Three Comrades (1938)

One of the best 10 films of 1938 (according to The New York Times Guide to the Best 1000 Movies Ever Made) and one which I enjoyed thoroughly when I saw it on TCM. Robert Taylor Franchot Tone and Robert Young are the three men who all love Margaret Sullavan (who received her only Oscar nomination) in their own way. Guy Kibbee and Monty Woolley also play roles in this essential drama as do Henry Hull & Charley Grapewin (who both play doctors; George Zucco also plays one though he’s uncredited). Directed by Frank Borzage (7th Heaven (1927) & Bad Girl (1931)) the Erich Maria Remarque novel was adapted by Edward Paramore Jr. and F. Scott Fitzgerald (his only screenwriting credit).

The three leads (Taylor Tone & Young) were soldiers for Germany in World War I and now that it’s over they become auto mechanics. While out driving their car they meet Sullavan who’s with Lionel Atwill. Taylor begins dating Sullavan dining at Kibbee’s establishment. But Sullavan is ill and later needs help from a doctor at a sanitarium (Woolley). All of the drama occurs with a backdrop of an unsettled post war environment.

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