Men Must Fight (1933) - Watching a 1930s movie predict 1940 is a trip

Is this one worth your time?

If you like seeing how people in the past thought the future would look, Men Must Fight is definitely worth a watch. It's for the folks who don't mind a movie that is basically just people arguing in living rooms about big ideas.

Action fans will probably hate it because there is almost zero fighting until the very end. It's more of a time-capsule than a war flick.

The 1940 that never was

So, this came out in 1933. It tries to guess what 1940 would look like, and honestly, some of it is spooky.

They got the part about another big war right. But they also thought we'd all have these giant, clunky television-phones in our houses by then.

The screen is tiny and the cabinet is huge. It looks like someone tried to turn a microwave into a home theater system.

I found myself staring at the background sets more than the actors sometimes. The 'futuristic' decor is just Art Deco turned up to eleven, with lots of weirdly angled doors.

A family at war with itself

Diana Wynyard plays the mom, Laura. She’s the heart of the movie, and you can really feel her exhaustion from the WWI scenes at the start.

She spends the whole movie trying to keep her son, Bob, out of the next war. Bob is played by a very young Robert Young, who looks like he’s trying really hard to be serious.

He’s a chemist who just wants to stay in his lab and not kill people. His dad, played by Lewis Stone, is a big-shot Admiral who thinks every man should be ready to die for his country.

The scenes where they argue about duty are heavy. It’s not very subtle, but it feels real, like an actual fight you'd hear through a thin wall at an apartment.

I liked how Lewis Stone doesn't play the dad like a villain. He’s just a man of his time who can't understand why his son wouldn't want to wear a uniform.

The 'Eurasia' problem

The movie calls the enemy 'Eurasia.' It’s kind of funny how they avoided naming a real country, probably to keep from making anyone mad in 1933.

The propaganda scenes are actually the most interesting part. You see the posters and the newsreels, and it feels a lot like the atmosphere in Tiger Shark where everything feels a bit high-stakes and sweaty.

There's this one moment where a crowd is cheering for the war, and the camera lingers on Laura's face. She looks like she’s watching a slow-motion car crash.

I did find the girlfriend character, Peggy, a bit annoying. She basically tells Bob she won't love him if he doesn't go off to get shot at.

It’s a very 1930s way of thinking, I guess. It made me want to yell at the screen a little bit.

Small things I noticed

The sound design is a bit rough in the hospital scenes. There’s a constant buzzing that I think was just the equipment they used back then.

Also, the way they handle the time jump is a bit abrupt. One minute it's 1914 and everyone is in wool suits, the next it's 1940 and the furniture looks like it's from outer space.

It’s not as creepy as something like Murder by the Clock, but it has this uneasy vibe. You know things aren't going to end well for Bob.

There is a scene with a map that has 'Eurasia' written in giant letters. It looks like it was drawn with a Sharpie right before they yelled action.

The ending is a bit of a mess

I won't spoil it, but the movie kind of tries to have its cake and eat it too. It spends 70 minutes saying war is bad, and then the last 10 minutes feeling like a recruitment poster.

It’s a bit confusing. I think the filmmakers were scared of looking too unpatriotic for the time.

Still, seeing the planes fly over New York at the end is a wild visual for 1933. The special effects aren't great, but the scale of it is impressive for such an old movie.

It’s a weird, lopsided film. It’s definitely not perfect, and some of the dialogue is super stiff.

But if you like history, it’s a great way to spend an afternoon. Just don't expect a lot of action scenes. ✈️