Movie Monday: Tender Comrade (1943)
Today’s Movie Monday is dedicated to the spirit of fighting off COVID-19. Since we have all been told to stay home, it can be pretty tough to feel productive. However, by staying home you are doing the best thing you possibly can and you are saving lives.
To keep you occupied, I have a new classic film suggestion for your enjoyment. Tender Comrade is a World War II time era film that depicts life on the front line in the United States — women working to keep the country going. The main star of this female centric film is Ginger Rogers, but other well known names like Ruth Hussey and Robert Ryan.
The spirit behind the story of Tender Comrade is strength. Each character has their very own struggle that, in a macro view, seems like an intrinsically linked struggle that is all too common at that time. All of these ladies who are working together are missing their husbands because they are all off at war. The movie follows Ginger Rogers’ character the closest because she is our heroine, but the other characters also get a healthy dose of development too.
Sweetness is sprinkled throughout the film in sublet ways that you would not notice, but that is not the main theme of Tender Comrade. Resilience is one of the major undertones. This feeling of strength and resilience is very different than what we saw in Mrs. Miniver which was very British in many ways, but still shared the story of women on the frontlines at home. The main difference between these films is not just down to geography, but the feeling behind these two films are differing too.
Tender Comrade has a way of making you remember that for these families and these women, life will never be the same. Sure they will try to make life go on the same way it always has, and they will pick up the pieces when the men go off to war and leave them all behind. However, there is a monumental shift taking place and you can feel that when you are watching Tender Comrade. You can also feel that these characters have the will to survive.
In Mrs. Miniver the characters resemble at least a smaller form of what they had been before World War II — a family. At the end of that film we see the buildings and town are all torn apart from the bombings, but the family is still standing. Tender Comrade shows a societal shift and the characters are adapting to the change while remaining strong.
Ginger Rogers, as usual, plays an incredible part of Tender Comrade. She carries the emotional burden for most of the film with her typical sweetness and humor. It lightens the heavy situations of this film in just the right spots. It also helps you understand the gravity of the situation.
It is films like Tender Comrade that makes you feel like Ginger Rogers should have had a bigger career outside of her time spent dancing with Fred Astaire. Unfortunately, the world may never appreciate her talent for all of the films she did without all of the dancing, but we can still learn from the lessons we see in movies like Tender Comrade. Sometimes strength and resilience is the only path we have to take.
Much Love,
Sarah
