An historic note that I haven't seen in any post about this brilliant film: Film Secretary of State Edward Seward is analogous to real US SoS William Jennings Bryan.In the movie, the fictional Seward gives up his pacifist beliefs because a US envoy has been assassinated in "Eurasia," and American pride demands that we send the fleet to provoke war.In real life pacifist WJ Bryan refused to give in to war hysteria before WW I. When President Woodrow Wilson threatened Germany over the sinking of "neutral" ships (carrying war materiel?), Bryan resigned in protest, Soon after, Wilson got Congress to declare war on Germany.Bryan's wife was a collaborator on his political ideals. "Seward's" film wife tried, but did not succeed because her husband yielded to the hysteria that national pride seemed to demand. (I will only mention the name Benghazi to illustrate whether modern countries feel the killing of an ambassador is a cause for war.)

This movie made in 1933 predicts World War II, and the 9/11 attacks but except in 1940.This deals with same social issues we have dealt with from the Vietnam War to the Gulf War, to now.The movie also shows the "future" American watching Television, even though Television doesn't take off until 10 yrs after 1940. It also tried to depict future fashions and people using "video phones."The eerie part is when a airplane with a bomb on board smashes in to the Empire State building on a attack on New York City.This movie was way ahead of its time for 1933!

For some reason, a lot of the reviewers on IMDb want to praise this mealy-mouthed pseudo-liberal talk-fest. Maybe this is because heroine Diana Wynyard makes a number of decent anti-war speeches throughout this film. In any event, I will admit Diana Wynyard is a good actress and did a good job in this film, and I appreciated the opening scene, a pre-code artifact indicating that Miss Wynward and Robert Young had engaged in pre-marital sex. However, although the writer of Miss Wynyard's speeches misses entirely some of the most salient points of the anti-war point of view:1. That war is often fought for the benefit of profiteers 2. That politicians goad nations to war by means of lies 3. That politicians, no matter what they say, generally seek empire when they go to war 4. That women, children, the sick, the poor, the elderly, and the disabled suffer the most when war is foughtThat a film described by some as anti-war misses these and other major points is akin to giving the Nobel Peace Prize to a world leader who bombs weaker nations and sends drone weapons against civilians. In fact, Miss Wynyard's character tends to trivialize the anti-war point of view by representing that point of view as a mere response to acute grief. NYC is attacked in this film, in an eerie foreshadowing of 9/11, but the film says nothing about the actions leading up to the attack, the motivations of the attackers, or whether or not US politicians knew in advance of the attack (as Pres. Roosevelt did in the case of Pearl Harbor, but was looking for a justification to enter WWII). War is represented then, not so much as the result of plans and actions and motivations, all of which should be deconstructed if we are ever to learn from history, but rather as a kind of Force of Nature, a unavoidable part of human experience, such as sex and love are. Hence the title. War as an expression of the human spirit. In case you still might think this film is anti-war (Spoiler Alert!) then consider the fact that at the film's end, Miss Wynyard's son resolves his story arc by enlisting to fight in a jingoistic crescendo of inanity.I'm busting on this film so bad because others in this time period knew the straight scoop on war. Graham Greene did, hence his classic 1936 novel 'This Gun for Hire.' Smedley Butler did, and he had already written the classic 'War is a Racket.' In terms of cinema, the Marx Bros 'Duck Soup' and Chaplin's 'The Great Dictator' are much more articulate regarding the subject of war and peace. Actually, 'The Shape of Things to Come' is also better on the subject as well. This film is mostly just a curiosity. It's eerie that it predicted the USA entering into a European war in 1940, and it's eerie that it showed an attack on NYC, it's got funky video-telephones for futuristic 1940, and it's got a hint of pre-code sex. But it's slow, talkative, and in the end fakes you out because you think the point of view is pro-peace, but in the end, it's just more cheer-leading for the War Machine. Like we need that.

Men Must Fight is an interesting if somewhat dated look at the future of the world as seen from 1933. At that time the thought of another total war like World War I turned out to be was abhorrent in the eyes of civilization. In fact World War I was simply called the Great War when referred to, that we'd have another was unthinkable.Diana Wynyard plays a nurse on the front lines in the Great War who's in love with flier Robert Young. When Young's killed, he's left something permanent for Wynyard to remember him by. But good and stout friend Lewis Stone will marry her and raise the kid as their own.Flash forward 20 years and the future in 1940 has folks using television and cellphones where one can talk and text. Lewis Stone is the US Secretary of State and curiously enough his character name is William Seward like another of our greatest Secretarys of State. Diana Wynyard is a pacifist activist and the two seem to work in tandem.The film is purposely vague, not telling us exactly who the US rivals are out there. It's an amorphous amalgamation of countries called, Eurasia. Our ambassador to there is assassinated and this means war because national honor requires it. Interestingly enough a few of our ambassadors in the past centuries were assassinated and the USA did not go to war for national honor in real life.This causes a conflict in Wynyard's grown son played by Phillips Holmes. Stone falls in line with the war declaration, Wynyard still works for peace, Holmes doesn't know what to do though he leans in Wynyard's direction. Holmes also is in conflict with his fiancé Ruth Selwyn who says America must fight.At that time the ultimate weapon was poison gas and the fear was that the chemists on both sides would make even more lethal varieties. And air raids. New York in fact is bombed by air.Men Must Fight is old fashioned and melodramatic. At the same time it's a sincere plea for international understanding and peace. My guess is that Louis B. Mayer buried this one deep in MGM's vaults when World War II came around. We're fortunate to have TCM show it, especially since leading lady Diana Wynyard made so very few films.