Beyond Our Own

In 1947 DeForest Kelley was a young contract player at Paramount Pictures starring in his feature film debut in the classic film noir "Fear in the Night". Here he co-stars in a religious film from the Protestant Film Commission that oddly enough is prophetic about his future career.

He and Charles Russell play brothers, who diverge as adults, with Russell seeking fame and fortune as a lawyer, while Kelley becomes a doctor and is later inspired by a sermon to become a missionary doctor working in China.

The theme of the movie is how, especially in crises, a person needs to have a strong faith extending beyond one's personal selfishness to find meaning in life, in particular faith in Christ (though by extension there could be other meaningful inspirations). The tragic death of Russell's young son in a car accident causes Russell to lose the will to live, but at the behest of his loving wife Trudy Marshall, he visits his brother in China (at a time when civil war is raging, with Mao later to achieve victory) and finds the inspiration he was lacking.

Thematically the featurette (41 minutes long) movie resembles the concept behind the 1946 classic "The Razor's Edge" but is not as powerful as one would hope. Kelley's earnest portrayal of a dedicated doctor is quite similar to his iconic Bones McCoy role for Paramount in "Star Trek" two decades hence.

It was nice to see Richard Loo, so famous as the ultimate stereotypical Japanese villain in "The Purple Heart", cast as a really good guy evangelist James Hong working with Kelley at a Hospital. In one scene the hospital is bombed and Kelley goes rushing into the rubble shouting: "Jim! Jim! Jim!", looking for Loo, his voice so distinctively like that calling for William Shatner's character in "Star Trek".