Men in White

Although this treatment of Sidney Kingsley's first Broadway play tends to be melodramatic in spots, Men In White holds up very well for a work almost 80 years old. Men In White ran during the 1933-34 season on Broadway for 351 performances and made Sidney Kingsley a force to be reckoned with. His next play was Dead End, destined to be another screen classic.

A year later Clark Gable would not have gotten this part. His fellow MGM star Robert Taylor got his first big break playing a doctor in Magnificent Obsession and shortly afterward Taylor could not get out of hospital whites as Louis B. Mayer kept casting him as an idealistic young physician that Gable is in this film.

Gable is considered to have a brilliant future as world respected doctor Jean Hersholt has taken him under his wing. His long hours and low pay at this point is cramping the style of his society girl friend Myrna Loy. When he's forced to stay at the hospital on a case one time too many for her they quarrel and Gable is attracted to Elizabeth Allan a nurse who just worships the ground he walks on. One quick evening and she's pregnant. That leads to tragedy.

Although Gable and Loy are good, this film belongs to Elizabeth Allan who came over from the United Kingdom and would be going back in a few years as well. Her most famous role was as the mother of David Copperfield over at MGM. Although it gets melodramatic at times, I guarantee her predicament and how she handles it will moisten many an eye when you see Men In White.

With her pregnancy out of wedlock as it were the Code now in place gave MGM some strict parameters. Nevertheless this film still is a reminder of what women faced in dealing with back alley abortionists, not a subject often dealt with in films. Sidney Kingsley would return again to it when he wrote The Detective Story.

Jean Hersholt gave film fans a preview of what to expect when he played the brilliant Dr. Hochberg. Later on he would be the movies Dr. Christian and while Christian was a simple country physician and Hochberg one of medicine's elite, Hersholt was simple, unaffected, and dedicated.

Men In White probably could use a remake as the Code is now lifted and certain subjects can be discussed more freely. But it would be hard to get a cast as good, especially Elizabeth Allan.

As mentioned in Moe Howard's book MOE HOWARD & THE 3 STOOGES (Citadel Press, 1977), MEN IN BLACK (1934) an early Three Stooges short made at Columbia Pictures was a take off on MEN IN WHITE. "For duty and humanity" is a phrase used numerous times throughout this twenty minute comedy and is a central theme in the Clark Gable film which was released earlier that same year. MEN IN BLACK, which contains another reoccurring phrase (which many Three Stooges fans will remember immediately) "Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard", was nominated for the Academy Award in 1934 for best short. An abbreviated version of this short was reenactment in the ABC-TV movie THE THREE STOOGES (1999) which was produced by Mel Gibson, a well know Stooges enthusiast.

CLARK GABLE is a dedicated doctor conflicted by feelings involving the workplace and romance--almost the forerunner of the character ROBERT MITCHUM would play twenty years later (Luke) in NOT AS A STRANGER. The film deals with medicine much the way Stanley Kramer's film did, but it's based on a stage play and the static quality owes something to that and the lack of background music on the soundtrack.

Of course it's all very dated--a giveaway is interns supposedly making $20 a week!! MYRNA LOY is a selfish, wealthy young woman who wishes Gable would give her his undivided attention instead of dedicating himself to work. Gable has to assert himself at the hospital when an older physician overrules his instructions on insulin and puts a patient into shock. Gable's character here is reminiscent of Lucas Marsh in Morton Thompson's best-seller NOT AS A STRANGER as he pulls the syringe from the doctor's hand and takes charge of the procedure.

There are weak moments of comedy relief, mostly from WALLACE FORD, and a maudlin performance from OTTO KRUGER that is painfully overplayed. The dialog too, tends to be preachy about the medical profession.

Self-doubting and lonely, Gable shares some romantic scenes with pretty nurse ELIZABETH ALLAN who confides in him about her own uneasy feelings as a nurse dealing daily with life and death situations. The love scene is handled with such discretion it's hard to determine the plot developments that come swiftly afterwards, but after Allan's tragic death Gable resumes his romance with Loy, who realizes his work will always come first in his life.

Nothing deep here, just a routine medical drama with all of its stage bound ingredients intact. Music is only used once for a restaurant scene where violins are playing a Viennese waltz, which leaves a lot of the drama feeling flat and one-dimensional.

JEAN HERSHOLT has his usual role of an avuncular medical man under whom Gable intends to study abroad, but the focal point is the Gable/Loy/Allan romantic triangle.

Summing up: From any standpoint, a trifle in Gable's career and notable only in that he plays a more sensitive role than usual.

"Men in White" is a 1934 film starring Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Jean Hersholt, Elizabeth Allan, and Otto Kruger. Gable plays a promising young doctor, George Ferguson, who is planning on studying in Vienna and then returning and working closely with Dr. Hochberg (Hersholt), apparently in scientific research. He's engaged to a society woman, Laura Hudson (Loy) who is already upset about the lack of time she and George have together. She would rather he go into private practice and work regular hours. This becomes a subject of argument, and the situation goes from bad to worse, particularly one night when an angry Laura stops speaking to George.

This film is based on a Pulitzer Prize winning play by Sidney Kingsley, which, in addition to what is shown in the film, also dealt with anti-Semitism. The idea of going to Vienna in 1934, with the Loy character rhapsodizing over it - guess MGM was out of touch with what was happening, or chose to ignore it.

The acting in this film is very good, if by today's standards, a little melodramatic in parts. Otto Kruger has a very sympathetic role in this - later on he always played someone truly nasty.

The real star of the film is the absolutely incredible art deco hospital set that has to be seen - stunning, with a circular staircase, and huge windows that overlook the George Washington Bridge. The photography is marvelous, particularly an operating room scene where we see doctors observing in a top area reflected through a light.

The other things you'll notice, if you've been alive more than a few years, are the nurses' uniforms and caps and the glass straws, items we don't see any longer. And a little girl's parents who would be cast as her great-grandparents today.

The story isn't spelled out for us - in fact, I can tell you my mother, as an adult, could have sat through it and had no idea what happened. Talk about subtle.

Definitely worth seeing, with Gable and Loy an effective team.

Two things are surprising about this film: Clark Gable could really act and Richard Boleslawski knew what to do with a camera. There's a muted fantasy aspect about this film, and there are cinematic statements, made through symbols, that remind one of "Citizen Kane". "Men in White" is a filmed play, done so convincingly that even a cynical viewer can be persuaded to judge the medical profession as one of honor. Richard Boleslawski has been greatly overlooked as a stylist, and Gable as a real actor, before he became crusted over. There's a scene, where he rips a hypodermic needle from the hands of an incompetent doctor, that really works well.