The Great Moment

In an unusual move, Preston Sturges decided to film "The Great Moment," a movie that tells the story of Dr. Thomas Morton's struggle to be acknowledged for his work in discovering anesthesia. The Sturges 1944 film (shelved for two years) starring Joel McCrea takes the point of view that Morton was a wronged man. In reading up on it, it seems that he was, and that a good deal of "The Great Moment" is accurate, probably until the very end.

Morton is a dentist seeking a way to practice pain-free dentistry. With the help of his mentor, Dr. Jackson, he eventually tries a form of ether that works, and he gives a name to his product. It was successfully used at the Massachusetts General Hospital for the first time in 1846. The problem comes in that, as with many inventions, other people claimed credit. Dr. Horace Wells, with whom Morton had worked, indeed used anesthesia in the form of laughing gas, but had a colossal public failure and after that, continued experimenting. Jackson, who claimed credit for telling Morton about the ether, later claimed he had invented the telegraph and a form of ammunition and was clearly unbalanced. The man who made anesthesia a practical tool of surgery was Morton, but he was unable to obtain a patent, and the fight about who really invented it raged on for years.

Joel McCrea is very likable as Dr. Morton, and Betty Field is wonderful as his long-suffering wife. Harry Carey turns in one of the best performances as Dr. Warren, the doctor who lets Morton use anesthesia on his patient. William Demarest plays a dental patient who has a pain-free surgery and after that, aligns with Morton. He's actually there more for comic relief.

"The Great Moment" works backwards, starting at the end and working through until Dr. Morton "ruins himself for a servant girl" - you'll be wondering what that's about all through the film. Actually, from my research, that part is pure hooey, and that's not why Dr. Morton lost control of his invention. The film is an uneasy mix of comedy and drama and, unlike other Sturges films, is a downer. Apparently this version isn't his cut. Sturges fans will be disappointed. I have to say, I was intrigued.

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.

I can't add much to wmorrow59's excellent summary. It caught the strengths and weaknesses of this film and provided excellent historical background. Be sure to read it.

This film is only worth watching if you're a Preston Sturges fanatic (like me) and are willing to sit through his one failure as well as his many triumphs. I have a hunch that the studio meddling accounts for much of the trouble -- the movie's pace and structure are erratic at best -- but I also fear that our man Preston may have wandered too far from his natural path as a filmmaker. This is no buried treasure. Sturges's cut may have been an improvement, but I don't see the makings of a good movie here. The dialogue is weird when it isn't plain awful, the protagonist is a pigheaded dimwit, and the moments of slapstick are wildly misplaced.

If you buy Turner's incredible 7-film Sturges box set, do so for the other six titles -- all of them masterpieces.