The Great Heart relates the history of Father Damien, a Belgian priest who arrived in Hawaii in the mid-19th Century and started working with lepers. Well, he wasn’t actually a priest yet when he arrived, but since he was the only one who was willing to break the taboo on touching lepers, he became the priest to a leper colony on the island of Molokai. The lepers who were isolated there initially resist his efforts to help as well as his attempts to get them to worship. He does get their attention when he destroys the places where they drink too much alcohol and engage in what a priest might consider bad behavior, stuff like dancing and, as the narrator puts it, “love-making” (even though an astute viewer certainly knows what that euphemism means). Father Damien (played by youthful-looking Tom Neal, sometimes in less-than-realistic old-age makeup) and a few others slowly start making improvements to the island, but when he changes the opening of his sermons from “my brethren” to “we lepers,” revealing that he too has become infected, the news of his illness generates lots of donations and other assistance—plus greater attention to the plight of those afflicted with leprosy. Carey Wilson, the narrator of this short, displays a sense of earnestness that borders on the hyperbolic at times. When he asks, “Your heart is undaunted, isn’t it, Damien?”, you want to remind Wilson that Father Damien has been long dead and buried and probably cannot answer such an excessive question. I did learn from this film that one of the effects of leprosy is that the body feels no pain due to a loss of nerve sensation; that’s actually how Father Damien learns of his infection, being unable to feel the heat from the water in which he is soaking his feet. Thousands died from the horrible disease, but this film does take it pretty easy on its viewers by never showing the faces of any of the lepers, just their backs or their silhouettes. The implication is that it’s perhaps just too hideous a disease to witness closely in person. That is, unless (as Wilson puts it) you have a “great brave young heart” like Father Damien. I suppose by the end of the story of his life and all of the sacrifices that he made, the hyperbole might be earned – just a bit.
That Mothers Might Live details the realization by a 19th-Century Hungarian physician, Dr. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis, of the need by medical professionals to wash their hands before treating patients. It begins with his concern that so many women were dying in hospitals after giving birth. Dr. Semmelweis (played by Sheppard Strudwick) even writes a book, The Prevention of Childhood Fever (the film’s shorter version of the actual title, Etiology, Concept, and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever), detailing the need for antiseptic measures to limit the spread of germs and prevent puerperal fever, but he is, of course, initially ostracized by the medical community. We all know now that his ideas later caught on and are considered standard medical procedure, but it took decades for his ideas to slowly catch on throughout Europe. This short is a nice, illuminating tribute to a somewhat forgotten medical pioneer, and it reaches quite an emotional climax with Emmelweis’s increasing mental instability and his death in an asylum. However, the filmmakers made a rather strange choice: Strudwick and the other actors do not speak on camera. Voiceover narration by John Nesbitt (most famous nowadays for his narration of the MGM series The Passing Parade) provides the dialogue, all in a rather melodramatic, even hyperbolic, at times, tone. Why weren’t the actors allowed to speak their lines? Was it cheaper just to have a narrator say everything? It’s quite distracting to watch as the actors recited dialogue only to hear Nesbitt’s voice instead. This choice doesn’t detract too much from the overall strength of the storyline, but it is odd nonetheless. (By the way, The Great Heart makes the same choice for voiceover narration rather than the actors speaking their lines. It must have been a thing in the 1930s.)
I’ve had no luck finding information on Timber Toppers, the third nominee for Best One-Reel Short Subject. All that’s available online is that it runs 10 minutes, was directed by Tom Cumminsky, and was released by 20th Century Fox. It’s not available for streaming, not even on “those websites” that specialize in films that are not available elsewhere. Presumably, it’s about the timber industry since “timber topping” is a term associated with the production of lumber, but that’s hardly enough to judge the quality of a short film. Oddly enough, no one even states whether or not it’s a lost film. Since that’s the case, I have not choice but to add it to my list of movies I’m likely never to see in order to complete this project.
Oscar Winner: That Mothers Might Live
My Choice: Since I’ve only seen two of the three and
both of those were melodramatic and over-the-top, I’d pick That Mothers
Might Live as a toss-up. They both deal with individuals who made a
difference in the treatment and care of others, but Dr. Emmelweis might have
had a somewhat larger and profound impact. Both That Mothers Might Live and
The Great Heart tread some of the same territory, though, and use some
of the same storytelling methods.
