Arrowsmith (1931)

Director:

John Ford

Writers:

Sinclair Lewis (novel)
Sidney Howard (adaptation)

Release Date:

26 December 1931 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Based on Sinclair Lewis's novel "Arrowsmith". A medical researcher is sent to a plague outbreak, where he has to decide priorities for the use of a vaccine.

Plot Keywords:

Fire | Death | Scientist | West Indies | Doctor

Awards:

Nominated for 4 Oscars.

Cast

Ronald Colman	...	Dr. Martin Arrowsmith
Helen Hayes	...	Leora Arrowsmith
Richard Bennett	...	Gustav Sondelius
A.E. Anson	...	Professor Max Gottlieb
Clarence Brooks	...	Oliver Marchand
Alec B. Francis	...	Twyford (as Alec Francis)
Claude King	...	Dr. Tubbs
Bert Roach	...	Bert Tozer
Myrna Loy	...	Mrs. Joyce Lanyon
Russell Hopton	...	Terry Wickett
David Landau	...	State Veterinarian
Lumsden Hare	...	Sir Robert Fairland - Governor

Runtime:

108 min | USA:99 min (TCM print)

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Italian | Swedish

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

USA:TV-PG (TV rating) | Australia:G | USA:Approved (PCA #1037, 5 July 1935 for re-release) | USA:Passed (National Board of Review)

Company:

Howard Productions

Trivia:

The first American sound film to feature a black character with a university degree who speaks perfect English, does not shuffle, and does not act in the usual stereotypical manner in which blacks were depicted in Hollywood films at the time.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in That's Black Entertainment (1990)

Soundtrack:

William Tell Overture

John Ford Never Met A Doctor He Didn't Like

The fact that an idealistic medical doctor was the protagonist in Arrowsmith is the reason why John Ford must have been attracted to this story and agreed to film it for Sam Goldwyn.

Allegedly it was not a happy collaboration. Two very individualistic men wanted to have their imprimatur on the film. They never worked together on a finished product again, though Ford did start filming The Adventures of Marco Polo for Goldwyn and quit.

I read the novel way back in the day when I was in high school and we only get the second half of it. There's a great deal in the book before Ronald Colman as Martin Arrowsmith goes to work for the Research Foundation and A.E. Anson as Max Gottlieb. You miss quite a lot of the character development of Arrowsmith.

Of course the plot mostly centers on Colman and his other mentor, Richard Bennett going to a Caribbean Island where there has been an outbreak of plague. Along for the trip is Helen Hayes who is Colman's wife Leora.

Colman is there to test a new serum and he's under orders as a researcher to only administer the real stuff to half his patient and a placebo to the others as a control group. This is where the racism of the time kicks in as these human guinea pigs are black, probably the descendants of runaway slaves. There is a black doctor named Marchand in the cast played by Oliver Brooks and it is a rarity among black performers at the time in that the role was hardly servile at all. Brooks seems to go along with the controlled experiment, but he becomes one of many in the cast to meet a tragic end.

With some of what came out about the Tuskegee experiments later on Arrowsmith may have been quite on target without knowing it. A harrowing thought.

Colman and Hayes are an attractive pair of leads. Myrna Loy has a much abbreviated role in the film as a New York socialite that Colman meets down in the islands. In the book he has an affair with her and marries her later on. You won't see that here.

Arrowsmith is a good film though I wish more of Lewis's story got into the final product. But it probably would have run for three hours and films just didn't do that back then.