Daily Archives: September 15, 2022

Three Comrades (1938)

Three Comrades
Directed by Frank Borzage
Written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Edward E. Paramore Jr. from a novel by Erich Maria Remarque
1938/US
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Gottfried Lenz: I drink to those who think of home tonight. I drink to the peace they hope to find at home now that peace has come to them at war.

This is a sweet, if sad, look at the lives of three war buddies between Wars and the affection for the same woman that only draws them closer together.

Erich Lohkamp (Robert Taylor), Otto Koster (Franchot Tone), and Gottfried Lenz (Robert Young) served together in the German army during WWI.  They remain close after the war and open an auto repair shop together.  They struggle to survive amid the depression and chaos of Berlin during these years.  The men meet a vivacious woman named Patricia Hollman (Margaret Sullavan) and the four are now inseparable.  It is Erich that she marries. Unfortunately, Patricia has consumption which worsens and forces her to go to a sanitorium they can ill afford.

The stars are all quite charming and this is a very watchable film.