Arrowsmith

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Mary C As a nurse, I was intrigued by the medical world of that time. Initially, you see the uniformed nurse on her knees scrubbing the floor because she was caught smoking. After she marries a doctor & they set out to help society. Eventually they travel to the Islands & are faced w bubonic plague. It's delightful to see their zest for helping others. There is also sadness witnessed in death. Splendid details seen in the movie & exciting to see island life. The actors were excellent. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 12/15/23 Full Review Louisa E I was so excited to finally find a copy of this movie. I love Ronald Coleman. Unfortunately, this movie bored me. I struggled with the accents of some characters. It was a tad too slow paced. The acting was brilliant in this movie, though. That was it's saving grace. Also the cinematography was superb. That said, I've found this year to be a bit below average with the quality of movies, so it rates in my top five at this point anyway. 7.2/10. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 05/08/23 Full Review Audience Member The film is only somewhat faithful to the novel, omitting Arrowsmith's womanizing and completely skipping all mention of his wealth self centered second wife. It is said Sam Goldwyn hired John Ford to direct on condition he not drink and he sped up filming at the expense of the plot and continuity to start drinking again. The film is good, with many plot holes. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/08/23 Full Review Frances H Although Coleman and Helen Hayes are both food actors and John ford is usually a very director, this film of one of my favorite books is just lacking something vital. I know the way that blacks are presented was the way white America thought of them then, but seeing it on screen is so very disturbing! That very much took away from any enjoyment I had of this film. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 09/06/20 Full Review steve d Really solid adaptation with good performances. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member There are few traces of John Ford's genius in this prestige picture which preceded his great career triumphs as he feels more like a director for hire on a film intended to win Academy Awards. Fortunately the film did not earn an incredible amount of critical praise and has been largely forgotten as Ford's later efforts such as The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and The Quiet Man (1952). I wanted to like the film but the fact that a crucial plotline was brushed over, presumably not to offend conservative audiences at the time, and I found the bubonic plague cow serum issue incredibly dull. Doctors may be invested in the film but for a person with little to no knowledge of the science behind medicine it is hard to penetrate. Medical student Martin Arrowsmith, Ronald Colman, builds a close relationship with professor and medical researcher Max Gottlieb, A.E. Anson, who views him as a surrogate son. His romance with spunky, devoted nurse Leora, Helen Hayes, prevents him from taking up Gottlieb on an offer to travel overseas with him as an assistant because he would not be able to financially support himself and his new wife. Leora's father provides him with $1000 to start his own medical practice and he suffers before finding inspiration with the discovery of a serum that will stop the spread of a fatal cow disease. He is able to take up a position at the prestigious McGurk institute while Leora acclimates to life as the wife of a doctor after a tragic miscarriage. The marriage of the Arrowsmiths is threatened by the conditions in the West Indies when the couple move there to help fight the plague. Arrowsmith is pursued by the flirtatious and attractive Joyce Lanyon, Myrna Loy, while Leora suffers silently from the plague as her husband neglects her to help others. The film aims to be one of the sophisticated relationship dramas of the 1930s along with Dodsworth (1936) and Make Way for Tomorrow (1937) but lacks the sensitivity and daring of those two films. Dodsworth chose to attack pretensions and display how they can destroy a person who would already appear to have everything. In that film the wife is not your usual endlessly supportive devotee but a woman with her own self destructive desires who is able to exist entirely outside of her husband and is given enough screen time to develop as a character. Furthermore the movie does not show the impact that the monotony of a marriage can have on two individuals and enjoys ogling the temptation, in this case Loy, instead of delving into what drives an older man to pursue a woman like this. I was frustrated by how surface level the analysis of the marriage between the Arrowsmiths was as there was clearly room to go deeper but the film chose to fall back on familiar tropes. The legendary Helen Hayes is handed yet another thankless role as a woman in love with an incredibly boring man. She doesn't get to show any range as she spends all of her time throwing her head back with tears streaming down her face and smiling sweetly as her husband makes decisions for her. Colman makes a lousy lead as even though he plays a poorly written part he never injects Arrowsmith with any oomph and we do not find ourselves caring about his potential infidelity or desire to create a serum that will save the lives of many. Perhaps the story that this film was based on was just never that interesting in the first place but from what I have read the book features Arrowsmith marrying Lanyon. In the film she barely appears and seems like an entirely unnecessary character as the film is unwilling to make Arrowsmith unsympathetic in any way and clearly wants to shy away from the idea of extramarital affairs. However when considering the fact that the film was made before the era of the Motion Picture Production Code and the affair should be at the center of the relationship troubles between the Arrowsmiths. If the film has a selling point it is the way that it looks as the art deco of the time period is highlighted and the images are remarkably crisp. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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