Men in White (1934)

Simply A Masterpiece

Powerful

Nice effects though.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

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.

Men in White (1934) ** 1/2 (out of 4) MGM melodrama takes a look at the personal and professional crisis of Dr. George Ferguson (Clark Gable). He's under pressure from his boss to work as hard as he can to become a better doctor but this doesn't sit well with his girlfriend (Myrna Loy) who wants more time with him. The screenplay here is pretty thin so the movie comes off rather bland even for 1934 standards. We've seen this type of drama countless times before and this movie really doesn't offer anything new. The performances are clearly the best thing with Gable giving a very intense performance. Loy is good in her role but it's your typical bitchy girlfriend part. Jean Hersholt, Otto Kruger, Wallace Ford and Griffith regular Henry B. Walthall co-star.

I stumbled across this and TIVOed it -- curious to see a young Clarke Gable, with Myrna Loy.The thing that grabbed me most was the cinematography. The use of shadows was very evocative, almost Citizen Kane-like. Beautifully framed shots, sometimes looking slightly up or down, slightly angled. Very poetic. A few crane shots. Worth seeing for the cinematography alone.All the early 30s doctors in their white robes look like they exist and work in some idealized, futuristic art deco spaceport. Very odd and interesting to look at.The other reviewer here pointed out that there was no music. Without the sappy over the top music to help tell the story, we instead experience the evocative camera-work in it's splendor.Definitely worth a watch.

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.