The men and women who care for the sick and wounded are an essential part of any fighting force, but relatively few films have been made about the work of the Army Medical Corps. The best-known is probably "M*A*S*H*", a cinema adaptation of a satirical television black comedy, but other examples include "The Men"(Marlon Brando's film debut) and "Captain Newman, M. D."
The action takes place in 1944 on a US Army Air Force base in Arizona. The main character, Captain Josiah Newman, is head of the neuro-psychiatric ward 7 at the base's military hospital. Newman is a fictitious character, but he is loosely based upon a real-life doctor, Ralph Greenson, who after serving in the Army Air Force's medical branch during the war went on to become a well-known psychiatrist who included several Hollywood stars among his patients.
The Wikipedia entry for the film calls it a "comedy drama", but that is not a description I would use. Certain scenes, especially those featuring Newman's wisecracking orderly, Corporal Jackson Leibowitz, seem to have been intended as comic relief, but overall the tone is fairly serious. Leibowitz is played by Tony Curtis; by this stage of his career he was well established as a leading man, and I wonder if he agreed to take this supporting role out of a sense of gratitude to Greenson. (Curtis had been one of Greenson's patients in real life).
The film deals with Newman's attempts to treat his many patients, especially Colonel Norval Bliss, Corporal Jim Tompkins and Captain Paul Winston, all of whom have been mentally affected or traumatised by the strains and stresses of war. Greenson was an adherent of the Freudian school of analysis, which places stress upon sexual development and early sexual experiences, but there is little mention of this here, possibly because the studio felt that in 1963 neither audiences nor the Hays Office would feel comfortable with too much talk about sex. (The Production Code was still in force at that date). Instead, Newman concentrates upon what we would today call post-traumatic stress disorder and his patients' wartime experiences.
A unifying factor is that Bliss, Tompkins and Winston are all suffering from a guilt complex- Bliss, a mission planner, over the men he has sent to their deaths, Tompkins over an incident in which a friend died in a burning plane and Winston over a lengthy period he spent hiding behind enemy lines after being shot down. Objectively speaking, none of the men has anything to reproach himself with; Bliss was only doing his duty, Tompkins could not have done anything to save his friend, and Winston had no realistic chance of escape. This does not mean, however, that the men's feelings of guilt and their mental traumas are not real. Newman's task is a difficult one, because even when he can diagnose the cause of his patients' disorder, this does not always mean that he can successfully treat them. Colonel Bliss ends up committing suicide. When Newman's treatment is successful, as it is with Tompkins, this does not automatically lead to a happy ending, because Tompkins's cure means that he is now fit again for active duty, and at risk of being killed.
Newman is played by Gregory Peck in his first film after "To Kill a Mockingbird", probably his best performance and the one that one him an Oscar. As in that film, Peck plays a calm, rational, humane and intelligent man, a type of role to which he was very well suited. Curtis is not really at his best here, but there is another good performance from Bobby Darin as Tompkins, for which he received a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar nomination. Darin was best known as a singer, and made only a handful of films, but does enough here to suggest that his could have been a great career if he had concentrated on acting. (His poor health probably prevented this).
The film is not really in the same class as "To Kill a Mockingbird"- few films are- but it is a well-made account of men who have cracked under the strains of war and of the attempt to heal them. It reminded me of the 1990s British drama "Regeneration", another film about a caring and compassionate military psychiatrist. 7/10.
The action takes place in 1944 on a US Army Air Force base in Arizona. The main character, Captain Josiah Newman, is head of the neuro-psychiatric ward 7 at the base's military hospital. Newman is a fictitious character, but he is loosely based upon a real-life doctor, Ralph Greenson, who after serving in the Army Air Force's medical branch during the war went on to become a well-known psychiatrist who included several Hollywood stars among his patients.
The Wikipedia entry for the film calls it a "comedy drama", but that is not a description I would use. Certain scenes, especially those featuring Newman's wisecracking orderly, Corporal Jackson Leibowitz, seem to have been intended as comic relief, but overall the tone is fairly serious. Leibowitz is played by Tony Curtis; by this stage of his career he was well established as a leading man, and I wonder if he agreed to take this supporting role out of a sense of gratitude to Greenson. (Curtis had been one of Greenson's patients in real life).
The film deals with Newman's attempts to treat his many patients, especially Colonel Norval Bliss, Corporal Jim Tompkins and Captain Paul Winston, all of whom have been mentally affected or traumatised by the strains and stresses of war. Greenson was an adherent of the Freudian school of analysis, which places stress upon sexual development and early sexual experiences, but there is little mention of this here, possibly because the studio felt that in 1963 neither audiences nor the Hays Office would feel comfortable with too much talk about sex. (The Production Code was still in force at that date). Instead, Newman concentrates upon what we would today call post-traumatic stress disorder and his patients' wartime experiences.
A unifying factor is that Bliss, Tompkins and Winston are all suffering from a guilt complex- Bliss, a mission planner, over the men he has sent to their deaths, Tompkins over an incident in which a friend died in a burning plane and Winston over a lengthy period he spent hiding behind enemy lines after being shot down. Objectively speaking, none of the men has anything to reproach himself with; Bliss was only doing his duty, Tompkins could not have done anything to save his friend, and Winston had no realistic chance of escape. This does not mean, however, that the men's feelings of guilt and their mental traumas are not real. Newman's task is a difficult one, because even when he can diagnose the cause of his patients' disorder, this does not always mean that he can successfully treat them. Colonel Bliss ends up committing suicide. When Newman's treatment is successful, as it is with Tompkins, this does not automatically lead to a happy ending, because Tompkins's cure means that he is now fit again for active duty, and at risk of being killed.
Newman is played by Gregory Peck in his first film after "To Kill a Mockingbird", probably his best performance and the one that one him an Oscar. As in that film, Peck plays a calm, rational, humane and intelligent man, a type of role to which he was very well suited. Curtis is not really at his best here, but there is another good performance from Bobby Darin as Tompkins, for which he received a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar nomination. Darin was best known as a singer, and made only a handful of films, but does enough here to suggest that his could have been a great career if he had concentrated on acting. (His poor health probably prevented this).
The film is not really in the same class as "To Kill a Mockingbird"- few films are- but it is a well-made account of men who have cracked under the strains of war and of the attempt to heal them. It reminded me of the 1990s British drama "Regeneration", another film about a caring and compassionate military psychiatrist. 7/10.