The greatest movie ever made..!

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Amateur movie with Big budget

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

During the Great War (aka World War I), British-accented nurse Diana Wynyard (as Laura Mattson) suffers tragically. Understandably, she becomes a fervent pacifist. In 1918, many believed the "war to end war" had occurred. Decades later, it's 1940. 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. We don't use the "picture phone" depicted, but the writers and adapters were remarkably correct in some main events. 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 thesis is that pacifists are wrong...Moreover, a clearly sexist attitude explains Wynyard and her ilk. Also representing the "weaker" gender are director Edgar Selwyn's pretty wife Ruth, and the inimitable May Robson. Holmes is brought up hating war, but this threatens to render him a spineless sissy; in order to be valued and accepted, the character must reform. Considering all this, the closing scene is despicable. 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

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.

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. She is well matched by Lewis Stone as her pacifist husband who must rethink his beliefs after high governmental office forces him to confront real dangers. 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.