A Man to Remember

I just saw this film last night on TCM (Sunday morning at 2am - couldn't sleep). My only complaint is that I missed the first 30 minutes, and wish I had seen the entire film. What a great film that has been missed apparently by most movie lovers. I never heard of it before, and it's quite charming, and the message is clear. This isn't your average big budget film. In fact in a way it's a rather low budget film, that still delivers a simple and clear message perfectly, and in a way that is charming and meaningful. An interesting article in Time Magazine can be found by typing A Man to Remember 1938 in google. It's a good read for sure.

This melodrama creaks with age but the best performance by far was given by one of the oldest actors--Edward Ellis. Many actors who came to movies late in their careers are quite mannered and stagy. Some actors--Charles Middleton comes to mind--turned this stiffness into a virtue but more often, it simply dates the movie. I was very surprised at the subtlety of Ellis' performance as he managed to display a variety of emotions with underplayed touches. It reminded me of the best performances of Marie Dressler, a high compliment.

It is a shameless tearjerker about a small town doctor trying to warn his community about a potential polio epidemic which angers town leaders because it will mean canceling the local fair in which they are all invested. A tearjerker but then Marie Dressler jerked a few tears in her day.

One funny sight is poor, young Lee Bowman with the waistline of his pants resting closer to his armpits than his waist.

Richard Moore

A crowd has gathered to pay respect to the funeral procession of Dr. John Abbott. The movie flashbacks to the moment when Abbott arrives with his young son Dick. Over the years, he treats both the poor and the rich. Money is never the issue. He even adopts a baby left on his doorstep.

The Dutch subtitle is a little weird. The major problem there is that any letter or note gets translated into Dutch. It's not impossible. One gets the essentials of those notes. There is the shooting and hospital plot. I wish it's not a shooting. The horse trading is a bit unseemly. The epidemic story is as timely as ever but it does end up with the audience being forced to root for childhood paralysis. I would also push back on the sibling romance. Other than all that, it is old fashion but it is in line with a long tradition of these old fashion movie about people of duty and service. It's Mr. Holland's Opus. It's It's a Wonderful Life. The basic structure is set for those tearjerkers but it needs some adjustments.

This is a lovely film with a beautiful performance by Edward Ellis as John Abbott, a doctor who practices among the poor and down in their luck in his home town. The film has an interesting pedigree. It's directed by Garson Kanin and written by Dalton Trumbo. It was made in 15 days for $84,000, in less time than scheduled and under its $100,000 budget.

The only print of this that could be found was in the Netherlands, so the subtitles are in Dutch, as are any handwritten notes.

Abbott is a widower with a young son, Dick. They settle in Westport, Connecticut. There is no hospital there, and Abbott works sometimes for pigs, potatoes, whatever he can get.

After he delivers a baby girl to a man whose wife dies while giving birth, he finds that baby on his doorstep. He names her Jean. She grows up to be Anne Shirley, and Dick grows up to be Lee Bowman. And the two become romantically involved. Times have changed - even though they're not related, you'd never see that in a movie today.

One night, Jean's date, Howard Sykes, accidentally shoots her in the arm. It's not serious, but since his father George (Granville Bates) is the richest man in town, Abbott blackmails him into building the hospital. Sykes, in retaliation, makes sure he can't practice there.

Edward Ellis was on Broadway and also was a actor and producer there in the early part of the century; he started in films in 1917 and worked into his seventies. In this movie, he was 68 years old.

A Man to Remember is sentimental and I have to admit I cried, being a sap. It's about a man who, despite disappointments and resistance to his ideas, contributes a great deal to the world and doesn't let anything get him down. We can all take a lesson from a life well lived.

This is one of the great unheralded films...called movies in those days...of the century. I saw it the age of 10 and it remained clearly in my mind for 50 years. Now that IMDB has refreshed my memory with the names of the director (Garson Kanin) and screenwriter (Dalton Trumbo), I understand why it remains one of my favorites in the entire history of the cinema.