This was F. Scott Fitzgerald's only screenwriting credit. Fitzgerald's first draft of the screenplay was completed September 1, 1937.
According to Gore Vidal's essay in "The New York Review of Books" (May 1980), F. Scott Fitzgerald and his spouse Zelda Fitzgerald had divergent opinions regarding the film's quality. After viewing the final cut, Fitzgerald wrote his sister-in-law and declared: "Three Comrades is awful. It was entirely rewritten by the producer." In contrast, Zelda viewed the film upon its release in 1938 and effusively praised the movie in a letter to her husband.
Prior to production, actress Margaret Sullavan declared that F. Scott Fitzgerald's dialogue was impossible to recite. As a result, producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz and screenwriter Edward E. Paramore Jr. rewrote most of the screenplay's dialogue.
Upon its release, the film was banned in Romania on November 14, 1938, for allegedly promoting "pacifistic tendencies" and "communistic ideas." The film was also banned in Poland until May 12, 1939, when the ban was repealed on the condition that future prints shown in the country delete all scenes and dialogue advocating pacifism.
Three Comrades (1938) is a 1938 American 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 (Switzerland, 1937). 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.