Three Comrades
98 min. / B&W / 1.37:1 / DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono / SDH
Warner Archive BD $24.99
Available from Movie Zyng
The Great War has ended, and three German battle buddies (Robert Taylor, Franchot Tone, and Robert Young, each of whom are about as German as Gidget) look forward to peace and prosperity. They open up a small automobile repair shop together but the economic turmoil of the 1920s scarcely keeps them above the starvation level. Into their lives hops Margaret Sullavan, a beautiful ex-wealthy heiress who exists on the generosity of Lionel Atwill, an unhealthy aspect no matter how you look at it. She becomes the fourth musketeer and eventually Mrs. Robert Taylor, but don’t expect a happy ending, this being Germany between wars, after all.
Three Comrades was a best-selling book by Erich Maria Remarque, author of All Quiet on the Western Front, and MGM obviously rolled out their most prestigious production unit to film it. The esteemed Frank Borzage (7th Heaven, A Farewell to Arms, No Greater Glory) was tapped to direct it and F. Scott Fitzgerald lured to Hollywood to write it, although it’s believed little that he wrote ended up being used. The friendship of the three leading men and the current events of the Weimar Republic are used merely as a backdrop to the grand romance between the poor Mr. Taylor and the wealthy by association Miss Sullavan; while the story takes its leisure time (there isn’t much of a plot beyond what’s described above), once she begins to have health issues, even a severe drawback for one of the Comrades takes a backseat to her illness and potential recovery.
The scenes of unrest and violence in the streets are presented generically; if they’re Nazis, they don’t wave swastikas or wear brown shirts, suggesting that pressure from Germany (MGM and other studios had a lucrative market there) wanted to leave it open to the possibility that it was Communist rabble-rousers to blame! The excellent cast includes some of our favorite character actors, including Guy Kibbee, Monty Wooley, and Henry Hull, and you can’t miss good ol’ Henry Brandon, who has nothing to do but stand around and model a very striking eye patch. Our leads are excellent; we’ve always especially liked Mr. Tone, and Miss Sullavan earned an Oscar nomination for this one (but then, female stars with that famed Hollywood disease where you get more beautiful as you get sicker always made for prime Academy Award bait).
The new Warner Archive presentation offers the expected impeccable restoration and transfer. No cartoons this time, but we do get a pair of very interesting 1-reel short subjects.
How to Raise a Baby is a very funny Robert Benchley offering that shockingly cuts off at the 3:02 mark. If you want to see the remaining 6:09 of it, you’ll have to look to disc 2 of the Robert Benchley Miniatures Collection, offered on DVD from Warner Archive and, in fact, our very favorite Warner Archive short subject collection.
The other one is from a forgotten MGM short subject series called “Historical Mysteries” that dramatize great enigmas from centuries past, directed by Jacques Tourneur. This one is The Face Behind the Mask, offering an historical basis for The Man in the Iron Mask. Note that two more Historical Mysteries are included on the new Blu-ray of The Citadel; I hope that Warner Archive manages to release them all, they’re fascinating.
Three Comrades struck me as the kind of movie you might not seek out, but if it came on one dark, sleepless night while you were flipping the dial, you'd find yourself engrossed in it pretty quickly.
