Tender Comrade

A remarkable curiosity, if nothing else, this sentimental tale of World War II has Rogers, 'widowed' while her husband is away fighting, turning first to work as a welder in an aircraft factory, and then to a communal household arrangement with other women in the same circumstances. It was later denounced during the HUAC witch-hunts as Commie propaganda. Hard to see how the domestic economies practised by working girls (even phrased as 'Share and share alike, that's democracy') could cause so much trouble for Dmytryk and writer Dalton Trumbo (two of the 'Hollywood Ten'); especially when there is so much American patriotism on view, not least the glutinously stirring speech Rogers makes to her baby when she finally gets word that her husband has been killed.