But all their lies end on a Monday

[sovay]

I just finished watching The Man Who Found Himself (1937), a 67-minute RKO B-picture whose one-line summary on TCM was "A determined nurse puts a cocky surgeon back on track." I thought I was getting a hospital drama, not a two-thirds aviation tropetastic mashup of Buckaroo Banzai, "A Retrieved Reformation," and Only Angels Have Wings (1939). If only it were as good as its comparisons. A literally high-flying young surgeon's twin careers spin out in scandal when he involves a married woman in a fatal plane crash; after spending some months as an embittered hobo, he lands a job as an airfield mechanic and immediately attracts the attention of an air ambulance nurse who suspects he's more than he seems; several contrivances on the part of the nurse and the screenwriters later, he's been recognized as a skilled pilot but denies that his calm, professional handling of a patient who freaked out during a medevac points to any hospital experience; so naturally the climax finds him at the site of a horrific train derailment where an injured child needs an emergency operation and the doctor on the scene is too exhausted from hours of first response to attempt it safely, also he's our hero's estranged father to whom he once swore that he "wouldn't touch the medical profession with a banana stalk," and the nurse who was traveling on the same train is watching. What will our hero do? What kind of question is that? This movie does not ask the audience to suspend their disbelief; it tries to garrote it. It meanders around for half its runtime and then fires a feature's worth of melodrama at the screen. At every turn there's so much schmaltz and corn that you could bake it in a skillet. Its best feature is its dialogue, which throws out such rapid-fire almost-surrealisms as "Who's the high hat and monocle?", "A smart girl could make a sink propose a weekend in the mountains," and "You're going to get your nose caught in a lawnmower one of these days," this last addressed to an inquisitive reporter who really should have been Roscoe Karns. Its historical importance is that it furnished the first starring role of Joan Fontaine, who gets a special post-credits introduction of her own and otherwise smiles a lot into the camera. Mostly it made me want to rewatch Only Angels Have Wings, which I absolutely cannot afford tonight because we have to get up early and take ourselves and our documentation down to the insurance office, speaking of the medical profession. It's just that every time I see a Ford Trimotor, I think of Richard Barthelmess. I don't know if even he could have saved this story, but in some mythical pre-Code branch of the universe I'd have liked to see him try. I suspect the title was probably a lost cause in any era. With Dwight Frye as the patient who freaks out. I'm going to bed before I think any more about it.

Comments

[asakiyume]

Well yes, "You're going to get your nose caught in a lawnmower one of these days" is an excellent line and a hilarious and horrific image. And now I'm imagining a 1930s-style diner that serves up hot fried schmaltz and corn.

And banana stalk? I mean, I get that "10-foot pole" and "barge pole" get old, but the thing about those metaphors is that they come unladen. Banana stalks very often come festooned with bananas....

Things I'd rather avoid touching the medical profession with include a forklift and a cherry picker.

[sovay]

And now I'm imagining a 1930s-style diner that serves up hot fried schmaltz and corn.

I have craved skillet cornbread since last night.

Things I'd rather avoid touching the medical profession with include a forklift and a cherry picker.

Those sound sensibly unlikely to break under the weight of their own bananas.

[alexxkay]

Huh. Just saw Strangers in the Night (1944) at the Brattle Noir Fest, and it was also a short B that featured a horrific train derailment -- this one early on, in order to establish the bona fides of the doctor (a woman, who took no shit from *anyone*!).

[The movie as a whole, I found more Gothic than Noir. Which made Kestrell happy, as she has long said that Noir was an outgrowth of the Gothic. It even had a maybe-supernatural ending, though the ontological status of the "ghost" is a complex matter.]

[sovay]

Just saw Strangers in the Night (1944) at the Brattle Noir Fest

I was sorry to miss that. How was it, aside from the doctor who sounds great? I wanted to see most of that lineup, but the weekend was consumed by migraine and I made it only to Shakedown (1950) on the very last night.

The movie as a whole, I found more Gothic than Noir. Which made Kestrell happy, as she has long said that Noir was an outgrowth of the Gothic.

I think the genres are distinct as they now exist—I've seen at least one noir that failed because it should have been a Gothic—but I agree that they share visible DNA. The psychotropic scenery, for starters.

[alexxkay]

It was... a mixed bag. Not high art, nor entirely successful, but it tried a lot of interesting things and was often surprising. I feel that the expert introduction did it a disservice by overstating the degree of "wackiness", leading to more mocking laughter from the audience than I think it deserved. Though, on the other hand, it did have a lot of plot bits that were "because the script says so, that's why."

I was happy to have seen it, but I probably won't ever feel the need to rewatch it. Mildly recommended.

[sovay]

I was happy to have seen it, but I probably won't ever feel the need to rewatch it. Mildly recommended.

If it's ever on TCM, I'll check it out.

[gwynnega]

This movie does not ask the audience to suspend their disbelief; it tries to garrote it.

Heh.

Dwight Frye is in it? Oh drats, now I want to see it.

[sovay]

Dwight Frye is in it? Oh drats, now I want to see it.

He's only in it for about five minutes, if it helps! Very recognizable as himself, of course. Probably just had a bad vampire experience in the American Southwest.