Pour que vivent les hommes

I've just been treated to this wonderful film, courtesy of the wonderful TCM, and while it is not the best film ever made, and is indeed flawed, I can't believe this has been SO overlooked as it has!! This takes place in then-modern day 1955, which, if you think about it, is just after the Korean war. I'm a BIG fan of the TV series "M*A*S*H," so a film mostly concerning surgeons in the mid-'50s has GOT to interest me. But the real surprise here is that, as popular as giant stars like Robert Mitchum, Olivia de Havilland, Frank Sinatra, and Broderick Crawford were at the time of this film's release, more hasn't been said about it since then. In other words, I should've heard of it long before now.

Mitchum and Sinatra are chums at a medical school, and their prime professor is Crawford. Mitchum is the student EXTREMELY determined to become a doctor, as opposed to Sinatra and other friends, who are pretty half-assed in their desires. Then, Mitchum finds he's having troubles coming up with enough money to finance the tuition for his next year of education. Suddenly, he meets and falls in love with a Swedish nurse, who has plenty of money to help him through the hard times. So Mitchum then marries the lady. Mitchum's friend Sinatra thinks this is a bad thing to do, and tells him so, but life goes on. Like I said, this is not a movie without flaws, but it's so full of rich performances and a cast of unbelievable stars of past and present (hey, when was the last time you saw the Little Rascals' Alfalfa and the Beverly Hillbillies' Miss Jane in the same movie?). This is so totally worth seeing. As a fan of old movies, and having a total appreciation for Mitchum, Sinatra, Ms. de Havilland and Crawford, this was an unexpected joy to behold. ***, out of ****

"Not as a Stranger" is an old fashioned medical melodrama. The basic plot involves a young man (Mitchum) who is obsessed with becoming a doctor. Unfortunately, his obsession causes pain and unhappiness for the people around him.

Naturally, much of the medical material is out of date. Some commonplace matters in 1955 now strike us as incredible: a medical class with no women in it; doctors and nurses casually smoking; doctors who ride on ambulances.

The "small town" to which Mitchum moves after graduating from medical school is portrayed as isolated and rural. What we see is clearly a small city--bad choice of location.

In the context of the film,we have to accept Olivia de Havilland as plain and unsophisticated. Quite a suspension of disbelief.

However, Mitchum is excellent as the young physician who expects perfection from himself and all those around him, and Frank Sinatra is a good choice as Mitchum's cynical--but caring--friend.

Broderick Crawford as the medical professor Dr. Aarons, and Charles Bickford as Dr. Dave Runkleman, Mitchum's senior partner, both turn in solid performances.

Gloria Grahame is perfect as the wealthy widow, Harriet Lang, who oozes sexuality out of every alcoholic pore.

Watch for the dramatic scene when Crawford throws Grey's Anatomy at Sinatra. (Although beware the message that great medicine is synonymous with great memory. Memory is where great medicine starts, not where it ends.)

Two scenes need special comment:

When Mitchum tells a patient with a facial mole, "This kind is best left alone," he is wrong, wrong, wrong.

When Mitchum takes over the care of a critically ill patient of another doctor, Mitchum is right, right, right.

This movie is dated, but it is still worth seeing. Rent it and find out!

Very good black and white Doctor Film. Robert Mitchim does a fine job playing a dedicated doctor. He proves that he can play a sensitive character as well as a cowboy or detective. Broderick Crawford was well cast as a teaching Pathologist. Mr. Crawfords ability to play an overbearing and intense individual suits his character quite well. Operating room and Hospital Ward scenes were well done as this is now a 55 year old Movie. It remarkable how much the medical profession as advanced in innovations and equipment in a little more than half a century. Worth watching especially if you are a Mitchim fan. It is one of the better films of the fifties where they don't over due lighting up and smoking one Cigarete after another. Harry

I'm a general practitioner and I can tell that this kind of doctoring regretfully does not exist anymore. I do not mean the business with the mole which, of course by what we know now, was wrong. I mean that these guys were really general practitioners who did almost everything, leaving almost nothing to specialists.

But that's not really why this movie is good. The character that Mitchum plays is a complicated one but still his motive is to be somebody that matters in this world, to be a genuinely worthy doctor. He doesn't lack heart but he lacks tolerance.

The reason I like this film is however that it describes people who truly care. Tolerance has a danger to slip into permissiveness, especially concerning power and that has happened too much today. With all it's shortcomings, and there are indeed some, the times that are displayed here still were a lot more decent than what we have today and what makes this film especially precious is that you can see the embryo of more evil times to follow if you are attentive enough.

A film to learn from in many ways.

There has been a lot of criticism of Robert Mitchum in this film. I thought he was perfectly cast. I haven't seen this movie since I was a teen, in the 1960s. However, there were three scenes in the movie that moved me so strongly I can see them in my mind's eye all these years later. The first is the emotional scene when Olivia de Havilland can take no more of Mitchum's treatment and tells him to get out. She was so powerful and poignant. The second was when Mitchum was trying to revive Bickford and couldn't. Finally, the scene where he went back home, and de Havilland opened the door and Mitchum just stood there looking at her so pathetically. I just finished watching The Snake Pit and I'm going to go rent Not as a Stranger. She is such an amazing actress!