The ridiculously handsome Taylor falls for Margaret Sullavan, a charming young woman in declining health who has squandered her estate. Meanwhile, the love of Tone's life is his souped-up automobile. Robert Young becomes involved in a liberal political movement headed by Henry Hull, which makes both Young and Hull targets of rightist thugs.
Familiar character actor Guy Kibbee emerges as a tavern owner overly fond of his phonograph. Charley Grapewin and long-bearded Monty Woolley are doctors, with Woolley and his authoritarian voice memorable in a supporting role.
Three Comrades is noted as the sole screenwriter credit for famous author F. Scott Fitzgerald. He worked on numerous other screenplays uncredited, and of course many movies have been made based on Fitzgerald stories.
How others will see it. Three Comrades was a moderate critical success. Sullavan garnered a Best Actress Oscar nomination. The imdb.com user ratings are relatively high, and consistent across age and gender demographics. Message board chatter focuses on Sullavan's heavy makeup and the curious nature of her illness and its treatment.
How I felt about it. Three Comrades is vaguely reminiscent of The Mortal Storm, which also starred Margaret Sullavan and Robert Young and was set in a post-World War I German-speaking nation. Like Three Comrades, that film dealt with the rise of far-right extremists, although it was set a dozen years later, and featured a final-reel demise of Sullavan, although here it is from natural causes.
The film was released in June 1938, slightly more than one year prior to the beginning of World War II in Europe. Germany had yet to invade Poland, but was already considered a grave menace to peace after its aggrandizement of Austria and its threats to occupy Czechoslovakia. The right-wing thuggery depicted in Three Comrades is an indirect reference to Nazi Germany and its sinister aspirations.
Now that the Nazis have long since been dealt with, contemporary interest in Three Comrades is concentrated on Sullivan's medical condition. Her disease is never specified, but it could be tuberculosis. If so, nobody seems concerned about catching it from her, and she doesn't spend much time coughing. Her post-operation treatment is strange. She is told not to move, yet is not physically restrained, not even by bandages. It is one of Hitchcock's MacGuffins, a means to an ending designed to bring tears to the eyes of the romantically inclined.