Arrowsmith
Directed by John Ford
Written by Sidney Howard from the novel by Sinclair Lewis
1931/US
The Samuel Goldwyn Company
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
Dr. Martin Arrowsmith: God give me clear eyes and freedom from haste. God give me anger against all pretense. God keep me looking for my own mistakes. God keep me at it till my results are proven. God give me strength not to trust to God.
Solid story about one physican’s struggle with disease both in his patients and in the laboratory? It’s an adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel.
M.D. Martin Arrowsmith (Ronald Colman) dreams of being a research scientist but abandons this in favor of becoming a country GP when he marries and needs to support his first love Leora (Helen Hayes). Later, he rejoins his research mentor and works on a cure for bubonic plague. He and Lee take off for the West Indies where Arrowsmith’s mentor insists that he conduct an experiment giving half the life-saving drug to one half of the population and the other half nothing. Events set up a battle between the doctor’s head and heart. With Myrna Loy as a society lady who wants to help Arrowsmith innoculate the masses.
The film suffers from a “white man’s burden” attitude toward race as well as from Richard Bennett’s horrendous Swedish accent. It was interesting to see uncredited early performances by Ford regulars Ward Bond and John Qualen. I can recommend if you are interested in a serious romance/drama. Colman and Hayes are excellent.
The film was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture; Best Writing, Adaptation; Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction.
