Skeleton on Horseback (1937) User Reviews

A cure for war?

[darkwebonlinedotcom · 8/10 · 4 July 2013]

Czech Hugo Haas made a lot of overblown, trashy dramas in America in the 1950s (see 'Edge of Hell', 'Bait' and 'Hold Back Tomorrow') but back in the 1930s, he was a very well-respected actor/director/writer in Europe. 'Bílá nemoc' is a classic example of the work that led to Haas' high reputation, a thought-provoking, political/science fiction drama.

In an unnamed country (which is led by a warmongering Marshal) a disease, which only affects the over 50s, begins to spread. While the government-financed clinics fail to find an answer, backstreet GP Dr. Galen (played by Haas) discovers a cure.

After proving the cure's authenticity, Dr. Galen informs the press that he will treat the poor immediately but will only treat the rich if the Marshall, who is about to declare war on a neighbouring country, signs a peace treaty. Naturally, the Marshal refuses to accept the conditions and sends his men to bring the good doctor to him…

Although obviously an anti-war film (released just a couple of years before WWII), the characters are not simply black and white. Dr. Galen, who is a pacifist, actually stands by and lets people die to stand by his threat. The Marshal on the other hand, doesn't act as ruthless as you may expect - for instance he never threatens to torture Galen to obtain the cure and actually does eventually release him. Both characters are given interesting, believable background stories and justifications for their very different outlooks on life.

An intelligent film which is charmingly naive in many respects, simply for asking for normality in a mad world.

Fascist Fever No Match for Pacifist Plague

[Cineanalyst · 7/10 · 9 May 2020]

This is a fascinating historical document, "Bílá Nemoc," which is translated variously as "The White Disease" (as in leprosy) or more colorfully as "Skeleton on Horseback," an anti-fascist Czechoslovak film released a year before the Munich Agreement and two years before total Nazi occupation. Viewing this today, however, it's perhaps even more arresting as a picture of belligerent governance during a pandemic. In the case of the one in film, it entirely afflicts those middle aged and older, too. In the film, a doctor (named "Galen," one assumes by parents who knew very well he would grow up to practice medicine) discovers a treatment for this novel form of old-age-killing leprosy, which he uses to treat the poor, but refuses to administer on the rich and government sponsors of war lest they actively embrace pacifism. That's bad news for the country's führer marshal and the nationalistic fervor he's whipped up in anticipation of invading a smaller nation.

Based on a play, the major drawback of the film is that it's stagy. It's a talkfest, to be sure, with characters having extended arguments on the merits of war and peace, life and death. There's also some conspicuous staging, including characters turning back repeatedly from opening doors to continue conversations they were about to leave. The camerawork, production and editing aren't too bad, though. While one montage moving from characters' feet, to their waste and, finally, head shots is the most conspicuous, the rest of the picture, too, does well to compensate for the theatrical dialogue and direction. Regardless, "Bílá Nemoc" was remarkable for sounding the alarm relatively early on the dangers of fascist nationalism in Europe in the 1930s. It would be three years even before Charlie Chaplin made "The Great Dictator" (1940), for instance, which was still an early anti-Nazi film to come from Hollywood. Unfortunately, it's message on the dangerous interactions of the contagions of politics and disease have hardly been heeded in the 83 years since, either.