Great little bittersweet drama from 1949 that tells the story of a man's rite of passage from becoming a doctor to finding out what being a doctor actually means whilst finding love along the way.
Glenn Ford plays Michael Corday the son of a famous surgeon (Charles Coburn), who returns home from Harvard with his own medical diploma in hand, eager to start his own journey as a physician. He is very much his fathers son, and his dad gives him some advice about not becoming emotionally involved with the issues of his patients and to treat his job as nothing more than a production line.
Michael begins his new role as an intern at Bellevue and soon earns the disdain of his colleagues and managers with his emotionless and seemingly uncaring attitude towards his patients, some of whom have some very serious and life changing ailments.
Things take a turn when he meets Evelyn, (Janet Leigh) a patient with a lung ailment and the prognosis is not good. Michael takes a liking to this girl and the two form a friendship which he tries to keep strictly plutonic. However, when a child he is operating on dies from haemorrhaging, he is tasked with breaking the news to the distraught and inconsolable parents, an experience that affects him deeply and makes him realise that whilst medicine may just be a job to him, the decisions he makes will have a profound effect on the lives of others.
Desperate to ensure that Evelyn doesn't meet a similar fate, he uses his position to pull some strings to ensure that his family friend and the best doctor he knows performs her surgery, which he watches anxiously.
The surgery is a success and she is expected to make a full recovery. However, he can no longer hide his feelings for her and the plutonic relationship with Evelyn has now blossomed into true love for both parties.
Michael's overbearing father, desperate for his son to forget her and concentrate on his career, arranges her discharge without telling Michael, who only finds out when he goes to visit her and another patient is in her bed.
Michael confronts his father and gets Evelyn's address and when they are reunited, he proposes marriage, which at first she is reluctant to accept, knowing the trouble it will cause with his father and also the damage it may do to his promising career, but her love for him is so strong that she soon agrees.
His father cuts him off and even refuses to meet his new bride. But his sisters played by Gloria DeHaven and future First Lady Nancy Reagan (Davis), as well as his brother in Law, (Warner Anderson), all embrace their new relative and fully support Michael's decision to go it alone knowing how overbearing their father can be.
Michael and Evelyn convert their small apartment into a local medical practice with Evelyn as the nurse and despite his new practice being on the wrong side of the tracks and nowhere near even close to being financially rewarding. He makes a name in the local community as a kind and caring GP.
Sadly, a family tragedy makes all involved re-evaluate their positions, Michael's father relents and asks Michael and Evelyn to move in with him, so he can repair their relationship, be more accepting and appreciative of his daughter in law and also get Michael's career as a world class surgeon back on track. They agree, but when Michael and his father are reviewing his active patients case notes, ready to hand over to the a possible replacement doctor, and seeing Michael's knowledge, concern and care for each and every one of his 'flock', it is the father that comes to his own epiphany that Michael is indeed already where he is destined to be and needs to stay there.
Coburn plays to type as the interfering patriarch, Ford gets to do something a little different than we'd seen him do before and we're treated to a wonderful early performance from Leigh whose character, so pivotal to the path Michael will take, would have been too much of an undertaking for a lesser talented young actress, yet she absolutely shines here running a gamut of emotions, from the worry about the illness from which she is suffering when we are first introduced to her, to the conflict she feels about potentially destroying Michael's relationship with his family at the benefit of her own relationship.
This is really a great movie, but it might be worthwhile have some tissues handy at some of the more emotional parts.
Enjoy!
Glenn Ford plays Michael Corday the son of a famous surgeon (Charles Coburn), who returns home from Harvard with his own medical diploma in hand, eager to start his own journey as a physician. He is very much his fathers son, and his dad gives him some advice about not becoming emotionally involved with the issues of his patients and to treat his job as nothing more than a production line.
Michael begins his new role as an intern at Bellevue and soon earns the disdain of his colleagues and managers with his emotionless and seemingly uncaring attitude towards his patients, some of whom have some very serious and life changing ailments.
Things take a turn when he meets Evelyn, (Janet Leigh) a patient with a lung ailment and the prognosis is not good. Michael takes a liking to this girl and the two form a friendship which he tries to keep strictly plutonic. However, when a child he is operating on dies from haemorrhaging, he is tasked with breaking the news to the distraught and inconsolable parents, an experience that affects him deeply and makes him realise that whilst medicine may just be a job to him, the decisions he makes will have a profound effect on the lives of others.
Desperate to ensure that Evelyn doesn't meet a similar fate, he uses his position to pull some strings to ensure that his family friend and the best doctor he knows performs her surgery, which he watches anxiously.
The surgery is a success and she is expected to make a full recovery. However, he can no longer hide his feelings for her and the plutonic relationship with Evelyn has now blossomed into true love for both parties.
Michael's overbearing father, desperate for his son to forget her and concentrate on his career, arranges her discharge without telling Michael, who only finds out when he goes to visit her and another patient is in her bed.
Michael confronts his father and gets Evelyn's address and when they are reunited, he proposes marriage, which at first she is reluctant to accept, knowing the trouble it will cause with his father and also the damage it may do to his promising career, but her love for him is so strong that she soon agrees.
His father cuts him off and even refuses to meet his new bride. But his sisters played by Gloria DeHaven and future First Lady Nancy Reagan (Davis), as well as his brother in Law, (Warner Anderson), all embrace their new relative and fully support Michael's decision to go it alone knowing how overbearing their father can be.
Michael and Evelyn convert their small apartment into a local medical practice with Evelyn as the nurse and despite his new practice being on the wrong side of the tracks and nowhere near even close to being financially rewarding. He makes a name in the local community as a kind and caring GP.
Sadly, a family tragedy makes all involved re-evaluate their positions, Michael's father relents and asks Michael and Evelyn to move in with him, so he can repair their relationship, be more accepting and appreciative of his daughter in law and also get Michael's career as a world class surgeon back on track. They agree, but when Michael and his father are reviewing his active patients case notes, ready to hand over to the a possible replacement doctor, and seeing Michael's knowledge, concern and care for each and every one of his 'flock', it is the father that comes to his own epiphany that Michael is indeed already where he is destined to be and needs to stay there.
Coburn plays to type as the interfering patriarch, Ford gets to do something a little different than we'd seen him do before and we're treated to a wonderful early performance from Leigh whose character, so pivotal to the path Michael will take, would have been too much of an undertaking for a lesser talented young actress, yet she absolutely shines here running a gamut of emotions, from the worry about the illness from which she is suffering when we are first introduced to her, to the conflict she feels about potentially destroying Michael's relationship with his family at the benefit of her own relationship.
This is really a great movie, but it might be worthwhile have some tissues handy at some of the more emotional parts.
Enjoy!