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Sullavan at her best
Well-done heartbreaker scripted (partly) by F. Scott Fitzgerald - and the only picture he worked on where he was so credited (though to his anger much of the dialogue he wrote was ultimately changed). Set in Germany right after WW I, Margaret Sullavan plays the heart-throb of three returning German soldiers (Robert Taylor, Franchot Tone, and Robert Young), who now are partners in an auto repair company. Although all three of them love Sullavan, it's a testament to their friendship that when she decides to marry Taylor, the other two are actually happy for him. The tragedy comes in the fact that Sullavan is suffering from TB and hasn't much time to live. Sullavan is wonderful and this is one of her best performances on film. Her throaty voice and eloquence are most effective and are impossible not to respond to. The ending, after she dies (Young has died, too, in a street demonstration), with Tone and Taylor appearing together with the "ghosts" of the other two, is a beautiful final sequence. Very romantic, very enjoyable.
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Fitzgerald and Sullavan
A romantic glow hangs over this beautiful picture like a San Francisco fog. The story is based on the fine novel by Erich Maria Remarque and was adapted to the screen by none other than F. Scott Fitzgerald. Frank Borzage was the perfect choice as director for this story of three German WWI expatriates who have bonded for life and the tubercular waif they all love in different ways. A sense of impending tragedy even during the happier scenes creates what one might call romantic noir.
Robert Taylor portrayed Erich, the younger and more innocent of the three comrades. Robert Young's Gottfried is the idealist, angry at the post war rise of fascism. And Franchot Tone, in one of his finest roles is Otto, the world weary pragmatist. Their lives are changed forever when they meet up with the fairy like Margaret Sullavan. She gave the finest performace of her career as the sweet and courages Pat, dying of tuberculosis but with just time enough left for Taylor to fall in love with her.
Each of the comrades falls in love with her in other ways and the threesome becomes a foursome, a makeshift family trying to keep fate at bay just a little while longer. It is a romantic film with a luminous performance from Sullavan you will always remember. There is a sense of doom underneath every light and happy moment the comrades share together, the romantic glow growing a little dimmer as destiny looms over the horizon.
You will rarely see a film so full of love, as Sullavan imparts to each of them what they need and in turn receives two friends who love and cherish her, and one who loves her even more. Tone gives his seen it all character considerable depth. Taylor's Erich is likeable as the brash one, somewhat lost after the war is over and still a bit naive. Robert Young's Gottfried is another solid turn as he captures the anger and restlessness of a post WWI world as it moved towards war again.
This was Remarque and Fitzgerald at their best. Director Frank Borzage dealt with tenderness and romance perhaps better than any of his peers and with this story and the fine cast, especially the Oscar nominated Sullavan, he created a true classic. There is more than one tragedy in this film and the final shot is one you will remember forever. Margaret Sullavan's life would also end in tragedy and somewhat mirrored the fragility she displayed here. It somehow makes this film even more poignant.
This is a movie you must see if you love the magic of film. I could not recommend it any higher.
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An interesting period piece which skirts the real truth
Franchot Tone, Robert Young and Robert Taylor star as three young German friends who survive the rigors of World War One, and stick together as business partners during the economic hard times that followed. In many ways, this is an explicit continuation of the better-known "All Quiet On The Western Front." It is also based on the work of novelist Erich Maria Remarque and also presents an atypically sympathetic view of the Germans who took part in the war (at least of the common soldiers...) This film deals less with the horrors of war than with its social aftermath, and with the collision of Germany's cultural rigidity with an emerging modern world, at times stifling, and at others liberating. Nazism is dealt with somewhat elliptically; one of the three friends is a left-wing idealist and runs afoul of a right-wing mob, leaving the other two to pick up the pieces. Raw stuff for the time, but ultimately not the whole story. The film was decidedly behind its own times: even though open hostilities had not broken out with the German Reich, by the late 1930s World War Two was all but inevitable, and the film's ending, in which our heroes abandon the charred husk of the Old World for the romantic horizons of the New, is simply wishful thinking. By the time this film came out, walking away from the mistakes of the past was hardly an option: the spectre of war had already reared again, and was hardly going to let these young men out of its clutches. Still, if you completely ignore the reality of the times the film was produced in, this succeeds finely as a conventional tragedy-romance. F. Scott Fitzgerald apparently started the script, which was the only screenplay he himself wrote, but it was taken away from him at the last minute, after the producers decided his lofty philosophical musings were too dense to translate into Hollywood boxoffice success.
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Great period film.
This is a poignant movie adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's novel about three life-long friends in post World War I Germany and beautifully filmed by cinematographer and four-time Oscar winner Joseph Ruttenberg ("Waterloo Bridge", "The Philadelphia Story"). I read somewhere that this is a movie that MGM ran into some problems in its production because it was considered by some to be a war-mongering story. For this film version to be approved by the Hollywood production code in 1938, the political presence had to be toned down. Audiences will not see Nazi emblems and mention of Hitler and other Nazi leaders are noticeably absent. Remarque's novel have dealt harshly with the rise of Nazism in Germany in using it as a backdrop for a love story about three ex-soldiers, Erich Lohkamp (played by Robert Taylor) and his wife-to-be Patricia 'Pat' Hollman (Margaret Sullavan), who is dying from tuberculosis...and Erich's two friends, Otto Koster (played by Franchot Tone) and Gottfried Lenz (Robert Young), who share their fondness for Pat. The upheaval that is happening in Germany at that time were adequately represented, although there is no denying that it suffered from the censorship.
This is Margaret Sullavan's movie. The slight and delicate actress had the most convincing performance in this film. She only made sixteen films (not surpirising, since she's really a stage actress) but on all these films she reputedly left an indelible mark on each and every one of them...and that is plain to see here. Director Frank Borzage would light up and close in on her pretty smiling face and her breathy, husky voice would give cheeriness in an otherwise tempestous period.
Ably directed by two-time Academy Award winner Frank Borzage, and with some suitably Teutonic flavored music from multiple Oscar winner Franz Waxman, this is one film genre of the pre WWII period that will always be worthwhile to see.
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Inspiring Performances!!!
I don't know why everyone seems to think that the men in this movie were "bored" with these roles, but I thought their performances were wonderful as was the lead woman. I thought everyone did a spectacular job. Margaret Sullaven was mesmerizing in this role as a young woman in love who shows complete selflisness. She is perfect in this part, and will make you laugh and cry throughout the course of the movie. As for the men, while Robert Taylor's performance wasn't one of his better ones, I still think that he was very believable as the devoting husband equally in love. I was really impressed with Franchot Tone who played Otto. His character and the way in which he portrayed him was so beautiful. He showed every emotion possible on his calm face, and you could feel what he was feeling at every moment. He was the best friend and "brother" we all wish we had!!!! This story was incredibly sad, but also completely joyous at the same time; even though there are many individually sad parts, the idea that someone could be that completely in love with someone else gives hope to all.
I HOPE you will watch this movie with an open mind about the men in the movie. I think they were great, and I think the movie was especially great!!!
