wow! i just watched 3 comrades and i am awed. i have not been much of a fan of robert taylor's, but this has changed my mind. he was subtle and warm--2 qualities i have never seen in him before. overall the film was so real and reflected so truly the qualities of unselfish love, both between friends and between lovers, i found it so touching. someone wrote comments saying it was over the top and hard to watch. i could not disagree more. it was wonderful.
shareI love this film. Robert Taylor is great in Three Comrades, but Franchot Tone just blows me away. He is brilliant.
"Tessie" is the Royal Rooters rally cry.
"Tessie" is the tune they always sung.
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I'M GLAD I SAW THIS BEFORE MY TIME IS UP. WHAT A GLORIOUS PIECE THAT STANDS OUT IN A MOST GLORIOUS ERA FOR FILM!
shareGood movie harmed by what is a lame ending (no matter how well the scene is shot).
*spoilers*
I understand that in the terminal illness romance subgenre she has to die (I AM a fan of Moulin Rouge and the Garbo-starring version of Camille), but for her to commit suicide right after her operation, thereby making her friend's sacrifice of selling his beloved car pointless...that was just stupid. She should have at least spent a little more time w/ her husband and friend that the operation might have bought her, but instead the script requires her to make a bewildering 'sacrifice' for the eventual greater good. Typical Hollywood melodrama BS, though the original story by Maria Remarque may have very well ended in the same way (I haven't read it). I think the vengeful shootout near the cathedral is easily one of the best scenes in the film.
Borzage's films are a mixed bag for me. Some are excellent while others are dopey at best (the propaganda film 'Shipmates Forever' is unforgettable in a bad way). He doesn't quite have that Lubitsch touch, and while Sullavan's work here is excellent, I greatly prefer Lubitsch's 'The Shop Around the Corner' which is a superior film.
6/10
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'Life is Beautiful' is to Holocaust movies what 'Twilight' is to vampire movies.
*****SPOILERS******
Did we watch the same film or what? She does NOT commit suicide at the end. She gets up out of bed like 10 minutes after having a lung removed, goes outside in the freezing winter snow of Germany, and then colapses and dies. I think you're confusing Sullavan's character in this film with the real life actress, who supposedly commited suicide. Even though this has not been proven, her history of depression and emotional instability strongly suggests that she wouldn't have been disapointed that the overdose worked.
It was my understanding that the doctor said she was not to get up for a few weeks after the surgery or she would die.
something wicked this way comes . . . .
It looked like suicide to me. She was explicitly told not to move much, and certainly not to get up.
Her last words were something to the effect that she should die sooner than later for the good of her husband and friend.
But if she felt that way she should have just refused the surgery. Certainly once she realized that Otto (Tone) sold his car and made great sacrifices for her to have the surgery, it seemed like a very selfish act for her to deliberately cause her own death. I was very disappointed in the filmmaker's ending, which ends differently than the book.
As for the rest of the movie, I loved it. Highly engaging and moving.
Always the officiant, never the bride. http://www.withthiskissitheewed.com
Possible Spoilers
It is odd to write that, as I have not even seen the film, but I will be discussing the ending of the film, as mentioned by other posters, and the ending of the novel. In the novel, Pat simply succumbs to her illness. As I recall, she was in a sanatarium and was doing alright, but took a turn for the worse due to the weather (I don't know why, as I thought the sanatarium would protect her from the outside elements). In any case, in the book, there was absolutely no question of suicide. I don't even think she had an operation.
I did see a brief clip from the film, where a soldier (apparently the main character) goes up to an officer and says, "Sir, now that the war is over, can I call you father again?" Total cornball, so it is not a particularly good calling card for the film. The novel starts perfectly in the early 1930's with the main character (Robbie) waking up on his birthday, deciding to make an accounting of his life since the war, and quickly giving up because he draws a blank on a year or two. He then describes getting absolutely blotto for his birthday. Talk about the lost generation. It perfectly set the tone for the novel, which I think was really about rediscovering something meaningful and worthwhile in life after the horrors of the war turned so many soldiers into people who could bear nobody's company but each others' and could find nothing in life that could hold their interest other than meaningless sex and getting wasted.
I haven't seen this film, but the novel is one of my very favorite. Since Remarque's first novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, was such a huge success and really is a generation defining work, as well as an all-time classic on war, his other work has general been overlooked. You literally cannot find any of his other novels in print in English. This is truly unfortunate as he is a great writer and I consider his books such as Three Comrades, The Road Back, and Arc of Triumph to be superb works of the period. I would like to see this film, but have never come across it.
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