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.

This movie was notable for: the subtle and mysterious acting of Margaret Sullavan; the screenplay by Scott Fitzgerald (which was literary and a bit on the wordy side); and the interesting look at Germany immediately after WWI. Personally, I would have liked to have seen more about the politics and tensions in Germany (playing up Robert Young's role), and less of the Camille-esque love & decline plot. But that's just me.

I thought that the film was carried by Franchot Tone and Margaret Sullavan. Tone's role is nicely played down; he consistently does the right thing, even when it might appear to be the morally wrong thing. He's sure, calm, and direct at every turn. I always enjoy watching him. Sullavan was fascinating. It isn't often you see someone who appears to be an intellectual in a role that didn't necessarily call for that type. She is lovely, dignified, but hardly the standard "babe who attracts three best friends." They seem to like her for her complexity. And that in itself is unusual.

This movie was strange. It should have been better than it was -- the emphasis on the love story slows things up and even feel a bit silly. (When Pat starts wearing traditional German garb in the kitchen just cracked me up.) But the good moments, when they come, making viewing this film worthwhile.

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.

Three friends navigate life after the scarring experience of WWI in this melancholy and even somewhat eerie film from 1938.

Notable about this movie is the fact that it's about three German men, though the fact that they're played by Robert Taylor, Robert Young, and Franchot Tone makes that easy to forget. As the dark cloud of WWII was descending on Europe, it was kind of a gutsy move for Hollywood to think anyone would be able to care about a group of protagonists who were the enemy of the film's central conflict and still the enemy in the real conflict developing overseas. But the point of the movie is that war in general and WWI in particular left everyone shattered, no matter what side you were on. The film does a fantastic job of capturing the fatalistic, doomed quality that WWI implanted in the human psyche and that fueled what would be dubbed the Lost Generation of artists coming out of it. I'm personally fascinated by WWI and its psychological effects on the world, and so this movie was of particular interest to me.

I was also interested to see Margaret Sullavan in the role that brought her her sole career Academy Award nomination. She plays a dying woman who falls in love with one of the friends and changes the group's dynamic. Her impending death is a stand in for the impending death of everyone, something that before the war was an abstract notion but after it feels close and real. Death is an ever-present shadow in this movie, and its role in the film's ending makes it both haunting and uplifting at the same time.

Grade: A

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.