User Reviews

And hubba hubba, one of those men is tall, gorgeous Gary Cooper. End of discussion! This is a very melodramatic film with a lot of World War I action scenes. Apparently the role that Joan plays, Diana, Ronnie's sister, was added to the script and does not appear in the Faulkner novel. Ronnie is Franchot Tone, and he and Crawford met and fell in love during this film. Diana is engaged to Claude (Robert Young) and in fact, one of the major moments of the film is when they decide to sleep together though they're not yet married. Diana, however, soon falls in love with the man who took over her family home, Richard (Cooper) who is also a soldier and winds up in the same division as Ronnie and Claude. For a time, he is presumed dead, but when he reappears, problems arise for Diana, especially when Claude is badly injured and Richard realizes that she is living with him.

The film is very dated. The acting is pretty good except that all these people are supposed to be British. Apparently in order to give a clipped British sound to the dialogue, it goes something like this throughout the film: "Bad thing. Told him. Going away." Cooper is handsome and likable, Young is fine, Crawford is pretty good, and Tone is excellent. There are many rainy action scenes and a very dark atmosphere throughout.

All right. Franchot and Crawford. In love.

In the one and only film Gary Cooper and Joan Crawford made together, unless you count their joint cameo in It's A Great Feeling, it's one very old fashioned wartime soap opera set in the United Kingdom during World War I and then in France.

Howard Hawks maybe was the wrong director for this film. It might have been better handled by someone like Frank Borzage or George Cukor where they might have made the tender romantic lines believable. I don't think anyone would have believed Joan Crawford as British. Elegant she does look however in those gowns she was famous for in her early films.

Joan shouldn't be blamed for not sounding British. The story involves a mixture of British and American characters. But in checking out the entire cast list, I found only three of them were actually born across the pond and another born in Australia. Where was the fabled Hollywood British colony in this film.?

Gary Cooper is an American aviator who takes over Joan's estate following the death of her father. She's already involved with fellow countryman Robert Young who's in His Majesty's Navy. Also around is her brother Franchot Tone who gives the best performance in the film. As we all know this was Tone's first film with the woman who became his wife in a couple of years.

The romance is pure soap opera with Joan going back and forth from Cooper to Young and back. You know that someone is going to have to do the decent thing. If you're interested you can watch the film for who does.

Courtesy of Hawks's earlier masterpiece and from Mr. Howard Hughes came some nice aerial footage from Hell's Angels. Aviation enthusiasts if there willing to sit through the drama will get a real treat with all the vintage World War I aircraft.

It's too bad Cooper and Crawford did not get something better. Of course Gary later worked with Howard Hawks on Sergeant York and Ball of Fire. Now those are films not to be missed.

That's pretty much the highlight and only point of interest to watch in this film. Crawford was freshly divorced from Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. She and Franchot Tone fell in love and started their romance, ultimately leading to marriage, while making this film. Since their characters are brother and sister; it's very interesting to watch the passion and "familial" kisses between them that is a LOT more potent than between Joan and her other two leading men, who were SUPPOSED to be the love interests.

Although the story was based on a William Faulkner novel, it is NOT very true to the book .... since there was NO female character like Joan's in the book. MGM wanted to use Crawford and had Faulkner add a character to the screenplay to accommodate a role for her. Trouper that she was, she does a good job, but this basic World War I "men's" story is very strange due to the newly added love triangle. There are also some very abrupt editing sequences that make you ponder what was left out.

Crawford manages to look great (although her clothes were NOT correct for the period - wait til you see her gown as Lady of the Manor - Adrian on the Moon!) and has some good close-ups but she is not believable as a Brit or in her supposed love for Gary Cooper. Her suffering and caring towards Robert Young is very touching though.

Cooper is always pleasant to watch but this does nothing extra for his resume. Robert Young is sweet and winsome and commands the movie-underdog fan-love, but Franchot Tone is the one who knows how to take below-average material and make it interesting. What he can do with a few curt words, a small prop like an upside down pipe in the rain or a quiet entrance into a room is sublime.

For Joan Crawford fans, I'd rate this movie a 5.5; for war and general movie fans, I'd rate it slightly lower at a solid 5.

This film was hopelessly miscast. Why have Americans playing Brits especially when none can master the accent? But, that is one of the reasons to watch especially as Miss Crawford often forgets, or doesn't even try to attempt to be English, in places... sometimes in mid sentence. You can also laugh at the stilted attempts at English Dialogue - "Sister, Mine". "Officer now. Navy. Now I can ask her.". "Feelings Anne. Can't change love.". There's also some clumsy scenes but this was made in 1933 so we were only just out of the silent age so some over dramatic, over egged, over acted scene's are to be expected.

Yet, and despite this being a pot-boiler of a love triangle with war and Anglos-American relations as it's background, it is enjoyable for some still superb acting, the way the three main characters a loved by the camera and are give back warmth and honesty in return. Never been a big fan of Joan Crawford but she looks good and (if we forget she is supposed to be British) gives a good performance.

The sort of film you watch to look at both the good and the bad of cinema at the time and it gives you plenty to talk about later. And remember Crawford and Franchot Tone met for the first time when making this film. he became her second husband two years later.

A tolerable romance/war-actioner with the stars doing their best in a boring love story.The movie comes alive only in the war scenes.The interplay between the male stars works better than the romance bit.Roscoe Karns is impressive in supporting part as Cooper's war buddy

Ponderous, miscast slog of a film. The performers try their best but only Cooper's character is believable. Crawford, Young and Tone are all supposed to be British born, none speak in anything but refined American accents. Their parts should have been played by Diana Wynyard, Ronald Coleman and Leslie Howard all truly English actors actively working in Hollywood at the time, the film would probably still have been a bore but at least it would have felt grounded in some kind of reality. MGM was trying to move Joan away from the shop girl roles that were her bread and butter at the time but this was an ill advised vehicle for her. Missing Hawks customary economy of timing and pace and a lacking any visual sense of time or place, Joan's clothes in particular are inappropriate and at times bizarre-one outfit looks like she has an ironing board attached to it!, you'd be better served to seek out other work by all involved.

This film could have been great with some adequate dialogue and character development. For some reason the makers of this film seemed to believe that because three of the main characters were supposed to be British that it was necessary that they speak in incomplete sentences, usually missing nouns, and that they speak as though tranquilized. They all still sound American, they're just having half of every conversation.

Bogard (Gary Cooper) is an American who takes over a British estate during World War I before the Americans enter the fray because the current residents can no longer afford it since the father is in the military at the time. The daughter, Diana (Joan Crawford) moves into one of the servant's quarters and her brother Ronnie (Franchot Tone) and their lifetime friend Claude (Robert Young) join up with the British forces and ship out to France. The development of the romance between Bogard and Diana consists (onscreen) of exactly one bike ride in which Bogard declares his love and Diana's one word sentences make her seem disinterested. However, at the end of the ride she says rather emotionlessly that she loves Bogard. The two might as well be using semaphores to communicate, the conversation is that wooden.

Diana goes to France to help the war effort, with her brother and childhood sweetheart seeing action nearby. In France she gets news that Bogard is dead, although that news is incorrect. Based on that information she then makes a rash decision that she later regrets when Bogard shows up at her door.

On the other hand, the action sequences, both in the air and on the sea, are extremely well done and photographed. It's just a shame when such a fine cast as this film had all have their performances put in a straight jacket. The one thing that even the director couldn't do was put a complete damper on the chemistry between Franchot Tone and Joan Crawford. This is the film where they fell in love, and their scenes together show it, even though they are playing brother and sister here.

Hawksian Worshipers can Deflect Blame for this Really Bad Movie all They want, the Authorship must be Attributed to the Director without Apology. The "he can do no wrong" Hordes of Howard Hawks Admirers must, in this and other Films, Concede that the "Man" is Overrated.

In this One He Borrows from Other Movies, even His own, for the War Footage and Delivers an Awkward (a Hawks trademark) Film Filled with Braggadocio He-Man Flourishes. You see it's Tough Stuff when Characters Speak in Clipped Sentences that are Supposed to be about Camaraderie and Familiarity but come off in the Hawksian World as Hardly having a Clue how "Real People" Bond and Interact.

This is a Fun Watch. Seeing the Opening Strain Mightily to Bring the Viewer in to this Real World of WWI with Fashions so Art-Deco and Out of Place that it does Nothing but Scream Fake. Most of Hawk's Movies Scream Fake, even the Best of Them.

After a Disastrous Start the Film becomes Watchable, if Unintentionally Humorous, as the Director Struggles for some "Reality" with a Love Triangle (some say a Quadrangle) with Pre-Code Situations and Macho Member Measuring. There is a Bizarre Subplot Starring a Cockroach Named Wellington and although He is Sacrificed for the Cause, One Cannot Deny, He was a "Stout Fellow".

Despite some very glossy MGM B&W photography, as shown in the good print of this film aired by TCM, and some attractive sets and very Adrian-created costumes for JOAN CRAWFORD, TODAY WE LIVE is a film as generic as its title. It's hard to distinguish from any other triangle romance except that the war background gives it added interest.

The script is a strange affair. It's hard to believe that JOAN CRAWFORD and GARY COOPER would openly declare their deep love for each other after exchanging a few glances across a cup of tea. In the very next scene they're hopelessly in love, with Crawford feeling guilt because she's the fiancé of ROBERT YOUNG.

Young's brother is the carefree FRANCHOT TONE (who walks off with the earlier scenes in the film), while ROBERT YOUNG gets his chance to do a fair share of emoting later in the film as his role expands. It's nice seeing these well-known actors at an early stage in their budding careers and still in their prime.

For GARY COOPER fans this is nothing special, but Crawford's admirers will find that she was at the height of her photogenic, sculptured beauty despite some odd dress designs by Adrian that don't suggest anything but the studio's line of glamor during the early '30s. She wears a boldly designed dress with a strange wing collar that has to be seen to be believed. It's hilarious! And that's just so she can pour tea with some dignity.

The actors all speak in clipped lines. "Good girl," says Franchot Tone on several occasions, trying to sound like Colonel Blimp, I suppose. And the others too adopt a strange way of clipping phrases so they sound more British. Very funny.

It goes into darker territory in the later war scenes and there director Howard Hawks seems more at home. But for a film in which the Joan Crawford character was added as a last minute script change, she certainly gets her fair share of footage and dominates the first forty-five minutes. But the love angle is certainly a strange one. She treats Cooper with rude indifference several times during their first meeting although his behavior is that of the perfect gentleman. Shortly thereafter, she confesses she's in love with him. That's the movies for you.

This movie's IMDB rating is a shame. 5.9/10? No, not in the least, does this movie deserve that. This is very good, a missing ten minute segment from actual greatness, and if the general reputation of the film is in line with that appalling rating, then that's a travesty. I've seen it dismissed as melodrama, and while it does have melodramatic elements, it's handled soberly and intelligently in a way that creates actual emotional connection. This is an absolute gem from Hawks' thirties output. The key to it working, I think, is how the film manages its tone.

Set during World War I, the opening twenty minutes of the film is probably the best I've ever seen in a Hawks movie. Centered on Joan Crawford's Ann Boyce, the daughter of an aristocrat who has fallen on such hard times that she has to sell the house to an American, she receives word that her father was killed in action on the same day that Gary Cooper's Bogard has come to take possession of the house. Her quite, British, stiff upper lip attitude to the cacophony of tragedies ranging from the death of her father to the loss of her ancestral home and even to the departure of her brother, Ronnie, and childhood sweetheart, Claude, for active service in the navy. The quiet sadness that permeates every moment of this first twenty minutes, every interaction and line of dialogue, is palpable. Very little needs to actually be said in order to feel the sense of loss and dread that has descended upon this family as The Great War ravages through it.

Then, the movie makes its only real mistake. You see, this is the tale of a love triangle (the stuff of melodrama), and the film makes absolutely no effort to actually tell the story of Ann and Bogard falling in love. In one scene she's fighting back tears as she tries to keep her composure after having just learned of her father's death while showing Bogard around her father's office, and the next scene Bogard waits for Ann to leave her house and they bicycle together for a bit before both confess their love for each other. There's at least one scene missing here as Bogard tries to get close to this beautiful and sad woman while she realizes what he's doing, the feelings in her own heart, and the obligation she has to Claude, with whom she has become engaged.

Anyway, Claude and Ronnie go to war in the navy, and Bogard feels a certain fervor to join in the fight, even as an American, and he joins the Royal Air Force before quickly being declared dead in the papers during a training flight. Heartbroken, Ann joins the army as a nurse and goes to France, posted near Claude. The three all end up meeting up in a way where Ann discovers that Bogard is alive, having joined the American pilots after the American involvement in the war, Bogard learns of Ann's engagement to Claude, and Claude knows nothing of Bogard and Ann's affection for each other. All Claude knows of Bogard is that he bought Ann's house.

Up to this point, I was a bit wary of the movie. I had loved the first twenty minutes, but the jumpstart of the romance between Ann and Bogard had put me off a bit. I also couldn't get the IMDB rating out of my head, knowing that the movie was going to turn south and become pure melodrama at some point. And then Bogard offered to take Claude up in his airplane on an actual bombing mission, and I realized it was never actually going to become melodrama. This was clear-eyed and almost vicious character drama, helped immeasurably by the quiet and straightforward tone of the film.

Bogard flies a bomber, and he's lost his last three gunners at the front of the plane in only a couple of weeks. So, when Bogard offers to show Claude what the war is like in the air by putting him in the gunnery, he's not offering a nice view, he's offering what should be a death sentence to his rival for Ann's heart. This doesn't get played up, and I could even imagine some audience members missing it, but it's definitely the only way to read the section of the film. With that in the back of our minds as an audience, the bombing run (using a lot of footage from Howard Hughes' Hell's Angels and Hawks' own The Dawn Patrol) becomes all the more tense. Bogard is essentially trying to murder Claude, and Claude has no idea.

When Ronnie comes to the officer's mess after Bogard lands the plane safely (with one unreleased bomb barely hanging on and barely clearing the ground so it doesn't go off when they land), Ronnie knows instantly what's happened and what Bogard had tried to do. He knows from Ann that she and Bogard have feelings for each other, but being a proper British gentleman, he doesn't make a show. Instead, he invites the same danger to Bogard as Bogard had invited to Claude. He invites Bogard onto their boat the next day, and Bogard knows exactly what's being offered of him, accepting. What makes this all work is how subtly it's all played. If there were some big blowup, this would all instantly descend into melodrama, but by playing it all quietly and coolly, it remains quietly effective drama.

The trip out on the boat is similar. The boat carries a single torpedo that it releases a few dozen feet from an enemy ship before veering off to the side. The torpedo release mechanism isn't ideal and often fails to actually drop the torpedo into the water, increasing the amount of time the boat is within firing range of the ships' guns and small arms from the men on deck. As they do their run against a German vessel, a shell explodes nearby, blinding Claude. Bogard knows he has no chance against Claude now. Ann will follow through on her promise to Claude and care for the disabled man lovingly and fully for the rest of her life, so he volunteers for a suicide mission to bomb a destroyer in a key position that blocks a mole from a land invasion for the British. Claude learns of this through Ronnie (as well as Ann's love for Bogard), and he decides that Ann can't be left with a cripple for a husband. He convinces Ronnie to take their boat out and get to the targeted destroyer first, using their torpedo to do the work so that Bogard won't have to.

Now, a quick note about action climaxes. Getting several different pieces together into the same place from different starting places is a challenge to write. Oftentimes writers rely on coincidence to get all of the pieces in place, but it's far more satisfying for the audience when characters make affirmative choices that drive them to that spot. Here, at the climax of Today We Live, we have exactly the latter. Bogard makes his choice to fly the mission. Claude makes his choice to sacrifice himself instead. Ronnie makes his choice to help Claude. All three end up veering towards the same target at the same time. It's not an artificial ticking clock, it's one flying machine against a machine speeding over water.

In terms of the actual resolution, I think I might have gone a different direction than it actually chooses, but it handles the choice with tact, ending the film with a quiet moment with Ann in her family church.

I do not understand the negative appraisal of Today We Live. This is a wonderful film that may be missing some early elements to give it full emotional connection, but the rest of the movie is a surprisingly sober and quietly told story of love in a time of war. It's about men competing over a woman in one of the most dangerous spheres of war humanity as ever seen. It's really well acted, looks great, is well written, and directed pretty much perfectly by Hawks, managing to balance a delicate tone that holds everything together.

Today We Live feels like a silent movie, with the lack of music past the opening credits, the slow pacing of dialogue, and the overacted close-ups by Joan Crawford. Most of the movie is unenjoyable and slow, but there is a pretty impressive special effects sequence in the last third of the movie that will please the men in the audience. The film takes place in England during WWI, and while no one in the cast is English, all three of the men fight in the war.

Joan Crawford stars as the object of everyone's affection, and while she has a close friendship with her childhood friend Robert Young, she feels a love-at-first-sight spark with Gary Cooper. Gary isn't very nice, and as the movie continues, he shows himself to be a truly terrible person. Not only is Bob nicer, but he's been best friends to her and her brother Franchot Tone, all her life, and it's always been understood that when they were old enough, they'd be married. Joan agrees to marry him, because he's going off to war, but behind his back, she falls for Gary. Then, when an extremely unrealistic misunderstanding makes everyone think Gary's been killed in action, she and Bob live in sin together. When Gary comes back from the dead, he's not happy about what he finds.

The synopsis of this movie sounds like Gary Cooper is the lead, but even though he gets second billing, the entire movie is about Robert Young. Poor Franchot Tone has the most forgettable part, as the bland brother who gives his sister too many lingering kisses. Bob is the one who has an unrequited love that guilts Joan into promising to marry him. He's the one who gets drunk and cries on Joan's doorstep. He gets duped and wronged cruelly by Gary, and in the last portion of the movie, he has to endure something really terrible. What a break for someone who'd only been making movies for two years! And, for someone so new to the screen, he does a great job, fulfilling every emotion required of him. It's no wonder he was given the far meatier and larger role; Gary Cooper's appalling lack of talent wouldn't have been able to handle it.

This early Hawks' film has many of the themes that will frequently appear in all his filmography, like friendship between men or the professional skill as a mean of survival in dangerous situations. After a weak start the movie takes off during the plane and boat attacks, when Joan Crawford's character is somehow left aside. All in all, her character appears more like a nuisance than anything else. Her first appearance during the tea scene is promising but from there on she'll lack the mannish qualities of other Hawks' females. It is clear that the love interests all through the film are between Cooper, Tone and Young. Claude's blindness reminds other physical impediments of Hawksian heroes. This film, however, closes with a display of self sacrifice and heroism seldom seen in the director's universe. There's also some unusual appearance of religious elements. Although a film "d'epoque", Hawks cannot help turning the material into a modern piece. Some fine scenes, like the aviator instructing the neophyte gunman about the dangers of throwing up, or the wake of the dead cockroach are a true landmark of the director's imaginary, and a clear proof of his ability to turn any material into his own.

Famous novelists were no exception in scratching out a living during the Depression. Famed author William Faulkner augmented his salary by working for film studio MGM, with his first screenplay in April 1933's "Today We Live." Faulkner's royalties from previously published books were becoming slimmer by the day and his magazine short stories weren't enough to sustain his standard of living. MGM reached out and made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Faulkner scholar Andre Bleikasten noted the writer "was in dire need of money and had no idea how to get it. So he went to Hollywood." Faulkner's screenplay "Today We Live" was based on his Saturday Evening Post short story, 'Turnabout."

The script was the only one Faulkner adapted from his own work. Director Howard Hawks was intrigued by Faulkner's original story and signed on, only to find out Irving Thalberg, head of the studio's production, wanted actress Joan Crawford, idle while collecting her $500,000 salary, to be injected into the all-male screenplay. Faulkner's original script was handed off to an assembly of studio writers, who added the female element to make it into a love-triangle.

"Today We Live" has Diana Boyce (Crawford) showing American Richard Bogard (Gary Cooper), the buyer of her family's home on the day she's told her father died in France on the front in 1916. Diana has a fiancee, Claude Hope (Robert Young), as well as her brother Ronnie (Franchot Tone) to lend emotional support. Bogard falls in love with her and joins the British Royal Flying Corps. One assignment he receives coincidently has Claude as a gunner in his plane before the two and Diana's brother go on a sea-bound torpedo mission.

"Today We Live" was raked over the coals by film reviewers, who knew some scenes were reshot, trimmed, cut and then reshot again. Its original 135 minutes was sliced to 113 minutes, with Hawks tearing his hair out at every revision. "Crawford was unconvincing, the 'Gowns by Adrian' were extreme and annoying, and the story was superficial," wrote the reviewer for Variety. Critic Richard Watts of the New York Herald Tribune wrote, "It is a lugubrious romance of the war. It is only when one of the characters begin to play quaintly with a cockroach that you see any particular traces of the Faulkner influence at all."

The film reviewers did enjoy its aerial war sequences, most lifted from Howard Hughes' 1930's "Hell's Angels." The German battleship sunk in the end was footage of the USS New Jersey targeted by pilots in General Billy Mitchell's demonstration on September 1923, showing airplanes had the ability to sink enemy ships.

The movie, despite its star power, lost money. Crawford, who had specifically requested Gary Cooper, got her wish when MGM borrowed the actor from Paramount, the only time the two appeared in a movie together. Crawford, recently divorced from her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., appeared for the first time with Franchot Tone, and were immediately attracted to one another. Although she felt it was too soon to jump into another relationship, the two married in 1935. Tone, a New Yorker, loved stage acting, and his Broadway appearances from the late 1920s was noticed by Hollywood scouts. He made his 1932 film debut in 'The Wiser Sex' opposite Claudette Colbert. "Today We Live" was Tone's first feature with MGM.

Despite all the headaches Faulkner faced with his first movie assignment, he stuck with Hollywood off and on for the next twenty years, working on more than 50 films to earn, as he said, "a consistent salary that supported his family back home." "Today We Live" introduced the writer to Hawks, beginning a close friendship. Faulkner hired the director's brother, William, to be his movie agent, who was able to find consistent work for the writer in Hollywood.

Something of a wreck of an MGM prestige picture, with several big stars (including Gary Cooper, on loan-out from Paramount), based on a story by no less than William Faulkner. But it's ripe material for director Howard Hawks, who gets to invest this World War I drama with air battles (partly lifted from "Hell's Angels"), sea battles, and that male-camaraderie ethic he was so fond of. Here the males are Cooper, a wealthy American renting out the mansion of Joan Crawford and brother Franchot Tone (amusing seeing them play siblings, as they were married not long after this), and Robert Young, Crawford's childhood sweetheart, setting off a love triangle whose outcome is never much in doubt, not with this billing. Everybody's insufferably noble, with sacrifices galore and Faulkneresque pontificating, and the Germans are hilariously terrible shots, with these three guys, plus welcome comic relief Roscoe Karns, virtually winning the war. Crawford, overacting (as even she admitted), gets to model some very non-World War I fashions, and while everybody's British accent drifts in and out, Young does perhaps the best job, convincingly portraying a weakish young man who does rise to the occasion after tragedy strikes him. There's lots of death, and an unconvincing happy ending tacked on, and it's too long. Some exciting aerial and maritime sequences, though, and if you want an early look at Hawksian themes later and better explored in "Only Angels Have Wings" and "To Have and Have Not" and such, you'll have a good time.

This love story set during WW I, is a pretty boring affair despite of the casting of a young Gary Cooper and a Beautiful Joan Crawford.There seems to be no Chemistry between the two leads.Robert Young as the third part of the triangle is perhaps a bit old for his role,but pulls it off quite well.The only real chemistry with Crawford has the actor playing her brother,Franchot Tone, he gives perhaps the best performance in the movie together with Cooper's sidekick Roscoe Karns. Crawford and Tone fell in love during the shooting of this movie and it shows quite clearly in their scenes together.The aviation scenes are what really saves this movie.They're excellently made considering the vintage of this film.Too bad the rest of the story is so boring.

I enjoyed the story by itself, but the things that I learned about WWI Planes & boats, make this movie a must see. The close-ups on the plane & the torpedo boat & how they were used were completely new to me. I heartily recommend.

Couldn't believe it! Clipped sentences? Good grief! Know what? All true! Real people ever talk like this? Don't think so. Good girl! Stout fellow! Stiffen upper lip! Only reason given movie 2 instead of 0 Gary Cooper such a dish. Movie as a whole ridiculous unless you like watching endless biplane dogfights. Seemed endless, anyway. Think all Franchot Tone's dialogue dubbed. When Crawford and Young make a special effort to sound British they come over as Irish. Handy tip - we Brits clip words, not sentences. And somehow we manage to draaaaaaaawl at the same time. But that's only if we've been to a really good public (that's private to you) school.

Despite a fairly lukewarm critical reception, that a great director and an immensely talented cast were reasons enough to see 'Today We Live'. Really like to love quite a lot of Howard Hawks' films, he was a gifted director and a versatile and influential (certainly for other directors) one with one of his more distinctive touches being how he portrayed his female characters. Joan Crawford, Gary Cooper and Franchot Tone promise a lot individually, imagine how they would fare together.

Which actually for me was a bit of a mixed bag. In a rather strange mixed bag of a film. Not awful and watchable in a way when it finally picks up, but all involved have done and been in so much better (Crawford though did do a lot worse as well) than 'Today We Live'. Good things there are definitely, but a lot of things also could have been done a lot better. The idea was not a bad one, but the execution was on the other hand rather patchy.

'Today We Live' has good things. It looks good and is well shot in particular. William Axt's score is suitably moody. Hawks' direction does pick up when the action comes in in the second half, where he is more in his comfort zone.

Furthermore, the second half is better than the first. More confident with more story, and the action is well staged and excites. Some of the atmosphere is somewhat dream-like in a surreal sort of way. The cast are a mixed bag, but a couple are good. With a likeable Tone coming off best. He has good chemistry with Crawford, who has some affecting moments.

As well as some rather over-compensated and bland ones. Robert Young does his best but his character once again is underwritten. Gary Cooper looks rather lost and there is not much chemistry between him and Crawford. Hawks' direction doesn't seem very engaged or at ease in the early stages.

One of the worst things, maybe the worst thing, is the script. The clipped awkwardness is really quite painful and it sounds in dialogue and line delivery pretty stilted and like there wasn't much of a script at all. The story has its moments in the second half but is dull, almost drawn out in the less eventful scenes, and bland in the first. There is also some serious suspension of disbelief needed as the whole film is full of credibility straining.

Concluding, a strange mixed bag of a film. 5/10

Surprisingly exciting drama of World War I featuring some of the best performances of legendary stars Gary Cooper and Joan Crawford with even better performances by the somewhat less legendary but equally talented Robert Young and Franchot Tone. The daring-do may seem a bit improbable, (did they really use speed boats to deliver torpedoes in WWI?), but it's certainly exciting and well-done considering the technology at the time.

The only problem is: can't these people talk in complete sentences? As Robert Osborne just said on TCM, they seem to be reading telegrams to each other. He suggests it was William Faulkner's attempt to disguise the fact that he had a cast of very American actors playing very British characters. The result is less British than it is incoherent but the fine cast struggles through,giving the most animated and nuanced performances of their distinguished careers.

Looks like MGM threw a lot of money and big stars at this and hoped for the best, thinking that the William Faulkner book would give it a prestige flavor.

It's possible that with some major script revisions and a different cast it might have worked. But in it's current state it more resembles a train wreck that you just can't turn your head away from. With it's stars and it's director, expectations are high. Just does not deliver.

My major problem with it is that 3 actors in the lead are supposed to be British. Looks like only a half-hearted effort was made by Crawford, Tone and Young to adopt an English accent. The result is some sort of hybrid that not only sounds unauthentic but succeeds in making their dialog almost impossible to understand.

One curious thing is that through almost all of it's running time there is no background music. Then towards the end at an emotional high point the sound of a solo piano is heard. Being a high class production you would expect to hear the legendary MGM orchestra. The score for the solo piano is so wrong for this scene that it makes me wonder "what were they thinking?"

Crawford does her best over-the-top emoting from start to finish trying desperately to breath some life into this, all for naught.

Cooper gives his characteristic laconic reading. Just about right for this part.

Tone is not given much chance to show what he can do here. He fools with his pipe a lot and sort of mumbles. (Pipes are a visual cue that shows the character to be British, right?)

Young never was much of an actor and never seemed to rise above the level of acting here through the rest of his career. He is just plain wrong here.

Maybe Howard Hawks knew early on that this one was going to be a railroad disaster and just sort of punched the clock to it's finish.

Waste your time on this one if you insist but in my opinion it is NOT an undiscovered jewel.