The Great Moment

Decidedly odd, you might think, coming from Preston Sturges but then again, perhaps not as the idiosyncratic Sturges seldom stuck to 'conventional' genre pictures; even his screw-ball comedies were more perverse than what was the norm in Hollywood at the time, so this biopic of the man who discovered anesthesia for use in the dental profession is a far cry from the usual Hollywood biopic, (even the subject is obscure and unlikely). Not, of course, is it necessarily any better for that. It's a slight, disingenuous little picture veering uneasily from drama to comedy without making much of an inroad either way.

Joel McCrea, (blander than usual), is the crusading dentist, (sic), and Betty Field, the wife who eggs him on. Some of the Sturges stock company pop up in sundry supporting parts, (noticeably William Demarest), but none make much of an impression. They, like the film, remain largely inoffensive. Not a failure, precisely, but a blip nevertheless.

Now this...This is a weird film. Preston Sturges, known very well and paid very well for his ability to write and direct comedies, takes on a biopic of Dr. W. T. Morton, the dentist who reportedly was the first to use ether as an anesthetic. Morton seems like a curious case study because of the rancor around whether he, Dr. Charles Jackson, or Dr. Horace Wells came up with it first combined with the fact that he didn't actually invent anything while also including all of the contradictory ideas about him protecting his practice banging up against his desire to be a humanitarian. It's a mix that could be a complex portrait of a man, the invention of a new application of an existing compound, and the historical period, but Sturges doesn't go for complex. He goes for hagiography, and it's just...weird.

The first thing that's off about this film is the structure. One common positive attribute of every film Sturges had made up to this point what his extreme command of structure. Three acts, each taking up almost exactly a third of the film, filled with character and action, feeding from one to the next towards a conclusion. The opening here, though, is a whiplash back and forth in time as the credits show Morton (Joel McCrea) at the height of his fame followed by scenes of Eben Frost (William Demarest) visiting the widowed Mrs. Morton (Betty Field) after Dr. Morton's death which leads to Mrs. Morton reminiscing about when she and Dr. Morton first met when he was a boarder at her mother's boarding house. It also jumps forward to after Morton's victory when he visits President Franklin Pierce Porter Hall) to ask him to sign a bill that would award him $100,000 for his contribution to medicine. It's honestly a weird way to start things, and it's so completely out of character for how Sturges wrote movies that I have to wonder what drove him to make it like this.

Anyway, the main thrust of the film is Dr. Morton dropping out of medical school because he doesn't have the funds and becoming a dentist. The historical side of things that I probably find most interesting (besides a dramatic appearance of President Pierce who...this has got to be pretty unique, huh?) is the view of dentists as almost the scum of the medical word in the early half of the 19th century. It doesn't get the most focus, but it's interesting nonetheless, just popping up from time to time as reason to dismiss Morton from more respected medical professionals.

That being said, Morton has the same problem as every other dentist: dental work is painful and there's no good way to prevent the pain. A fellow dental student, Dr. Wells (Louis Jean Heydt) tries to use nitrous oxide, much to the objection of Morton's old medical school teacher Dr. Jackson (Julius Tannen) because it will just suffocate the patient to knock them out. It's through Jackson's meandering thoughts about the use and properties of ether that Morton accidentally comes up with using sulfuric ether inhalations to knock people out safely.

Now, this isn't a straight drama from Sturges. He obviously can't ignore the impulse to deliver comedy where he can, and while it does provide some of the weird tonal imbalances in the film, these moments are probably the heights of the film. The biggest moment is Morton trying out the compound for the first time on Frost, having gotten an impure mixture from the chemist that caused a drunken and violent effect on his patient rather than a sleeping effect. It's a showcase for Demarest to just go nuts, and it's an entertaining little sequence.

The central conflict within Morton that the movie never really addresses is the idea that he's keeping the use of ether a secret (calling it letheon) in order to protect his business but he wants to give it to hospitals for free for the betterment of humanity. If he ends up giving away industrial sized amounts of letheon to hospitals across the world...will he be able to pay for that? And it's there because Sturges, adapting a book by René Fülöp-Miller, never even comes close to the idea that maybe Morton was less responsible for the use of ether than he ever said. This is where a more-serious minded approach to the material might have worked, using a critical eye to look at the amorphous nexus of invention around an existing compound and properties already described in medical textbooks. Instead, Sturges leans heavily into the idea of Morton being a secular saint free of critique other than he loved too much.

The ending is really weird, too. I mean, not just from the image which is all proto-religious of Morton essentially being a gift from God to help a girl about to go under the knife despite the medical community's rightful resistance to using an unknown compound during procedures, but also in terms of the actual movement of plotting. We don't get a whole lot of time with it, the film cutting to credits right as a door opens and Morton gets welcomed with open arms, but it doesn't make sense. He's been sent away because they won't use his compound, and he just shows up and they welcome him openly? It honestly just doesn't make sense.

So, this is the first real stumble of Sturges' directing career. It's a weird mix of heavy drama, biopic, hagiography, and comedy that never comes together. It works best in the comedic space, but that never holds for more than a few minutes at a time, forgotten for much longer in between moments. The historical angle is interesting, but far from the focus. The hagiography is a mess and is the focus, and it doesn't work.

I mean, it's helped by the fact that it's a grant 81 minutes long and has some chuckles along the way, but this is really just...weird.

This film is notorious for having been butchered by the studio and shelved for two years (the trailer awkwardly tries to pass it off as another Sturges comedy); atypically for him, it’s a medical biopic on the lines of Warner Bros,’ similar films of a few years earlier – and, therefore, more serious than usual (in fact, the few comedy elements here seem like a distraction to the unfolding drama).

I own a volume of Sturges’ scripts – including the original version of this one, called TRIUMPH OVER PAIN (the book from which it derived also inspired the latter-day Boris Karloff vehicle CORRIDORS OF BLOOD [1958]!), which is certainly his most ambitious project; I had read it some years ago and recall it being quite complexly structured: what remains of the film is pretty straightforward, other than adopting a flashback framework (to which it doesn’t even return at the end!). Still, as it stands, it’s hardly a disaster (if undeniably choppy and rushed): fascinating as much for its plot about the inception of anesthesia by a forgotten small-town doctor, W.T.G. Morton, which many a fellow doctor tried to claim as their own invention, as for its handsome and meticulous recreation of an era (recalling Orson Welles’ equally compromised THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS [1942]).

The cast includes a few of Sturges’ renowned stock company: star Joel McCrea (in their third consecutive collaboration) is well-cast in the lead; William Demarest appears as his comic sidekick (the doctor’s first painless client – repeatedly, he starts to recount his experience but each time succeeding in going no further than the first couple of phrases!); Porter Hall (as the somewhat patronizing American President); Franklin Pangborn (in a brief role as secretary to an esteemed doctor whom McCrea wants to test his formula); Jimmy Conlin (the chemist who sells McCrea the ‘miraculous’ ether); Torben Meyer (an irascible doctor who is urgently called in to treat a patient administered an overdose of laughing gas – more on this later).

The remaining actors include: Betty Field as Morton’s long-suffering wife (whose limited role is often relegated to the sidelines, at least in this version); Harry Carey (dignified as the surgeon who regrets the barbaric methods he’s forced to use while operating on his patients); Louis Jean Heydt (as an arrogant young student who uses laughing gas for desensitization, but whose experiment goes comically awry); Grady Sutton (this W.C. Fields regular appears in one of only two overtly slapsticky scenes as the recipient of the laughing gas – the other involves McCrea’s first attempt to extract Demarest’s tooth, which renders him temporarily crazed and sends him crashing through the window into the street below!); Edwin Maxwell (the usual authoritarian role, in this case a colleague of Carey’s who indirectly stoops to blackmail in order to force McCrea to reveal the secret ingredient of his formula – which the latter was concealing, as a means of protection, only so long as the “Letheon” invention was officially patented).

Sturges, obviously, is all for the hero who has to face up to a general wave of both ignorance and prejudice, not to mention centuries of savage medical tradition; in fact, as depicted in the film, the students seem to treat daily grueling operations almost as another form of entertainment! The film rises to a number of good dramatic moments (usually seeing McCrea in confrontation with someone or other) – especially powerful, however, are Carey’s first successful operation with an anesthetized patient (and his surprised but enthusiastic approval of the procedure) and the ending, complete with moody lighting and religious music, as Morton compassionately approaches the next ‘victim’ of established science…when the doors of reason, as it were, are suddenly flung open and the painless method is accepted into its fold.

Everybody else seems to think there's a lot wrong with this film, but I rather liked it. THE GREAT MOMENT (1944) sees Preston Sturges doing something a little different from the screwy comedies that he's known for. The movie is not a comedy, first of all. It's a more serious Sturges film about a real historical figure. It's the story of the discovery of anesthesia, which would revolutionize medical practice by allowing for painless surgeries. I thought it was very interesting.

Joel McCrea plays W.T.G. Morton, the dentist and amateur scientist who experiments with the use of ether vapor to dull the senses. Ultimately he must share his discovery with the world for the benefit of all mankind, rather than exploit his secret for profit.

The flick breezes by at 81 minutes, so it doesn't delve into the protagonist's personal life as much as other biopics. Sturges puts his own spin on the Hollywood biopic with his flair for comedy still shining through, particularly in William Demarest's scenes. Under Sturges's direction, even the scenes of Morton reading a reference book manage to capture the thrill of scientific discovery and there's some interesting non-linear storytelling early on.

THE GREAT MOMENT may not be a signature Preston Sturges comedy, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it.

For those who have enjoyed the brilliant farce comedies made in the early '40s by writer-director Preston Sturges this movie may come as a bewildering disappointment. It's a strangely downbeat biographical film about an obscure Boston dentist, William Morton, who, according to some historians, discovered the anesthetic use of ether for surgery in the mid-nineteenth century. It's said that Morton was falsely accused of plagiarizing his research, ruined his health defending his reputation, and died young, broke and forgotten. Right off the bat you know you're not in traditional Sturges territory.

In the period before this film was made the unexpected popularity of Warner Brothers' biographical dramas such as The Story of Louis Pasteur and Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet inspired the other Hollywood studios to make similar dramas based on the lives of Thomas Edison, Madame Curie, Alexander Graham Bell, etc., but these tales of medical and scientific advance were also upbeat stories of successful and well rewarded endeavor. Sturges, for some reason, was drawn to a story in which the protagonist was wronged and the bad guys won; he also wanted to experiment with chronology and end the film on a high note by circling back in time to Morton's "great moment" of triumph, before his victory slipped away. The director fought pitched battles with his bosses at Paramount to make the film his way, despite the front office's concerns over what wartime audiences preferred to see (not unlike the battle between Orson Welles and RKO over The Magnificent Ambersons, waged at about the same time). Unfortunately, Paramount won. The movie was shelved for two years, and only released in a heavily-altered form after Sturges had quit the studio. The director's cut of the film no longer exists.

So, the movie known as The Great Moment is not the one Sturges made. For starters, he wanted to title his film after the book from which he derived the story, "Triumph Over Pain," and when the studio didn't like that he came up with "Great Without Glory," but eventually they gave it the nondescript title it now bears. Scenes were cut, and the sequence of events was rearranged to fit a more traditional pattern. Those interested in learning what the author actually intended can read his original screenplay in a published collection called Four More Screenplays by Preston Sturges, and you'll find a better piece of work than what's left on screen, but although it's an interesting read I have my doubts about whether the project could've ever been a satisfying film. Still, Sturges' version would have at least been the coherent expression of his vision, instead of fragments rearranged by studio functionaries. As it stands, what's left of The Great Moment is odd and erratic. Some of its problems are inherent in the concept while others rest in Sturges' curious casting choices, which were not imposed on him.

Dr. Morton, the protagonist, is never established as a dimensional character, and although Joel McCrea is as likable as ever he seems to be struggling to breathe life into his role. His (and Morton's) likability is put to a severe test in the scene when the doctor comes home tipsy late one night and attempts to experiment on his own dog. On the plus side, there's a sharp performance by character actor Julius Tannen as Morton's former professor, while veteran Harry Carey is memorable as a surgeon who comes to believe in Morton in a moving, climactic scene. But by that point the tone of the story has undergone several strange shifts: in the interest of lightening the mood, I suppose, Sturges inserted comic interludes with his familiar stock characters, notably William Demarest, but these scenes are more jarring than funny. Demarest offers a spirited turn as a patient named Eben Frost whom Morton uses as a human guinea pig, but when Frost repeats the anecdote again and again ("it was the night of September 30. I was in excruciating pain . . .") the running gag grows wearisome. The central concern here, after all, is the intense pain people experienced during surgery before anesthetics were introduced, and, for me anyway, contemplating this reality undercuts the attempts at humor.

It was bold of Sturges to tackle this project instead of playing it safe by making another crowd-pleasing comedy, but the battle with Paramount damaged his career and ultimately drove him from Hollywood entirely. The film available today is not the one he intended us to see, so he shouldn't be judged too harshly for The Great Moment, but one wishes that he'd been more self-protective, even allowing the front office to talk him out of making this film-- or at least postponing it --perhaps sustaining his winning streak as a master of eccentric, sophisticated comedy just a little longer.