Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more

 

Three Comrades (1938)

Director: Frank Borzage

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Notable as the only film on which Scott Fitzgerald received a script credit, although his conception was softened by some pussyfooting around the crucial Atwill character. So what begins as a 'lost generation' tale as the three comrades (Taylor, Tone and Young) return home to Germany after the 1918 armistice, flaunting the familiar mixture of cynicism and idealism as they pursue fun and fast cars while trying to set about the task of rebuilding their lives, soon becomes sidetracked as Fitzgerald's pessimism runs into Borzage's romanticism. No question here that Sullavan's ethereal heroine, though penniless, jobless, and suffering from malnutrition which turns into terminal TB, will have any seriously sordid truck with the proto-Nazi sugar-daddy played by Atwill. Instead, the film exercises a little sleight-of-hand and, still trailing wisps of Fitzgerald's conception, takes off with Sullavan and Taylor into one of those incandescent Borzage romances where time is simply non- existent: impossibly pure, absurdly naïve, yet magically tender.

Author: TM

Time Out Film Guide


  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields





Features

Bridesmaid revisited

Bridesmaid revisited

Anne Hathaway crashes more than a wedding in Rachel Getting Married.

Old-school house

Old-school house

Even in the age of the multiplex, a few old movie theaters continue to thrive in NYC.

Keeping the faith

Hope abounds in Spike Lee’s latest—as it does in the director himself.

Going the distance

TONY toughs out the Toronto International Film Festival, blow by blow.

Race you to the top

Tyler Perry doesn’t need critics—and may not need new audiences.

Spanish intuition

Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall flirt away an Iberian summer in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

To air is human

Man on Wire, a new doc about a surreal Manhattan morning, aims high.