The Fight for Life

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Movie
Original title The Fight for Life
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1940
length 69 minutes
Rod
Director Pare Lorentz
script Pare Lorentz
production Pare Lorentz
music Louis Gruenberg
Alexander Smallens
camera Floyd Crosby
cut Lloyd Nosler
occupation

The Fight for Life is an American semi-documentary drama from 1940 directed by Pare Lorentz , who also wrote the screenplay and was producer. The film is based on Paul de Kruif's book The Fight for Life , which was published in New York in 1938 .

action

At the City Hospital in Chicago , the young assistant doctor Dr. O'Donnell helping a woman who bleeds profusely after giving birth . However, his efforts are in vain, the woman dies. O'Donnell wanders the city streets desperately wondering what went wrong. He discussed with the clinic's chief physician, an experienced man, that the issue of obstetrics is a rather neglected branch of medicine. At the Chicago Center, where most of the poor women give birth, doctors Hanson and Ballou give students special training in this area, but that is nowhere near enough. O'Donnell is also starting additional training there and learns a lot from his teachers about the best course of action to better protect especially women who are prone to preeclampsia , bleeding or infections , the three main causes of high mortality among women. In a lecture by Hanson and Ballou, the students and young doctors learned that in the United States there are still more women who lose their lives in childbirth than, for example, from cancer and that deaths of young mothers and babies under one month of age rank second All-cause mortality would be surpassed only by heart disease. The young doctors are also shown a film of the importance of hygiene , also and especially if the women give birth at home, whereby it is also pointed out that more than 250,000 women only have the help of a midwife .

Soon after, Dr. Hanson O'Donnell to help with a home birth with in the poor district to Mrs. Mendez, who lives in a shabby apartment. Fortunately, the birth goes well. Even so, O'Donnell does not let go of the question of what can be done to help the poor. The experienced senior doctors try to encourage him, and the conversations are at least helpful to O'Donnell.

After some time has passed and O'Donnell is finished with his education, he decides to pass on his knowledge as a teacher to students and young doctors. One day he is assigned to Harris, a young intern. When a call comes in that a woman is pregnant with her third child and is about to give birth, O'Donnell and Harris go to their apartment, where their grandmother is expecting them. The birth goes well at first. Then all of a sudden the young mother started bleeding profusely. O'Donnell remembers the woman from City Hospital who died as a result of such bleeding. He reacts quickly and has a blood transfusion , with which he averts the acute danger to life. Hanson and Ballou rush to the woman's bed to help the young colleague. The three of them manage to save their lives and preserve the newborn's mother. Not only is the grandmother happy and grateful, the doctors are also more than relieved to have achieved this victory.

Production and Background

Filming was completed at the end of October 1939; The film was released in January 1940, but did not premiere in New York until March 6, 1940. Production company was USA Film-Service, sales company Columbia Pictures Corp.

A program of the time contained the information that more than two thirds of the recordings for the film had been made at the "Chicago Maternity Center", a large maternity hospital and in the attached apartments for expectant mothers. Most of the dialogue scenes were shot in the Hollywood studio and inserted into the film along with the monologues during the final cut. While an August 1940 article in the New York Times said the film had a budget of $ 250,000, the cost was $ 150,000, according to The Hollywood Reporter . Warner Bros. offered author Paul de Kruif $ 50,000 for the rights to his successful book, on which the film is based . De Kruif declined the offer, however, and offered the rights to the US government with the condition that the documentary filmmaker Pare Lorentz should monitor the filming. According to a June 1940 article in Los Angeles ' The News , the film was the last to be government sponsored as the program was subsequently closed. Modern sources claim that the film was commissioned by the United States Department of Health and withdrawn from circulation in 1944, due to the government's refusal to continue supporting such films. An edited version of the film was released on 16mm film track in 1947. Lorentz wrote in his biography that the writer John Steinbeck had been active in the run-up to the film, together with his friend Elisabeth Meyer, who had been at the Chicago Center for Maternity for some time to learn more about internal issues. Lorentz also writes in his biography that the cameraman Floyd Crosby was supported by William H. Clothier . The actress Dorothy Adams played a mother who blew profusely after giving birth and was saved by a blood transfusion. Joe Sullivan and his band, Edmond Hall , Danny Polo , Andy Anderson , Benny Morton and Billy Taylor are said to have contributed to the music for the film .

The first showing of The Fight for Life took place on 31 December 1939 at the White House in the presence of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt held, is said to have commented that the film will cause a lot of good.

criticism

Frank S. Nugent of the New York Times summed up Pare Lorentz's previous film documentaries and then turned to The Fight for Life and said that the film was as dramatic as life itself . He is on the borderline between documentary and feature film and reports that pregnancies resp. Childbirth would bring more deaths than cancer and half of them, especially puerperal fever , would be preventable and accuse the responsible doctors . Also highlighted were the acting performances of Myron McGormick, Will Geer, Storrs Haynes and Dudley Digges, who would play as if they were really doctors, just as Effie Anderson could actually have sat at the reception of a clinic and Dorothy Urban gave an impressive study of one Grandmother from the slums . Nugent closed his criticism by saying that one would wish there were more filmmakers like Mr. Lorentz and some form of the Pulitzer Prize for his kind of cinema journalism .

Awards

1941 was Louis Gruenberg in the category "Best Original Soundtrack" for his music for Fight for Life for an Oscar nomination, but had a disadvantage compared to Leigh Harline , Paul J. Smith and Ned Washington with their music for the animated film Pinocchio .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Fight for Life (1940) screenplay info at TCM - Turner Classic Movies (English)
  2. ↑ The Fight for Life (1940) Original Print Information at TCM - Turner Classic Movies (English)
  3. ↑ a b The Fight for Life (1940) Notes at TCM - Turner Classic Movies (English)
  4. ^ Frank S. Nugent: The Fight for Life (1940) Pare Lorentz Again Goes to Fact for His Drama in His New Film, "The Fight for Life" In: The New York Times, March 7, 1940. Accessed January 31 2014.