Dr. Martin Arrowsmith
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Arrowsmith is a 1931 American pre-Code drama film directed by John Ford and starring Ronald Colman, Helen Hayes, Richard Bennett, and Myrna Loy. It was adapted from Sinclair Lewis 's 1925 novel Arrowsmith by Sidney Howard , departing substantially from the book regarding Arrowsmith's womanizing and other key plot elements.
Arrowsmith: Directed by John Ford. With Ronald Colman, Helen Hayes, Richard Bennett, A.E. Anson. A medical researcher is sent to a plague outbreak, where he has to decide priorities for the use of a vaccine.
- (2K)
- Drama
- John Ford
- 1931-12-26
Dr. Martin Arrowsmith aspires to become a medical research scientist. When he impulsively marries nurse Leora Tozer, he instead decides to open a country medical practice in South Dakota to support his wife better than he could as a laboratory assistant.
Ronald Coleman plays Martin Arrowsmith, who at the start of the film is a young medical student with high ideals, who falls in love with and marries nurse Leora, played by Helen Hayes. Arrowsmith is invited to go to a Caribbean Island to test a serum for bubonic plague which he has developed.
Alec Francis plays Joyce’s older husband Twyford. Lumsden Hare plays Sir Robert Fairland the Governor that wouldn’t accept Arrowsmith’s (really Gottlieb’s) terms that only half the patients were to receive the serum whereas the other half would constitute the control group.
Although this is a Pre-Code, filmmakers still had to be cautious. It’s only suggested that Joyce and Arrowsmith have an extra-marital affair. It’s clear that Joyce lusts for him but they are careful to portray Arrowsmith as only mildly interested. Morality and ethics play a key role in the film.
Dr. Martin Arrowsmith (Ronald Colman) is a freshly minted doctor who longs to work in research in the engrossing medical drama Arrowsmith (1931), directed by John Ford. As the story unfolds, Arrowsmith forsakes his dream to work as a country doctor in the Minnesota hometown of his new wife Leora (Helen Hayes).
