The Fight for Life
US (1940): Documentary/Drama
An intern (Myron McCormick) witnesses the death of a young mother in a maternity hospital delivery room. Disturbed that he might have overlooked something that could have prevented the death, he goes to a maternity clinic in a city slum in order to learn more about the mortality of motherhood and to find new ways to prevent it. (IMDb)
This film is a curious mix of fact and fiction from the most respected US documentary film maker. Pare Lorentz's (The Plow That Broke the Plain) attempt to break into Hollywood is unsatisfactory both as the medical training film that they seemed to think they were making and as drama. It stops half-way through -- presumably to make it a suitable length for a short (69 minutes) and then starts up again with another home birth. It is still interesting to watch all this talent stretching themselves - McCormick, later in The Hustler, Floyd Crosby who filmed De Kruif's Arrowsmith and High Noon and Louis Gruenberg who scored All the Kings Men. A lot of the playing is stilted, even by skilled performers like Dudley Digges, and the film loses all credibility with its bloodless natal deliveries. But the seriousness of purpose of the makers registers and their filming of the Chicago slums remains graphic and alarming. (Mozjoukine, IMDb)
1 nomination
· Music Scoring Awards (Original Score) 1940: Louis Gruenberg