Three Comrades is a 1938 drama film directed by Frank Borzage and produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz for MGM. The screenplay is by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Edward E. Paramore Jr., and was adapted from the novel Three Comrades by Erich Maria Remarque. It tells the story of the friendship of three young German soldiers following World War I, during the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism.
Three Comrades
On the last day of World War I, November 11, 1918, three German fighter pilots - Erich Lohkamp, Otto Koster, and Gottfried Lenz - are having a final drink with their compatriots. They toast each other, expressing fatalistic attitudes about the future. With their only hope being in their friendship, the three comrades open a taxi and auto repair business and are barely able to eke out a living.
One day several years later (1920), while driving to a country inn in Otto's precious souped-up jalopy roadster, "Baby", to celebrate Erich's birthday (the youngest and least cynical of the three), the friends get into a back road car race with a Herr Breuer, who is driving a luxury car, accompanied by Patricia Hollmann. The boys win their little race and they - along with Breuer and Pat - all arrive at the country inn together. While drinking together, the friends learn that Pat is a young German aristocrat who is now impoverished, while Breuer is a rich fascist sympathizer seeking a sugar daddy relationship with Pat. Though Pat is worldly, she is drawn to the innocent Erich, and gives him her telephone number. Otto and Gottfried encourage the relationship, feeling that their love will be the group's only salvation, but Erich feels that Pat's background will keep them apart, so he tells his friends he has thrown away Pat's number. Nevertheless, Erich - with strong encouragement from Gottfried - eventually calls Pat (he had not thrown away her number after all), and the two agree to a date.
Erich tells the doctor to proceed with the operation and Otto decides to sell "Baby" to pay for it. When Otto goes to see her after the operation, he admits that Gottfried is dead and that he has sold "Baby", and she tells him that their self-sacrifices for her must stop, as her need for future care will be endless - and expensive - and will ruin Erich's and Otto's lives. Otto encourages her to live for Erich and, as they finish speaking, Erich arrives and Otto leaves. Pat speaks to Erich of the three of them escaping to Rio right away. Erich tells her to simply focus on getting better and steps outside to say goodbye to Otto. When alone, Pat slowly walks out to the room's balcony - a simple movement that she knows will likely cause her death. She is seen from below by Erich as she collapses. He rushes to her side just in time to hear her say: "It's right for me to die, darling. It isn't hard...and I'm so full of love." For the three comrades and Patricia, death is not a repudiation of the love they shared.
Three Comrades (German: Drei Kameraden) is a 1936 novel by the German author Erich Maria Remarque. It is written in first person by the main character Robert Lohkamp, whose somewhat disillusioned outlook on life is due to his horrifying experiences in the trenches of the First World War's French-German front. He shares these experiences with Otto KÃster and Gottfried Lenz, his two comrades with whom he runs an auto-repair shop in what may be late-1920s Berlin. Remarque wrote the novel in exile and it was first published in the Dutch translation; the English translation followed soon, being serialised in Good Housekeeping from January to March 1937, and in the book form later in the year. The first German language edition was published in 1938 by exile publisher Querido in Amsterdam, but the novel was published in Germany only in 1951.[1]
After Pat has left for Switzerland, the political situation in the city becomes heated, and Lenz, one of the comrades, is killed by a militant, not mentioned in the book by the actual name but supposed to be a Nazi. On top of this, Otto and Robert face bankruptcy and have to sell their workshop. In the midst of this misfortune, a telegram arrives informing them of Pat's worsening state of health. The two remaining comrades don't hesitate and drive the thousand kilometers to the sanatorium in the Alps to see her.
Meanwhile, Erich has a less politically charged fistfight in the streets over a work claim. He gets ganged up on before his comrades, of course, fly to his defense. Just like old times. Pat is placed in a sanitarium on the behest of her doctor (Monty Wooley) just in time for the snows of winter and then Christmas.
A love story centered on the lives of three young German soldiers in the years following World War I. Their close friendship is strengthened by their shared love for the same woman who is dying of tuberculosis.
A high water mark in Spring fiction -- in the year's fiction, we venture to say. There's been a long pause in the realization of the promise of All Quiet -- but this reestablishes Remarque, indisputably. It is, in its way, as distinctive a book as All Quiet, though it is not so original in content. It shows a maturity of handling that proves his is not simply the genius of journalism, but a genius of interpretation, pathos, humor, irrationality, romance. This story of three war time comrades who have sustained their bonds of friendship in spite of interruptions of depression, disaster, want, -- and who even weather the storm of death and love. Ten years after the war -- Germany in the throes of upheaval -- a mad gaiety, bouts of drinking, freedom of morals -- nothing can jar the loyalty and oneness of the three. The tender love story between Pat and Bobby simply brings Pat into the inner circle. There's a simplicity and directness and power in the story that makes this greater than the political upheaval which is merely implicit in the background. A fine -- perhaps a great book.
The year is 1928 and, in some large German city, three young men are scraping together a meager existence fixing cars. Dissatisfaction with the living conditions, hunger, and an aggressive youth population are growing exponentially. Until now Robert, Gottfried, and Otto had found purpose in their lives and respite from the outside world through their friendship.
It is 1928, and in a large German city three young men, who have been together since their school days, and later through war, work in their shop and make a meager living fixing cars. All around them is crisis and despair, and more and more often disaffected and increasingly aggressive youths take to the streets. Robert, Gottfried, and Otto find support and happiness through their friendship.
The film tells the story of three friends who fought together during WWI for Germany. Now, in 1920, political troubles are tearing Germans apart and these three friends are trying to get by, helping each other out as much as possible. One of the men, Erich, played by Robert Taylor, falls in love with the gorgeous Patricia (Pat, for short). Margaret Sullivan is radiant as Pat, and their relationship is wonderful to watch as it grows and develops. Click to read more
It is a film of characterization, rather than plot. Writers string together an interminable thread of unimportant incident to show the deep affection which exists among three young German officers. The titular comrades are Robert Taylor, Franchot Tone and Robert Young. After Young is killed in a street riot, the other two look forward to a dark, unhappy and lonely future.
In these cold days of 1861 and 1862, Private Veatch took up a solemn duty to record the last moments of Privates John Ruby, John Oler, and Jacob Deffibaugh. The three soldiers died over a five-day span inside Camp Curtin. His words were published in the Bedford Inquirer on January 24, 1862:
As the crowd turned on the Taliban fighters, Hares and his comrades turned, fired back at the charging mob - killing one rebel Northern Alliance soldier and wounding another - and then waited for certain death.
I used to go hunting, every fall, with two or three comrades who felt as I did about such matters. We never hired a guide. On arriving at a blank spot we would spend the first day or two scouting. We would scatter, scour the country, and then, around the camp fire at night, we would describe, in turn, what we had found.
38c6e68cf9