For a movie that could have been plodding, Arrowsmith unfolds in a series of mainly short, sharp scenes that give it a very brisk pace, though this, and the compression and cuts necessary in adapting a long book, inevitably render some aspects superficial, such as the medical institution's sacrifice of honesty for good publicity. The story is an interesting and unusual one, and, though Ronald Colman is ludicrously old for his role, Helen Hayes and Richard Bennett are excellent in their meaty parts.
But the movie has a shocker for viewers of our time. Arrowsmith wants to use the white inhabitants of a plague-struck Caribbean island as guinea pigs to trial his serum: half will receive it, and half will not. When they refuse, and demand that he give everyone the serum, his experiment is rescued by a black doctor, who helpfully offers the black people as test subjects. They obediently offer their arms for the serum, or accept its refusal, and burn down villages that have been reached by the plague. As if this weren't bad enough, the black doctor assures Arrowsmith that his people will be honoured to contribute to the advancement of science.
This is horribly reminiscent of the infamous Tuskegee experiment in the South, in which black men with syphilis were divided into two groups, only one of which received penicillin, the other a placebo. Their disease went untreated for decades so that scientists could study its effects. While Arrowsmith is entertaining, it is also chilling as a reminder of how black lives didn't matter.
But the movie has a shocker for viewers of our time. Arrowsmith wants to use the white inhabitants of a plague-struck Caribbean island as guinea pigs to trial his serum: half will receive it, and half will not. When they refuse, and demand that he give everyone the serum, his experiment is rescued by a black doctor, who helpfully offers the black people as test subjects. They obediently offer their arms for the serum, or accept its refusal, and burn down villages that have been reached by the plague. As if this weren't bad enough, the black doctor assures Arrowsmith that his people will be honoured to contribute to the advancement of science.
This is horribly reminiscent of the infamous Tuskegee experiment in the South, in which black men with syphilis were divided into two groups, only one of which received penicillin, the other a placebo. Their disease went untreated for decades so that scientists could study its effects. While Arrowsmith is entertaining, it is also chilling as a reminder of how black lives didn't matter.