Men in White (1934)
Release Date: April 6, 1934
Directed by: Richard Boleslawski
Studio: MGM
Costarring:
Myrna Loy
Elizabeth Allan
Otto Kruger
Available on DVD through The Warner Brothers Archive Collection
DearMrGable.com’s Movie of the Month, September 2011
Nutshell Review, February 2014
10th Anniversary Celebration Movie of the Week, November 19, 2018
Gable is George Ferguson, a young doctor working hard to prove himself at a New York hospital. He puts medicine and his patients before all else, much to the chagrin of his heiress fiancé, Laura (Loy). He soon learns that all work and no play lead him open to temptation and he falls for Barbara (Allan), a nurse, with devastating consequences.
Reviews
Photoplay magazine, April 1934:
By no means are you to consider just another of those medical things. It is a hospital picture to end all hospital pictures!Interne Clark Gable’s problem is whether he shall marry wealthy Myrna Loy and have an easy practice, or make the most of his opportunity to work with a famous scientist (Jean Hersholt) and have little leisure.It is a film long to be remembered–fine and honest. In the scene with the little sick girl, Gable does a remarkable acting job. And he has your sympathy all through the episode with the nurse who dies as a result of an operation that should not have been performed.Hersholt tops all previous performances. And what a trooper Elizabeth Allan is! Otto Kruger, C. Henry Gordon.
Hollywood magazine, May 1934:
Here is Clark Gable at his best, ably supported by a noble cast. As the young interne, Gable easily gives the most remarkable performance of his brilliant career. Myrna Loy brings all her charm to the screen as the girl who loves Gable but who hesitates to become a doctor’s wife. Elizabeth Allan [sic] is a student nurse who gives freely of her love to Gable. Just as Gable is about marry Myrna, he is called upon to operate on the student nurse. She confesses her great love for Gable in the presence of Myrna. The picture closes with Miss Loy bidding farewell to Gable as he leaves for Europe. No review of this splendid picture would be complete without a word of appreciation for the fine acting done by Jean Hersholt.
Photoplay magazine, May 1934:
Torn between difficult scientific career and easy medical practice with love of Myrna Loy, Clark Gable does a remarkable acting job. Elizabeth Allan, Jean Hersholt, Otto Kruger merit praise.
Quote-able Gable
“Dr. Ferguson. O.R. Emergency B? Very well, at once.” first line
“All my life I wanted to be a fine doctor.”‘
“It’s no use, angel, that’s my call.”
“I’m tired of work and sweat and blood and pain. Chap in 401 is dead, Levine’s wife is going to die…one begins to wonder why anything makes any difference.”
“When she gets out, I’ll marry her if she’ll have me.”
“What good’s a profession that can’t give you bread and butter after you’ve wasted ten years of your life at it?”
“I’m not doing this because I care what anybody says or thinks! I’m doing it because this girl’s life is smashed and I’m going to try and help her pick up the pieces and put them back together again!”
“Dr. Hochburg…” last line
Behind the Scenes
The first film for which MGM bought the rights exclusively for Gable to star in.
Took only eighteen days to film and the production costs were only $213,000–$25,000 of which were for the rights to the play.
Gable began a two-year romance with his married costar, British actress Elizabeth Allan, on the set.
Myrna Loy had rebuffed Gable’s romantic advances at a party prior to this film and because of that he ignored her on set. She recalled that he would only speak to her when the cameras were rolling. He thawed by the time they made Manhattan Melodrama together and were friends afterward.
Based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning play written by Sidney Kingsley. The film originally included the play’s original elements of sex and abortion but the Legion of Decency demanded it be cut. The result is quite confusing to the viewer as only through the power of deduction can one determine what ails Elizabeth Allan’s character.