Sister Kenny

I like this film, but it's hard to believe that it's set in Australia.

It has a strange idea of what Australia was like in the early 20th century. A bush dance is filled with Scots and Irish folk, and the music is bagpipes?! The accents are mostly British with the exception of the title role, which is played by Rosalind Russell, who has a distinctly American accent. Place names are mispronounced (like "Bris-bane" instead of "Bris-ban" for Brisbane).

And yet, there's a charm to this film. The real Elizabeth Kenny was an outsider who used unorthodox techniques and terminology to treat polio. It didn't cure the condition, but alleviated the symptoms. In the film she resolutely persists in practicing this and opposing the medical establishment, at a cost of her personal life.

Well worth watching.

Rosalind Russell is "Sister Kenny" in this 1946 film also starring Alexander Knox, Dean Jagger, and Philip Merrivale. It's the romanticized story of Australian Sister Kenny, a "bush nurse" who developed an alternative treatment for polio that was met with great controversy from the medical profession, even though it worked.

The film chronicles the personal sacrifices Kenny made, giving up a chance at marriage, in order to help the children she encountered with polio and to try to convince the medical profession that her treatment was viable.

Rosalind Russell, whose nephew was helped by the Kenny Method, plays Sister Kenny, and she's wonderful. She ages during the film, but it's more than gray hair and some shadows drawn on the face - the age is in her walk, her attitude, and her carriage. A fantastic job that earned her an Oscar nomination.

Actor Alan Alda, opera star Marjorie Lawrence, and "Li'l Abner" creator Al Capp all were treated with the Kenny Method. Though the medical profession attempts to blow off alternative treatments, I've seen them work. This film is a reminder of the wall they put up, and one person's determination to break through it.

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.

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.

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.