Men Must Fight (1933)

I love this movie so much

Powerful

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

... and by prescient when it concerns the next war, really, the only thing they got close to right was the date. In 1933, when Hitler was still considered just a buffoonish little man, this film predicts 1940 as the date of the next world conflict. They were only off by one year, so really not bad on the timing predictions.The film begins with a real precode moment - a young flyer (Robert Young as Geoffrey Aiken) and a nurse (Diana Wynyard as Laura) are in the process of dressing in a dimly lit room, obviously after a session of love making. They are in love, but Geoffrey dies after his very first mission, before they can marry. Laura is pregnant, a fact discerned by Edward Seward (Lewis Stone). Edward has been tenaciously pursuing Laura up to this point. He knows she loves someone else, but after Geoffrey's death proposes marriage again to avoid scandal for Laura and her child, and be there to take care of her. She agrees. Geoffrey's son is born, and WWI ends.The film picks up again in 1940, with Edward now Secretary of State, and the Seward marriage may not be a passionate one, but it does seem to be at least tender and loving. Laura's son (Philips Holmes as Bob) has grown up into a handsome young man who has already started to make a name for himself in the field of chemistry. This is where the trouble begins, and where the film gets the next world conflict wrong.The film paints the next conflict - that of 1940 - as one in which all the countries of Europe and part of Asia have united into one country, and one that starts just as WWI began - with an assassination. It's all about patriotic posturing and defending one's honor and not about American interests being encroached upon. Maybe the advice given by the pacifists in this film might have worked in WWI, in which decades and even centuries of pointless bickering erupted into one pointless conflict, but as we all know, just refusing to fight would not have worked against Hitler or Japan.There are several interesting pieces of futuristic technology including a video phone used by Secretary of State Seward when talking to Laura's now grown son. Yet when war erupts it is the old-style WWI prop planes that are being flown. I'd recommend this as an offbeat kind of film, well done and well acted. Also, it is probably one of Philips Holmes' best roles and rather eery when you realize he would die nine years later in a mid-air collision while serving during the actual WWII. I just think this film is more about how people looked back on how WWI might have been prevented versus being helpful on how to prevent WWII. But then we all have the gift of hindsight.

Lewis Stone, Diana Wynyard, Robert Young, and Phillips Holmes star in "Men Must Fight," a 1933 film. The movie starts with a young nurse, Laura (Wynyard) and her lover (Young) as he prepares to go off to World War I. He's killed; she's pregnant, and a rejected suitor, Ned Seward (Stone) offers to marry her and give the child his name. Laura vows that no son of hers will ever fight in a war.Flash forward to 1940, and Seward is now Secretary of State, working on a peace treaty, with Laura's help. Their son Robert (Holmes) is a talented chemist and in love with Peggy (Ruth Selwyn). Unfortunately, the peace treaty fails, and the country is going to war with "Eurasia." Seward advises Laura that she will have to stop her peace-making attempts and objections to war, but she refuses. Having raised her son as a pacificist, Robert refuses to enlist, to the disgust of Peggy.The film was made in 1933, but obviously the signs of conflict were already in the air; if one looks carefully at an anti-war rally that takes place in the film, one will see the Japanese sun and the Nazi swastika. Pretty amazing.The acting by today's standards, with the exception of Stone, is quite melodramatic, as is the dialogue. The handsome Holmes, who himself died right after flight training in Canada, is good as the conflicted Robert. Diana Wynyard, too, is very good, but both actors have very over the top dialogue to say.Very, very interesting film, and well worth seeing, with some excellent battle scenes.

During the 1930s, quite a few antiwar films were made. Considering how wasteful and unnecessary WWI was, it's no surprise that these films flourished. The problem, however, is that while the films were absolutely right about the pointlessness of wars like the First World War, they also didn't take into account that there sometimes are wars that need fighting. After all, Hitler was truly evil.While many of these idealistic films are true classics (such as ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, J'ACCUSE (the remake), GRANDE ILLUSION, WESTFRONT 1918), some, like MEN MUST FIGHT are not. Now it is very thought-provoking and unique--and it certainly gets points for that. Unfortunately, the film also comes off as a bit preachy, morally ambivalent as well as quite dated. But it does try.The film begins with a nurse (Diana Wynyard) and a pilot (Robert Young) having a tryst in a rented room (after all, this is a Pre-Code film--where the moral values of the late 30s and into the 40s were NOT at all evident in many Hollywood films). Unfortunately, he is soon killed and she is pregnant. Nice guy Lewis Stone marries her knowing this and she vows to raise the child as a pacifist.For a while, Stone seems happy raising this boy this way. After all, he becomes Secretary of State and his role is as a peacemaker. Unfortunately, though, when war threatens with the fictional country of Eurasia, he joins lockstep in the American war effort and expects this pacifist son to do the same. Well, the son doesn't and the mother spends much of the film heading a national pacifist movement. Naturally, this leads to conflict and chaos within the family.The problem is that the film was awfully hard to believe sci-fi. While it was cool watching everyone talking on videophones in the future year 1940, the film doesn't seem to make a good case for pacifism or going to war. Perhaps if the acting had been a bit better and less earnest AND the film not been so morally ambiguous it would have succeeded. Instead, you have no idea why the war occurs, who is at fault, what is at stake or the events leading to this conflict. As a result, it's quite watchable but also not a necessary film to watch.

'Men Must Fight' is one of the most astonishing and audacious films I've ever seen. This 1933 drama boldly predicted a second world war (in 1940!) at a time when many Americans were actively planning to sit out such an event. This film depicts an aerial attack upon Manhattan, in a sequence that seems startlingly precognitive for viewers watching after the 9/11 WTC attack. Even more bizarrely, this movie prefigures the real-life deaths of two of the leading actors in its cast.Diana Wynyard stars as Laura Mattson, a Red Cross nurse in the Great War. She has a brief fling with a handsome aviator who then conveniently dies. Rising diplomat Edward Seward (the excellent Lewis Stone) realises that Laura is pregnant by the pilot but unmarried; he proposes to her and offers to raise the child as his own son. Laura doesn't love Seward, but knows this is the best option for herself and her child.Lap-dissolve to the future year 1940 ... seven years *after* this movie was released. There is some astonishing art direction here, with the female characters wearing slightly Jetson-ised fashions, and picturephones in every home. Seward's fortunes have risen, and he's now the Secretary of State. Laura has raised her son Bob to adulthood whilst allowing him to believe that Seward is his biological father. Meanwhile, a foreign alliance called the Eurasian States are gearing up for war against America.Having seen the toll of war, Laura organises a women's pacifist league to prevent World War Two. In a 'Lysistrata' gambit, she persuades the mothers of America to refuse to donate their sons to the juggernaut of war. The film's title has an unspoken counterpoint: men must fight ... and women must make peace. Bob joins his mother in her pacifist campaign. This proves an embarrassment for Secretary of State Seward, especially when a mob of protesters show up to fling stones at his house while haranguing Laura and Bob as 'yellow-bellies'.SPOILERS COMING. Eventually, the Eurasian States' warplanes attack New York City, destroying the brand-new Empire State Building and other landmarks. The special effects in this sequence are marginally better than in 'Deluge' (another film of this period in which Manhattan was destroyed). Despite the technical flaws, for post-9/11 audiences these scenes are absolutely riveting, and it's impossible to sit through this sequence without being reminded of Osama bin Laden's terrorist attack.Eventually, Bob learns that his actual father was a war hero. This and the assault on Manhattan are enough to persuade him to change his ways. He joins the army and becomes a fighter pilot, willing to die to keep America free. War is inevitable, and therefore men MUST fight.'Men Must Fight' sets out to be unnerving, and succeeds. Yet it's more unnerving than it meant to be, due to its distressing precognition. The assault on Manhattan eerily prefigures the events of 2001. Even eerier are the real-life fates of this film's two lead male actors. During the sequence in which hooligans stone the house of Lewis Stone's character, I recalled how Lewis Stone would die 20 years after this film was made: some boys threw stones at his house, and he dropped dead of a heart attack in the street while chasing them. (Way back in 1920, in the silent film 'Milestones', Lewis Stone played yet another character whose house is stoned by hooligans!) Even more unnerving is the ending of 'Men Must Fight', in which Bob Seward (Phillips Holmes) renounces his pacifist ways to become an aviator. In real life, Holmes gave up his movie career early in WW2 to join the Canadian Air Force as a fighter pilot, and he died during a flight exercise. The spectre of Holmes's real-life death hangs over his fictional character in this film, giving it a powerful undertone of morbidity. I usually dislike Phillips Holmes, who tended to play neurasthenic weaklings. His role in 'Men Must Fight' forces me to recall that this actor died a hero's death in real life, and that he should be remembered accordingly.'Men Must Fight' is an astonishing and audacious near-future drama, made even more powerful by the real-world events which have overtaken it. I'll rate this movie 10 out of 10. God bless America and keep her people safe.