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Good story, Not enough for a whole film

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

A nurse named Laura (Diana Wynyard) in World War I has sex with a pilot (Robert Young), who dies soon after. She discovers she's pregnant so she agrees to marry another man (Lewis Stone) so the child will have a father. Years later her son Bob (Phillips Holmes) is grown and the world is on the brink of another world war. But Laura is vehemently anti-war and has raised her son the same. This leads to conflict as Laura's husband is now the US Secretary of State and expects Bob to fight for his country.Fascinating movie with a lot of thought-provoking ideas and prescient look at a second world war and technological advances like television and videophones. Love the art deco sets. The acting is good with melodramatic Wynyard leading the way. Stone is fine in his usual rigid way. Holmes is terrific and one of the most natural actors in the cast. Robert Young makes the most of his limited screen time. Lovely Ruth Selwyn (wife of director Edgar Selwyn, thirty years her senior) is very likable as Holmes' love interest. May Robson is fine in a supporting role that's dripping with bitterness. It's a wonderful Pre-Code film. The opening scene has Young and Wynyard dressing after their lovemaking. Just a year later you wouldn't see a suggestive scene like that. Heck you wouldn't have seen this movie period since the plot involves premarital sex. The climactic scene where the enemy forces attack New York City is gripping stuff. A sad bit of irony is that, in the end of this film, Phillips Holmes' character enlists as a pilot and flies off to war. Holmes himself would enlist in World War II as a pilot and be killed in a mid-air collision in Canada.

Well Acted Prognostication and Warning About the Next "Great War". An Even Handed Dual Purpose Picture that Tries and Mostly Succeeds to Have it Both Ways.The Movie Starts in the Middle of WWI and Sets Up the Illegitimate Relationship of a Nurse and a Flyer Before it Leaps to 1940 and then Sets the Stage for the Beginning of WWII (remember, the Film was made in 1933) and the Clash Between Pacifists and Patriots.Noble and Notable as a Glimpse Into a Possible Future that Really Did Happen. The Film Also Manages to Foreshadow a Few Technological Advancements. Poison Gas was the Contemporary Horror and the Scariest Watch Weapon of the Period and it is Included Here Quite Forcefully. The Battle Scenes that Take Place Above the Air and In New York City are Chilling.Some May Consider the Ending a Lean Toward Pro-War, but there is Enough Anti-War Sentiment Throughout to Make This a "Fair and Balanced" Contrast of Philosophies. A Little Known Film that is a Gem of its Kind and is an Undiscovered, Utterly Thought Provoking Exercise of its Time and Any Time for that Matter.

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

Quite amazing in its prophetic way. And how did they conceive of a telephone with a screen showing the person with whom you are speaking - back in 1933? Did they really believe we would have that by 1940? I thought I was seeing things.Ah, if only everyone could have taken this movie's message to heart between the two wars. I lost two cousins in WWI; my aunt lost all five of the fellows she dated in high school in Quebec. Her brother who did return was forever changed - he and his pal had taken a German officer into custody who was showing them his timepiece. Suddenly the officer pulled a small handgun and shot dead my great-uncle's friend. The family barely recognised Uncle Russell on his return.These stories continue today - never ending.Diana Wynyard is quite impressive. TCM showed three of her performances back-to-back this morning. Excellent casting. Read Ms Wynyard's bio on IMDb and found due to her death I just missed seeing her in 1964 in Ibsen's "The Master Builder" with Laurence Olivier when the National Theatre Company came to Oxford.