Herman J. Mankiewicz, convinced that Three Comrades would make more money if the leading female character was allowed to live, ordered F. Scott Fitzgerald to change the script. "Camille would have made twice as much if Garbo had lived," he declared.

"How about Romeo and Juliet?" Fitzgerald retorted. "You wouldn't have wanted Juliet to live, would you?" Mankiewicz, whose cultural experience did not far extend beyond the world of film, thought back to the screen adaptation of 1936. "That's just it," he nodded triumphantly. "Romeo and Juliet didn't make a cent!"

[Mankiewicz did not live to see the popular success of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet.]