Tender Comrade

"Tender Comrade" was the only film made during the second world war showing what it was like to be a war bride. It just about covers every detail of home life during this time period, such as rationing booklets, war plant jobs, friendships, worries, "not to talk about troop movements" in public and everything a war bride had to deal with. I'm sure one cam complain about dialog, scripts, camera angles, etcetera, but life wasn't perfect and this film recreates life during a time when "politically incorrect" was not mandatory. People actually talked like that then. They dressed like that, lived like that. This film is as close to factual representation of a war bride as anyone ever got and I, for one, am thankful it was filmed and still lives on. Everyone seems to remember the soldier, but not so much about what their wives, mothers, sisters and daughters had to endure while being left behind to wait for their return. Thank you, Mr. Dymytryk.

Jo Jones (Ginger Rogers) is heartbroken watching her husband Chris Jones (Robert Ryan) go off to war. She goes to work at an aircraft plant. She befriends fellow workers Doris Dumbrowski (Kim Hunter), Barbara Thomas (Ruth Hussey), and Helen Stacey (Patricia Collinge). They decide to rent a house together.

The war propaganda is obvious and completely expected. There isn't anything that compelling. They have made each lady do something different. The German housemaid gives voice to all the underlying politics and warnings from Europe. The flashbacks are hit and miss. A better use of the time could be Chris writing letters from the war. Maybe it could show him being heroic. That would be great war propaganda. Barbara hearing about the Yorktown sinking is probably the most compelling moment. The most compelling Hollywood history has to do with the writer Dalton Trumbo who would fall victim to the Red Scare.

... but it was part of what got director Edward Dmytryk and writer Dalton Trumbo in trouble with HUAC in the early 50s when this film was considered Communist propaganda.

Four war wives who work in a munitions plant decide that if they pool their salaries and resources that instead of four individual run down rooms for rent that they can rent one spacious house with a bedroom for each, a kitchen, a living room, and a housekeeper. They sell one of the two cars they have between them and use the money to fix up the one remaining car and share it. Apparently this is Communism. Let's just ignore the fact that, at the time, movies were being made that were loaded with pro Russian propaganda because the Americans needed the Russians in the war effort. That was then this is now, as they say.

Other than that, it treads pretty traditional wartime material. One wife (Ruth Hussey) was a bit of a good time girl before the war and rather resents the fact that her good-time husband joined the navy before Pearl Harbor even happened. Another (Kim Hunter) got married on the spur of the moment and had to see her husband off that afternoon. Another (Patricia Collinge) has both a son and a husband in the war.

The central figure, though, is war wife Jo Jones (Ginger Rogers), and most of the film is about her relationship with her soldier/husband Chris (Robert Ryan) before the war as she flashes back to various scenes from their marriage. This part of the film uses a strange device. Whenever there is a scene in which Jo reminisces about Chris, the scene switches to a shot of the two of them in the distance, holding hands with clouds surrounding them, like they are in heaven, before launching into the flashback.

This gets pretty sentimental at times, and Ginger verges on hamming it up, but it did hold my interest for the rather long running time and is a splendid time capsule of the war years.

I disagree with the goof that Robert Ryan is not whistling when coming through the laundry. In close examination, you hear the whistling, see his feet walking toward the laundry line. Then see his face, lips slightly puckered, he draws a breath and continues, just through his lips, but without his lips all bunched up. It's of course possible to whistle this way. I do it all the time!

I think it was sad that Ginger Rogers spent so much time trashing this movie Tender Comrade over politics. It contains one of her best performances.

Rogers was a member in good standing of Hollywood's right wing and Tender Comrade came under the scrutiny of the House Un-American Activities Committee. With writer Dalton Trumbo and director Edward Dmytryk two of the Hollywood Ten involved it had a star place in the proceedings.

With the word 'comrade' in the title that's if you'll pardon the pun a red flag in front of these bulls. I mean isn't that what Communists call each other? And the plot concerning four Rosie the Riveteer types teaming up to buy a house and share expenses for the duration, clearly Communist and subverting the American ideal of rugged individualism. And dialog talking about a more unselfish world. This bares investigation.

Ginger, along with other marrieds Ruth Hussey, Patricia Collinge, and Kim Hunter all decide to live together and it seems like a practical decision. They make another one when since they're all doing factory work and come home bone tired they pool part of their salaries and hire a live-in housekeeper Mady Christians. This woman is a refugee from Germany and she provides some valuable insights into the foe their husbands are fighting.

Tender Comrade like so many films of the WW2 era talked a lot about building a better world and God knows what is wrong with that? It turned out to be a dream, but God help us if we ever have a world where no one dreams of making it better.

We also have some flashback scenes that are done well with Ginger and her husband Robert Ryan in the service. They show a typical Mr.&Mrs. Young America at the time and they had a universal identification.

Kim Hunter's husband comes home on leave and he's played by Richard Martin, one of the few times you will see him on film not playing Chit Jose Gonzalez Bustamante Rafferty. Treasure this film for that alone. And also for Ginger Rogers fine and eloquent soliliquy at the end.

It wasn't only Dmytryk and Trumbo who got blacklisted. So did Kim Hunter, Patricia Collinge, and Mady Christians. Lot of political casualties came out of this very fine film about the WW2 homefront.