Sister Kenny

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.

This fine movie has a very inspirational message and Rosalind Russell's strong performance delivers it. Based on a true story, Sister Kenny never wavers from her conviction about the amazing treatment she has discovered for helping polio sufferers. This film should be considered a classic and a must see for the encouragement of dedication towards a worthy cause, as this story delivers so strongly. Rosalind Russell was a perfect choice to play the strong-willed nurse with an important mission. Philip Merivale is equally good as the stubborn nemesis Dr.Brack, whom Sister Kenny must continually battle against his cynicism of her treatments. Presented well, this film does not mire down in sentimentality, but rather, proceeds at an entertaining pace, sufficiently delivering an uplifting story. I found this to be an enjoyable and worthwhile movie that has stood the test of time.

...and that is true now and apparently true 100 years ago when the box was much smaller.

The film opens with Elizabeth Kenny (Rosalind Russell) graduating from nursing school in Australia and returning home to the bush to celebrate with her parents along with her mentor, Dr. McDonnell (Alexander Knox). She there informs them she intends to be a rural nurse, basically a circuit rider nurse, who goes among the sparsely distributed rural population where she is needed. Like most women of the early 20th century, she intends her career to end when she marries her beau, Kevin (Dean Jagger).

Then one day Kenny is called to a house where the little girl is ill with horribly debilitating muscular spasms. She has no idea what is wrong, so she telegraphs Dr. McDonnell who says it is infantile paralysis (polio) and to treat the symptoms because nothing else can be done. So using her knowledge of biology and knowing nothing of the disease, she does just that. When the crisis passes and the girl cannot move her legs, Kenny studies the situation a bit and figures that the girl needs to relearn how to walk. The girl does walk normally again. She has five more cases that she treats the same way and all fully recover.

Kenny is angry that the doctors stodgily hold to the traditional treatment and refuse to give her treatment a second thought. They also forbid her to treat any more acute cases in this way. So she takes the crippled children the doctors have given up on and has marvelous success.

Needless to say this delays her marriage to Kevin to the point where she finally breaks it off with him for his sake. The years turn to decades, she eventually comes to America, and although the medical establishment never gives her treatments any credence, the young up and coming doctors are anxious to learn about her method because she is getting results.

All through the film much is said about how she always wanted ten children, but figured she would always hear the suffering of polio stricken children every time hers laughed, and resigned herself to being unmarried and childless. The final scene insinuates that she might not be so childless as she thinks.

The movie was a passion project for Russell, who worked with the Sister Kenny Foundation, and it shows through in the authenticity of her portrayal. Russell was well aware that biopics about cause crusaders were usually not cash cows, but she felt it was a film she really needed to do, although none of the studios initially showed any interest. She finally agreed to a three-picture deal with RKO if one of those pictures could be 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.