Friendly Enemies

Friendly Enemies (1942)

A Salute to Love!

During World War I, two German men friends who emigrated to the US and become millionaires agree on most things, with one major difference: one has taken the US side against Germany regarding the war, while the other stays stubbornly loyal to "the old country". His stubbornness results in tragedy for his old friend and a lesson in the consequences of blind loyalty.

Date of release
1942-06-21
TMDB
6.0 / 10 (7)
Runtime
1h 35m
Genres
Drama
Director
Allan Dwan

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: Friendly Enemies
  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 1

Friendly Enemies is a 1942 American drama film starring Charles Winninger, Charlie Ruggles, James Craig, and Nancy Kelly. The film was directed by Allan Dwan, adapted from a 1918 play of the same name by Aaron Hoffman and Samuel Shipman. It was nominated an Academy Award in the category of Best Sound Recording.

Production

The movie was based on a play which had been very popular during World War I and filmed in 1925 under the same title. Edward Small bought the rights in 1942.

According to Allan Dwan, Small approached Dwan to make a version of Up in Mabel's Room but there were difficulties with the rights. Small suggested Dwan make Friendly Enemies instead and the director was enthusiastic. Dwan claims the film only took a week to prepare because the cast and sets were already prepared for Up in Mabel's Room and repurposed and the script was very close to the play. Dwan later said

That’s what interested me about the whole project. The challenge. Not because I would ever have said, ‘Let’s go out of our way and make Friendly Enemies - or get writers and try to make it better.’ It was just ‘bang’, and it was effective. In several cases, I’ve had to do that with pictures - and not waste time or money on them, because they aren’t worth it. You don’t know what you’re going to get back out of it.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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