Men Must Fight

Plot synopsis:
Nurse Laura Mattson (Diana Wynyard) and World War I military pilot Lt. Geoffrey Aiken (Robert Young) fall in love after only knowing each other for a few days. Tragically, he is brought to her hospital and, by chance, put under her care after being fatally wounded on his very first mission. After he dies, Laura realizes she is pregnant. Edward Seward (Lewis Stone) loves her and persuades her to marry him. As far as anyone knows, the child will be his.
By 1940, Laura's son Bob has grown into a young man, newly engaged to Peggy Chase. Laura has raised Bob to embrace pacifism. Meanwhile, Edward Seward, now United States Secretary of State, flies home after having negotiated the Seward Peace Treaty, which he claims will make it impossible for any country to go to war again. However, when the U.S. ambassador to the state of "Eurasia" is assassinated while en route to the Eurasian State Department to discuss an earlier diplomatic incident, the President sends the navy across the Atlantic to underscore the U.S. demand for a formal apology. Eurasia refuses to comply, and another world war becomes inevitable despite the treaty.
Laura speaks at a large peace rally, over her husband's strong objection. The rally is broken up a group of angry men. A mob then gathers at the Seward home and starts pelting the place. Edward manages to disperse the crowd by first reminding the mob of each American's right to voice his or her own opinion in peacetime, and pledging himself wholeheartedly to the struggle once war is declared. When a news reporter interviews him, he insists his son will enlist. Bob categorically denies this, causing Peggy to break off their engagement. Unable to get his son to change his mind, Edward tells him that he at least has no right to sully the Seward name, revealing that he is not Bob's father. Laura confirms it, and tells Bob of his real father and how he died.
War breaks out. Privately, Edward informs his wife that the war is going badly because America fell behind during the years of peace; the "Canal" has been captured by the enemy, and 12,000 U.S. troops killed in two days by enemy gas bombs. When Eurasia launches an air raid on New York City, destroying such landmarks as the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge, hundreds are killed and Laura is injured, though not seriously. Bob changes his stance and enlists, not in the chemical division as a trained chemist as Edward had suggested, but as an aviator like his real father. Bob and Peggy marry, then he departs with his squadron. As she watches Bob's squadron fly over the city, Laura now understands that freedom is not free; that we must always be prepared to safeguard it; and we all have a responsibility to defend it.

Tags: anti war

Review:
Made in 1933 it predicts a world war in 1940, and even shows a catastrophic air-raid on a major city (in this case New York, but it certainly echoes the destruction soon to be unleashed on London, Berlin etc).
The film carefully presents the pacifist and nationalist arguments in an amazingly contemporary way, embodying the argument in the character of a young pacifist man who must decide whether to fight or not.
The irony that the actor playing this part, Phillips Holmes, was later to die in the real World War 2, adds to the power of this remarkable film.
Diana Wynyard is extraordinary as his mother - indeed the strength of the female characters is one of the film's greatest achievements - few people will not applaud the sentiments of the final scene.
While MEN MUST FIGHT wars, it is the women who wait and strive for peace.This is a fascinating film, all but forgotten now, which both pleads for peace yet urges action against violent aggressor nations.
By supplying strong characters to voice both sides, sometimes changing their minds mid-film, MEN MUST FIGHT tries to please everyone without alienating anyone.
Politics aside, it is possible to enjoy the film strictly on the basis of its good acting and compelling production values.Beginning during World War One, the movie quickly jumps to 1940, where it tries to predict not only the fashions but also the geopolitics seven years hence from its production.
Although the future enemy is called Eurasia,' careful observation during the Coliseum anti-war rally clearly shows the Nazi swastika and the Imperial Japanese Rising Sun flag among the montage of dangers, eight years before America's entry into the still-distant World War Two, proving the prescience of the film's creators.Distinguished English actress Diana Wynyard is a standout as the woman who has seen too much of war's death and tries valiantly to convince others to renounce all warfare.
These two excellent performers ably show the full force their decisions have on their most intimate relationships.Phillips Holmes gives a compelling performance as Wynyard's conflicted son--caught between pacifism & patriotism, he shows the stress going through the mind of any young man facing a really difficult decision.
Ironically, considering the film's conclusion, this fine young actor would be killed in a midair collision in Ontario in August of 1942, preparing to fight the Nazis as a member of the Canadian Air ForceElderly May Robson makes one of her typically energetic film appearances as Lewis' sharp-tongued mother.
Pretty Ruth Selwyn does well with her undemanding role as Holmes' patriotic fiancée; stately Hedda Hopper plays her strong-minded mother.
Robert Young makes the most of his very brief role as the flier who is the great love of Wynyard's life.
Rotund Robert Greig steals a few scenes as Robson's spirited butler.Movie mavens will recognize Arthur Housman as a shipboard inebriate and Mary Gordon as a spectator during the Coliseum rally, both uncredited.The film's pre-Code status is well demonstrated by its gentle mocking of patriotism and the way in which the opening scenes frankly present Wynyard & Young as unmarried lovers..
Men Must Fight is an interesting if somewhat dated look at the future of the world as seen from 1933.
In fact World War I was simply called the Great War when referred to, that we'd have another was unthinkable.Diana Wynyard plays a nurse on the front lines in the Great War who's in love with flier Robert Young.
But good and stout friend Lewis Stone will marry her and raise the kid as their own.Flash forward 20 years and the future in 1940 has folks using television and cellphones where one can talk and text.
Diana Wynyard is a pacifist activist and the two seem to work in tandem.The film is purposely vague, not telling us exactly who the US rivals are out there.
Interestingly enough a few of our ambassadors in the past centuries were assassinated and the USA did not go to war for national honor in real life.This causes a conflict in Wynyard's grown son played by Phillips Holmes.
Stone falls in line with the war declaration, Wynyard still works for peace, Holmes doesn't know what to do though he leans in Wynyard's direction.
Holmes also is in conflict with his fiancé Ruth Selwyn who says America must fight.At that time the ultimate weapon was poison gas and the fear was that the chemists on both sides would make even more lethal varieties.
We're fortunate to have TCM show it, especially since leading lady Diana Wynyard made so very few films..
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.
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.
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.
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..
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.
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.
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.
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.
It also tried to depict future fashions and people using "video phones."The eerie part is when a airplane with a bomb on board smashes in to the Empire State building on a attack on New York City.This movie was way ahead of its time for 1933!.
I enjoyed some of the anti-war sentiment in this film, despite a muddled point of view that also included strong hawkish sentiments.
Considering this was a 1933 film, it came pretty close to predicting the actual start of WWII.
Performances were excellent, with Lewis Stone a standout as Secretary of State, Diana Wynyard as his dovish wife who lost her lover (Robert Young) in WWI, and Phillips Holmes as their son, caught in the middle of his parents' beliefs.
A movie about preparedness for war, the main characters are woman who became a pacifist after her beau died in WWI; her husband, the Secretary of State, a pacifist who turns hawk when war is imminent; her son, also a pacifist, who disappoints his stepfather by refusing to use his knowledge of chemistry to create better poison gases ("the weapon of the future"); the boy's fiance, who refuses to continue the engagement because the boy won't join in the war effort; a dotty pacifist grandma; and Hedda Hopper as the girl's hawkish mom.With a bizarre cast of characters like this, you can just imagine the plot.
It takes the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building, plus the revelation that his real father was a war hero, plus the abandonment by his stepfather, to make the pacifist son realize that he must fight, and likely die (as the enemy, Eurasia, has already invaded New York and seems to be equipped with deadly poison gas).This is a gem, and thank god we have oddball cable stations that show such stuff in the middle of the night.
Although ultimately the movie comes down on the side of the fighters ("Men Must Fight"), the notion that it would be better for all nations (led by the world's mothers) to refuse to go to war is a major theme of the movie.
It's also interesting that this was around the start of the US pacifist movement that some say was partially financed by Nazi Germany to keep the US out of their way.While the film is done in that creaky early thirties acting style, the script gives the characters quite a bit of nuance.
Triumphant military music plays when the troops march out and fly off.This film should be seen with the more entertaining but similar "Things To Come"Some technical notes: the sound is very bad at points during the last ten minutes on the TCM print which I assume came from the MGM vault.
An Even Handed Dual Purpose Picture that Tries and Mostly Succeeds to Have it Both Ways.The Movie Starts in the Middle of WWI and Sets Up the Illegitimate Relationship of a Nurse and a Flyer Before it Leaps to 1940 and then Sets the Stage for the Beginning of WWII (remember, the Film was made in 1933) and the Clash Between Pacifists and Patriots.Noble and Notable as a Glimpse Into a Possible Future that Really Did Happen.
The Battle Scenes that Take Place Above the Air and In New York City are Chilling.Some May Consider the Ending a Lean Toward Pro-War, but there is Enough Anti-War Sentiment Throughout to Make This a "Fair and Balanced" Contrast of Philosophies.
During the Great War (aka World War I), British-accented nurse Diana Wynyard (as Laura Mattson) suffers tragically.
Looking great for her advanced years, Ms. Wynyard is married to US Secretary of State Lewis Stone (as Edward "Ned" Seward).
They have raised a pacifist son, handsome chemical engineer Phillips Holmes (as Robert "Bob" Seward).
When a Second World War breaks out in Europe, the pacifist ideals of Wynyard and the draft-aged Mr. Holmes are tested...From a short-lived 1932 Broadway play, this film predicts what many people once considered unlikely - that another "world war" would follow the "war to end all wars." There were fewer predicting this in the 1930s than the countless speculation about World War III.
However, this is not really a film about picture phones and chemical weapons...Living up to its title, "Men Must Fight" is a pro-war story.
The arguments for why people "must fight" wars, which the film makes more subtly, are undermined by the heavy-handedness.
In an ironically sad postscript, Holmes enlisted in the real World War II and died in a 1942 plane crash.****** Men Must Fight (2/17/33) Edgar Selwyn ~ Diana Wynyard, Phillips Holmes, Lewis Stone, May Robson.
The very startling irony for me is that Philip Holmes who played the son died in 1942 at the start of WWII in a mid-air collision after having joined the Royal Canadian Air Force!!.
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.
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.
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.
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.
(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.
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.
A nurse named Laura (Diana Wynyard) in World War I has sex with a pilot (Robert Young), who dies soon after.
Years later her son Bob (Phillips Holmes) is grown and the world is on the brink of another world war.
But Laura is vehemently anti-war and has raised her son the same.
This leads to conflict as Laura's husband is now the US Secretary of State and expects Bob to fight for his country.Fascinating movie with a lot of thought-provoking ideas and prescient look at a second world war and technological advances like television and videophones.
A sad bit of irony is that, in the end of this film, Phillips Holmes' character enlists as a pilot and flies off to war.
Holmes himself would enlist in World War II as a pilot and be killed in a mid-air collision in Canada..
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.
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, 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.
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.
An historic note that I haven't seen in any post about this brilliant film: Film Secretary of State Edward Seward is analogous to real US SoS William Jennings Bryan.In the movie, the fictional Seward gives up his pacifist beliefs because a US envoy has been assassinated in "Eurasia," and American pride demands that we send the fleet to provoke war.In real life pacifist WJ Bryan refused to give in to war hysteria before WW I.
Maybe this is because heroine Diana Wynyard makes a number of decent anti-war speeches throughout this film.
In any event, I will admit Diana Wynyard is a good actress and did a good job in this film, and I appreciated the opening scene, a pre-code artifact indicating that Miss Wynward and Robert Young had engaged in pre-marital sex.
That women, children, the sick, the poor, the elderly, and the disabled suffer the most when war is foughtThat a film described by some as anti-war misses these and other major points is akin to giving the Nobel Peace Prize to a world leader who bombs weaker nations and sends drone weapons against civilians.
In case you still might think this film is anti-war (Spoiler Alert!) then consider the fact that at the film's end, Miss Wynyard's son resolves his story arc by enlisting to fight in a jingoistic crescendo of inanity.I'm busting on this film so bad because others in this time period knew the straight scoop on war.
73 minutes.SYNOPSIS: The scene is set in the USA, seven years into the future, namely 1940: A pacifist Secretary of State (Lewis Stone) comes to realize that America has no alternative but to repel an invasion with force, to trade an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
His wife (Diana Wynyard), however, does not refute her pacifist sentiments even when the enemy carries out a sudden, surprise air attack against New York, destroying several famous landmarks including the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building.
Nonetheless, the film is of enormous interest not only as one of the few overtly "message" pictures produced by M-G-M, but for its prophetic view of 1940 (which can now be transferred to 11 September 2001) with America involved in a war against Germany and Japan.
True, Diana Wynyard's role is always relentlessly motivated towards "peace at all costs", but Lewis Stone's undergoes two remarkable reversals which no amount of skilful acting can disguise.