Les patients de Mademoiselle Evers

Original title: Miss Evers' Boys

TV Movie
1997
PG
1h 58m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Les patients de Mademoiselle Evers (1997)

The true story of the U.S. Government's 1932 Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, in which a group of black test subjects were allowed to die, despite a cure having been developed.The true story of the U.S. Government's 1932 Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, in which a group of black test subjects were allowed to die, despite a cure having been developed.The true story of the U.S. Government's 1932 Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, in which a group of black test subjects were allowed to die, despite a cure having been developed.

Director
- Joseph Sargent
Writers
- David Feldshuh
- Walter Bernstein
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.1/10

1.5K

YOUR RATING

Director
- Joseph Sargent
Writers
- David Feldshuh
- Walter Bernstein
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Won 5 Primetime Emmys
- 17 wins & 16 nominations total

Photos60

+ 52

User reviews18

7.11.5K

Featured reviews

7=G=

A well crafted blend of docu and drama.

"MEB" tells the story of the infamous "Tuskeegee Syphilis Study" by building the docudrama around a black nurse (Woodard) who hailed from the black community which was the focus of the study. The polished and well crafted film spends equal time with the lives of the Macon County black sharecroppers and the questions of medical ethics the study raised resulting in an entertaining as well as informative watch. A nice mix of docu and drama, fact and fiction.

czarsun

The Legacy of Miss Evers Boys

Most viewers agree that the betrayal of Nurse Evers and Dr.Brodus was heinous. Regardless of whatever medical oath is taken, God's Commandments come first. And that goes for the military also. What makes Nurse Ever's and Dr.Brodus's actions more fiendish is the fact of allowing these men to live normal lives while participating in this study. Normal as being, continuing to have sexual relations with their unknowing wives, as well as other women in their community. Giving birth to children from those sexual relations in which those children entered the world infected over a 40 year period. They speak of numbers (412), but in fact , it really numbered into the thousands considering that several generations of men, woman, and children were infected through this study. In my eyes, that amounts to genocide which was sanctioned by the CDC.

nicholas.rhodes

Bland

I bought this together with "A Lesson Before Dying" by the same director and whilst I found the latter well-filmed, engrossing and very good on character analysis, I found Miss Evers' Boys to be a bit of a disappointment. You don't really get taken up into the story. Picture quality is hazy and fuzzy and you end up wondering really where Miss Evers was going in life ........... nowhere ! When you read the synopsis, you think you're in for a good, emotional, heart-rending story. However, that is not the impression which was conveyed to me. Miss Evers' even refuses romance, which could have been a saving grace. Why didn't she subtilise more penicillin if she was so concerned ? I tend to like these "racial" dramas, even though they are over-romanticized, but this one left me pretty near cold !

7donaldricco

Tuskegee terror

This is a tough one to review. For me, the subject is horrifying, and that the country I live in would do this is sickening, though of course, the U.S. President today would probably green light this kind of human suffering in a minute, in light of his recent actions against minorities. Some 400 odd men are observed, but not cured, and the justification is for the betterment of the "race" and that those men's sacrifice would be for the greater good. Yeah, tell that to those men, who could have been cured with one shot of penicillin!

So the subject = 5 stars. But the movie isn't that great. The romance subplot is really boring and uninteresting. And the quality of both the film and the sound is poor, though that might be the disc I watched. I would say you should watch it, due to the importance of the topic, but maybe skip any dating/romance scenes between Alfre Woodard and Laurence Fishburne, two dang fine actors who could not save those scenes. Oh, and just to see and hear Ossie Davis is always worth it!

9planktonrules

Wonderful but incredibly sad

I have seen this film several times and use it as a teaching aid when I teach my high school psychology class, as it brings up issues concerning unethical treatment as well as brain disorders (in this case syphilis). The film is VERY moving and you can't help but get absorbed into the film due to its excellent writing and characterizations. About the only reason the film doesn't merit a 10 is that the background for the movie is vague and I needed to research on my own. I found that the movie was based on a play which was a fictionalized account of a true study done in the Southern US. Like the real case, the participants were lied to and told they were getting treatment. As a result, most died a long and horrible death due to a slow disintegration of the brain. The character of Miss Evers, by the way, was fictional as were the names of the other participants. However, despite this, this in no way minimizes the horror of the real-life tale. This is a sad and moving must-see film.

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Storyline

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Quotes
Dr. Douglas: [addressing a waiting room full of patients] Gentlemen, there seems to be some confusion. Let me explain what we're checking for. There is a germ that infects the genital area, resulting in a temporary and painless but highly contagious penile ulceration. Now, this ulceration will disappear as the disease becomes non-contagious, or latent. And this latency can last for up to 30 years until finally the cardiovascular and nervous systems will disintegrate and collapse. Are there any questions?
Eunice Evers, R.N.: [Seeing the bewildered silence of the patients] Doctor, could I just say something?
Dr. Douglas: Sure.
Eunice Evers, R.N.: By frolicking too much, or maybe passed on from your mama and your daddy, you might get a really bad sore down below on your private parts. Then through that sore a bug can crawl up inside of you and go to sleep for twenty, thirty years or more, so as not to hurt nobody but you. But when it wake up, you can't walk, you can't breathe, you can't think. That is bad blood. That's what we're checking to see if y'all got, so we can get rid of it.
[Chorus of "Ah!" and smiles from the patients]
Dr. Douglas: Nurse, could I speak with you for a second?
Eunice Evers, R.N.: Sure.
[They both walk into a private room]
Dr. Douglas: Thank you. I know I'm a good medical doctor, but I'm not so sure that I'm a good people doctor yet.
Eunice Evers, R.N.: Dr. Douglas, you're helping people. You're a good people doctor.

Alternate versions
Final title cards at the end of the film differ in at least 2 versions. Version #1 No one connected with the study was ever charged or disciplined. The debate over human experimentation in America continues today. In Version #2 on HBO NOW differs slightly: No one connected with the study was ever charged or disciplined. On May 16, 1997, President Clinton offered the Tuskegee survivors the government's first formal apology: "We can finally say on behalf of the American people, what the United States did was shameful, and I am sorry."