Sister Kenny

"Sister Kenny" (RKO Radio, 1946), directed by Dudley Nichols, stars Rosalind Russell in a respectful biography of Elizabeth Kenny (1886-1952), a Australian nurse who fought her entire life to bring her own methods of treating polio victims to international acceptance. For her performance as Sister Kenny (The title "Sister," which is often associated with that of a nun, is an Australian term for "Nurse"), Rosalind Russell, was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actress, and a worthy award, but lost to Olivia De Havilland in "To Each His Own" (Paramount, 1946).

The story, which runs almost two hours, opens with Elizabeth Kenny graduated to nurse, traveling to the Aussie where she encounters the ravages of infantile paralysis. She becomes so involved with her efforts to ease the pain of the children who have become polio sufferers that she finds little time for romance with Kevin Connors (Dean Jaggers). Sister Kenny develops a system of therapy based upon the maintenance of a bright mental outlook, to continue her effort to move apparently paralyzed muscles, continuous hot packs to the affected muscles, and the abandonment of all splints. While one of the most respected doctors in the medical profession, Dr. Brack (Philip Merivale), criticizes and ridicules Kenny's supposed unorthodox methods, it is Doctor Aeneas McDonnell (Alexander Knox), a Scottish physician, who believes in her ideas, but gets into trouble with the medical superiors.

In the supporting cast are Beulah Bondi as Mary Kenny; Charles Dingle as Michael Kenny; Doreen McCann as Dorrie, the little girl suffering from polio (muscle spasms) who becomes Kenny's first curable patient; among others. But it is Rosalind Russell, who has left a legacy in her career as "Auntie Mame" on both stage and screen, giving a standout performance covering a 40-year period in the life of Sister Kenny. One of the highlights in the story includes the now middle-aged Kenny's heated encounter with the inflexible Dr. Brack in the operating room in front of stadium of observing medical students, fighting for her rights to continue her own methods of treating children with polio. In spite of everything, nothing stops Sister Kenny, who gets to set up her own medical institute in Minnesota.

While not as famous as some of the 1930s bio-pics, including "The Story of Louis Pasteur" (1936) with Paul Muni, "Sister Kenny" is worth viewing not only as a history lesson but a look at the true story of one woman's struggle in proving her theory over what she believes to be wrongly treated by the medical profession, and standing up against them. In as much that it's quite obvious that the screenwriters rearranged portions of Kenny's life to give it a satisfying story, it avoids the usual clichés found in some other biographical dramas, with the final results being quite satisfactory. Another plus to the story are the authentic use of sets and costumes worn in the period for which the story takes place.

"Sister Kenny" is sadly an overlooked gem that is worthy of rediscovery. It's available on video cassette and DVD, formerly presented on American Movie Classics prior to 2001, currently on Turner Classic Movies. (***1/2)

In early 20th century, Sister Elizabeth Kenny (Rosalind Russell) decides to be a bush nurse in the Australian outback far from the closest hospital. She treats a child with a case of Infantile paralysis and develops a treatment but the medical establishment is resistant to her work due to her lack of formal medical education and its direct opposition to medical orthodoxy.

This is one of those biopics where the lead spends all her life struggling without realizing that she had been doing great work over a lifetime. These are uplifting sentimental fares and that's mostly what this movie is. Sister Kenny is a bit vinegary but not really. The biggest problem for me is the moniker Sister Kenny. I assumed that she was a nun. The movie should really explain that Australian terminology much earlier. I thought that I was missing something for most of the movie. Geez.

This movie was most interesting to find and watch. At the age of three I had polio and received the Sister Kenny treatment in Minnesota during an epidemic. The results were as dramatic as the movie portrays. After one month in the hospital I walked out and without braces. My ability to speak clearly returned slowly but completely and my legs remained normal except for extreme exercise which would result in intense pain only relieved by wet heat and massage- that too eventually faded away especially after discovering the benefits of calcium and magnesium for the nerves and muscles.

The film was interesting and a commentary on medical protectionism that has merit as a present day commentary regarding alternative medicine. The US government also issued a commemorative stamp in Sister Kenny's honor. It really did deserve the Golden Globe award for Rosalind Russell's acting.

I wasn't expecting much from a biography of Sister Kenny, an Australian nurse who developed a method of treatment for children stricken with poliomyelitis. I could see it all. One child after breathing his last, "God bless Sister Kenny," while she sobbed at his bedside and held his hand while he slipped away. At the end, after her apotheosis, during a triumphant crescendo, a crippled boy throws away his crutches and cries, "I can WALK, mein Fuhrer!"

But no. Sister Kenny, knowing nothing about infantile paralysis, begins fiddling around with it in the Australian outback and develops a theory that is, in some senses, the exact opposite of the medical establishment's. That establishment is really "pig-headed", as she puts it. Well, they have to be, actually. The experts and their received wisdom can't be successfully challenged by a mere mortal. If they were, they wouldn't be "experts" anymore. She's successful, of course, or there would be no movie. All this takes place during the first half of the 20th century and has Sister Kenny traveling from Australia to Europe and to Minnesota. Old friends die. Children are apparently cured.

There are a couple of things that lift the film out of the ordinary biopic genre. One is Rosalind Russel's performance and the way her role is written by Dudley Nichols. She's impertinent and sarcastic. In fact she reminded me a lot of Margaret Mead, acerbic and distant, putting family life second to her career. Russel has never been better in what is a fairly demanding role.

Another point in its favor is that we are mercifully spared the sobbing and the dying and the children begging for help from a mothering figure. Russel is hardly maternal. Multiple opportunities for pointless and sentimental scenes were eschewed. Her humanity is on display in abundance but it's in code.

Nice job.

In 1963 (when I was 17), my parents took me and my younger sister on a summer holiday to Whitby a coastal town in Yorkshire, UK.We stayed at a hotel there which showed this film as entertainment for the guests.I never forgot it nor the performance of Rosalind Russell which I regard as her best film and better than "His Girl Friday" with Cary Grant since it deals with a real person and real events, always more convincing in my book than mere fiction.She was well supported by actor Alexander Knox who played an orthopedic surgeon, friend and colleague and known to me as the surgeon "Mr Joyce" in the 1956 film "Reach for the Sky", who operates on the broken legs of Douglas Bader.I would have liked 20th Century Fox to have employed more Australian character actors but as there were few in Hollywood in 1946 and as Americans seem to have a hard time doing the Australian accent and as many were being demobbed in 1946, this is understandable.Other reviewers have described the screenplay and basic biography of Elizabeth Kenny satisfactorily, so I won't reiterate it.I awarded this film 8/10 and am grateful to Youtube for uploading it.