Men in White

Although this treatment of Sidney Kingsley's first Broadway play tends to be melodramatic in spots, Men In White holds up very well for a work almost 80 years old. Men In White ran during the 1933-34 season on Broadway for 351 performances and made Sidney Kingsley a force to be reckoned with. His next play was Dead End, destined to be another screen classic.

A year later Clark Gable would not have gotten this part. His fellow MGM star Robert Taylor got his first big break playing a doctor in Magnificent Obsession and shortly afterward Taylor could not get out of hospital whites as Louis B. Mayer kept casting him as an idealistic young physician that Gable is in this film.

Gable is considered to have a brilliant future as world respected doctor Jean Hersholt has taken him under his wing. His long hours and low pay at this point is cramping the style of his society girl friend Myrna Loy. When he's forced to stay at the hospital on a case one time too many for her they quarrel and Gable is attracted to Elizabeth Allan a nurse who just worships the ground he walks on. One quick evening and she's pregnant. That leads to tragedy.

Although Gable and Loy are good, this film belongs to Elizabeth Allan who came over from the United Kingdom and would be going back in a few years as well. Her most famous role was as the mother of David Copperfield over at MGM. Although it gets melodramatic at times, I guarantee her predicament and how she handles it will moisten many an eye when you see Men In White.

With her pregnancy out of wedlock as it were the Code now in place gave MGM some strict parameters. Nevertheless this film still is a reminder of what women faced in dealing with back alley abortionists, not a subject often dealt with in films. Sidney Kingsley would return again to it when he wrote The Detective Story.

Jean Hersholt gave film fans a preview of what to expect when he played the brilliant Dr. Hochberg. Later on he would be the movies Dr. Christian and while Christian was a simple country physician and Hochberg one of medicine's elite, Hersholt was simple, unaffected, and dedicated.

Men In White probably could use a remake as the Code is now lifted and certain subjects can be discussed more freely. But it would be hard to get a cast as good, especially Elizabeth Allan.

I stumbled across this and TIVOed it -- curious to see a young Clarke Gable, with Myrna Loy.

The thing that grabbed me most was the cinematography. The use of shadows was very evocative, almost Citizen Kane-like. Beautifully framed shots, sometimes looking slightly up or down, slightly angled. Very poetic. A few crane shots. Worth seeing for the cinematography alone.

All the early 30s doctors in their white robes look like they exist and work in some idealized, futuristic art deco spaceport. Very odd and interesting to look at.

The other reviewer here pointed out that there was no music. Without the sappy over the top music to help tell the story, we instead experience the evocative camera-work in it's splendor.

Definitely worth a watch.

this is one of the few gable movies that i like. i was surprised by gable's acting, it was so unlike his macho man roles. his humanity came out in this performance. loy was a little irritating to me, which is rare, i so love her movies with William Powell. she seemed like a spoiled rich girl, unaware and uncaring of the plights of the sick and ailing, so unlike her Nora Charles rich girl. in it's own way it is a forerunner of er, not quite so fast-paced, but intense all the same. i was a little confused about the ailing nurse, it wasn't clear to me whether she had an abortion or if she had tried to commit suicide. perhaps some parts had been cut out that better explained it, although i watched it on tcm, they usually show movies in their entirety. i did have to chuckle at loy's serious line about "humanity", and her look away. it seemed a little overdone. a very good movie, ahead of it's time.

Two things are surprising about this film: Clark Gable could really act and Richard Boleslawski knew what to do with a camera. There's a muted fantasy aspect about this film, and there are cinematic statements, made through symbols, that remind one of "Citizen Kane". "Men in White" is a filmed play, done so convincingly that even a cynical viewer can be persuaded to judge the medical profession as one of honor. Richard Boleslawski has been greatly overlooked as a stylist, and Gable as a real actor, before he became crusted over. There's a scene, where he rips a hypodermic needle from the hands of an incompetent doctor, that really works well.

This is one darn good movie. Clark Gable (pre-GWTW) gives a super performance, and Myrna Loy never looked lovelier (and puts in a good performance herself). The story is compelling without being maudlin, and the comic relief doesn't get in the way (as it usually does). Hospital chaos is well depicted, and not everything turns out rosey. We of our era didn't invent "realistic" hospital drama -- we just think we did. Dated? Of course it's dated -- it was made over 60 years ago. However, sixty years from now, they'll be laughing at the stuff we're putting on TV, but they'll still be riveted to "Men in White."