I love Myrna Loy and generally dislike Clark Gable, so I watched Men in White for her presence and in spite of his. Unfortunately, Loy is mostly wasted in this hospital melodrama whose script has none of the wit and charm I associate with her usual performances. To be fair, it does Gable good not to play the slick hard man, but in the 21st Century, it's a little weird to hear about doctors are "starving" and how his intern, destined for great things, might screw up his life by going into general practice or marrying. The film is also quite interested in what being a doctor is like, throwing small scenes with a wide cast of characters at us like this were the pilot to a television show. Decades of medical dramas on TV has taken the bloom off that rose. There are some great directorial flourishes from Richard Boleslawski here and there - the opening plunge into this world as if edited by Eisenstein, the queasy surgery scene, the way a woman is laid to rest near the end - but the lack of score and the dull script make it go terminal in the second act especially. If it weren't under 75 minutes, I might have bailed early.
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Siskoid
I love Myrna Loy and generally dislike Clark Gable, so I watched Men in White for her presence and in spite of his. Unfortunately, Loy is mostly wasted in this hospital melodrama whose script has none of the wit and charm I associate with her usual performances. To be fair, it does Gable good not to play the slick hard man, but in the 21st Century, it's a little weird to hear about doctors are "starving" and how his intern, destined for great things, might screw up his life by going into general practice or marrying. The film is also quite interested in what being a doctor is like, throwing small scenes with a wide cast of characters at us like this were the pilot to a television show. Decades of medical dramas on TV has taken the bloom off that rose. There are some great directorial flourishes from Richard Boleslawski here and there - the opening plunge into this world as if edited by Eisenstein, the queasy surgery scene, the way a woman is laid to rest near the end - but the lack of score and the dull script make it go terminal in the second act especially. If it weren't under 75 minutes, I might have bailed early.