, or pride. Robert Taylor is great in what I would say is a refined, and quiet performance. His love for her is shown in many ways, without words, just a kind of gentleness. This follows the 1936 role of the doomed lover, Armand Duval in Camille, which I consider one of his best performances. Armand was torn and unhappy, Erich is blissful and ardent. Margaret Sullivan is beautiful and valiant as Pat, and her performance gives to Taylor, as did Garbo, a chance to show what a fine actor he really was. A lovely film.

Seems to me that Frank Borzage was the only director in Hollywood to use movies to reflect events in pre-war Germany actually in Germany. Sure at its heart this is a big weepie built around an idealised love story but it is set against the backdrop of Weimar Germany in forment and while there's no mention in the script of Nazis or Hitler, the cause of the background unrest must have been fairly obvious to audiences of the day.

The film is well-known for being the one major screenplay bearing the name of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who'd at this stage in his career turned to Hollywood for work although it's been said that his final draft was just too florid as to be unfilmable and required some doctoring before shooting. I'm an admirer of Fitzgerald's literary works but I can see here where much of the dialogue would work better on the printed page as often here it does come across as prosaic and unnatural, not the way everyday people would speak. Of course the movie is an adaptation of a novel I've not read by E. M. Remarque, best known for his "All Quiet on The Western Front" which I have read and which seemed an altogether grittier and more realistic story than we get here.

The plot falls into place quickly after we meet the three idealistic young men, Taylor the romantic, Young the militarist and Tone somewhere in between and they pick up Sullavan, literally on the road, where she appears to be the mistress of a rich, older man, but of course she abandons him immediately to fall into line with her three new beaus.

So it's a kind of four musketeers story, only with one female member and I do get that some friendships are more ardent than others especially in troubled times, but the way that Young and Tone platonically adore Sullavan from the wings with seemingly no love interest of their own while Taylor walks off with the prize stretches credulity a bit and I got the impression it might have created a bit more dramatic tension if they'd perhaps competed for her affections.

Still they are four handsome leads and they do their best with what they're given, unlikely as it sometimes is, with Tone probably the best of them. Borzage directs with considerable visual style, capturing winter-time particularly well and I especially admired the overhead shot of Sullavan rising from her bed at the end, although the final scene of the fab four striding into the distance walks a fine line between being affecting and downright corny.

Still, compared to many another Hollywood film from around the same time, I was pleased to watch a film at least taking some sort of moral stand and reflecting contemporary events even if it was a little hard-going and hard to swallow at times.