Tender Comrade *** (1943, Ginger Rogers, Robert Ryan, Ruth Hussey) – Classic Movie Review 7,500

Ginger Rogers stars as an American defence plant worker who pools her wages and shares a house with three other wives while her husband (Robert Ryan) is away fighting in the Second World War, in the sentimental 1943 tearjerker film Tender Comrade.

The 1943 romantic drama film Tender Comrade is directed by Edward Dmytryk and written by Dalton Trumbo, both known for their left-wing political beliefs in 1943, but then later became two of the most famous victims of the McCarthy anti-Communist witchhunts in America. They were among the infamous Hollywood Ten blacklisted after the war, though the two men ended up having very different stories.

Ginger Rogers stars as Young wife Jo Jones, an American defence plant worker who pools her wages and shares a house with three other wives (Ruth Hussey, Patricia Collinge, Kim Hunter) in a similar situation, while her husband (Robert Ryan) is away fighting at war in the Second World War, in this sentimental tearjerker.

This good-hearted, well-meaning piece is sticky and faded as drama, with much patriotic sermonising and chin-up morale-boosting, along with its sharing and caring message. But it has dated interestingly, and it is a fascinating document of its time, when it was accused of being communist propaganda and landed the director and writer in deep trouble with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAAC).

The film was introduced as evidence when Dmytryk and Trumbo were called before the HUAAC investigating them on suspicion of being Communists. Despite the film’s many American patriotic flag-waving speeches, the communal living arrangements of the women in the film were cited as ‘evidence’ of how Dmytryk and Trumbo tried to brainwash American moviegoers with ‘Communist propaganda’. Even more damning ‘evidence’ was the word ‘Comrade’ in the title.

Rogers looks rather too glamorous and glossy, and she tends to over-emote, but she is appealing on screen as always, and there is very good work from Hussey, Collinge and Hunter as her roommates.

Tender Comrade is a three-hankie tear-jerking box-office winner.

Also in the cast are Mady Christians, Jane Darwell, Richard Martin, Robert J Anderson, Claire Whitney, Euline Martin, Richard Gaines, Mary Forbes, Edward Fielding, Donald Davis and Patti Brill.

Staunch Republican Ginger Rogers complained about what she regarded as ‘anti-American’ speeches in her dialogue and the lines were given to other actresses.

After the Los Angeles premiere on 19 December 1943 – RKO was vainly hoping for an Oscar nomination for Rogers – new footage altering the ending was shot in January 1944 and the film finally went on release in June 1944.

The HUAAC sent Dmytryk to jail for refusing to cooperate, but after having spent several months behind bars, he decided to cooperate and testified before the committee, giving the names of people he said were Communists, ruining lives and careers. A member of the Communist party, he later renounced and denounced Communism.

Trumbo was unable to write under his own name while blacklisted and used ‘fronts’ during the Fifties, when he wrote his best scripts. Otto Preminger and Kirk Douglas broke the blacklist in 1959 by hiring and crediting Trumbo.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7,500

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