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Home , Alec Guinness, Allison Janney, Charles Durning, Frank Launder, Katherine Heigl, Knocked Up

The physician at

Peter E. Dans, MD

Abortion in the movies the baby, saying the child “has a right to thrive.” Following on the heels of these two movies are , Juno, and Bella. n November, my good friend Tim Johnson, chair of The first two are hardly moralistic tales. Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan The baby boomlet has not gone unnoticed in the media. invitedI me to speak about abortion in the movies in a semi- Michael Currie Schafer in the New Republic doubted that pro- nar course he was developing on Contemporary Issues in ducers were avoiding “storylines featuring abortion because Women’s Health. Starting with the 1933 film Men in White, of a political backlash” and instead ascribed it to the fact that I viewed lots of movies. As expected, the trend line followed “babies add new drama.” 3 Ellen Page, the star of Juno, said “if the evolution of the acceptance of this procedure, which was Juno had an abortion, it would have been a short film,” 4 as if once illegal and generally considered immoral except when abortion ends the story, which, sadly, is not true in many cases. the life of the mother was at stake, to the present when it is However, if the post-abortion­ movie ever gets made, it wouldn’t legal and the question of its morality is highly contentious. be a comedy and it would get as much media coverage as Bella, The portrayal of those performing abortions, unsympathetic which means practically none. in films like The Interns (1962), Love with a Proper Stranger (1964) and Alfie (1966), became much more sympathetic, al- Reference most laudatory, in Cider House Rules1 (1999) and Vera Drake 1. Dans PE. The physician at the movies: The Cider House Rules. (2004). However, that trend may be reversing, as evidenced by Pharos Spring 2000; 63: 41–42. a raft of films starting with the misbegotten remake of Alfie 2. Dans PE. The physician at the movies: Waitress. Pharos Au- (2004), in which the woman involved in the one-night stand tumn 2007; 70: 41–43. with the notorious womanizer, instead of having an abortion 3. Schaffer MC. Making room for baby: Is Hollywood pro-life? as in the original, leaves the abortion clinic and decides to New Republic 2008 Jan 11. keep the baby. In Waitress2 (2007), the mother decides to go 4. Strauss B. ‘Juno’ star grounded in non-Hollywood life. Balti- through with the pregnancy even though she plans to reject more Sun 2008 Jan 13: 14E.

Knocked Up Starring , Seth Rogan, , and . Directed by . Rated R. Running time 129 min- utes.

he title immediately signals that you shouldn’t expect a classy Astaire/Rogers romance. Made by the director of TheT Forty Year Old Virgin, this crude comedy, called an “in- stant classic” by Times reviewer A. O. Scott, could have been reduced by fifteen minutes if the F-word and other vulgarities had been deleted from the script. Oddly enough, it is best characterized as a pro-life slacker film. A lovely young lady, Allison Scott (Katherine Heigl of Grey’s Anatomy), gets a big break hosting a local Entertainment Tonight-type show and decides to celebrate at a club with her sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) and Debbie’s husband Pete (Paul Rudd). For some unfathomable reason, except for entirely too much alcohol, she hooks up with Ben Stone (Seth Rogan), a gross, hairy guy who might generously have been called a “schlemiel” and, less generously, a “schmuck” in the old neighborhood. Ben’s main love is his bong. His dream is to create an economically viable web site where he can record movie star T&A and other sightings in feature films, and that’s not tonsillectomies and ad- Katherine Heigl and in Knocked Up. enoidectomies. They have a ­one-night © 2007 .

32 The Pharos/Spring 2008 stand during which she rushes him and he fails to use his condom. The next morning, she leaves for work and they presumably will never meet again. Ben goes back to the other creeps with whom he shares a house and brags of his sexual conquest. When Alison misses a period, enter the new feature in all three movies, the home pregnancy kit. After doing the test multiple times with Debbie as a control, she has to face real- ity. She telephones Ben, who assumes he is being contacted because he is so irresistible. Stunned at the news, he meets her for lunch and tells her, “My stepsister took care of it and now she has a real baby.” When Allison says that she does not in- tend to have an abortion, he agrees to go with her to Debbie’s doctor, Thomas Pellagrino (), where the second new cinematic feature appears, the ultrasound, which shows the eight-week fetus’s heart beating. From that point they visit numerous doctors whom she rejects until she finds one who promises to be there for her delivery. There are more scenes of fetal development on the ultrasound and of Ben continuing to act like an insensitive, pre-adolescent­ jerk. Finally, when it’s time for the delivery, wouldn’t you know that the doctor she carefully chose is in Israel at a Bat Mitzvah. The closing credits provide a particularly interesting ­meta-message­ in that they and Ellen Page in Juno. © 2007 Fox Searchlight Pictures. consist not only of pictures of the film’s characters and their growing family but also of all the children and families of the cast and crew. her pieballs, I’m staying pregnant.” Leah suggests she check out the Pennysaver insert in the Juno newspaper, where she finds an ad by an affluent, infertile yup- Starring Ellen Page, , Jennifer Garner, Jason pie couple wanting to adopt. Leah convinces her to tell her fa- Bateman, and . ther (J. K. Simmons) and stepmother (Allison Janney), who are Directed by . Rated R. Running time 92 min- remarkably intelligent and supportive for Hollywood parents. utes. She tells them of her plans to go through with the pregnancy and to give the baby up for adoption. The blue-collar­ parents uno (Ellen Page), who tells all and sundry that she is not join Juno in visiting the palatial home of the prospective adop- named after a town in Alaska but after Zeus’s wife, is a tive couple, Vanessa (Jennifer Garner), who is somewhat over J­sixteen-year-old ­pseudo-­sophisticated tomboy with a smart the top as a woman who believes she was born to be a mother, motor mouth. She decides that she would like to try out sex and Mark Loring (), a composer of commercials with her favorite boyfriend, Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), and fan of slasher films. Juno bonds with him platonically (at an incredibly naive nerd who runs track and with whom she least on her side) and is pleased that the baby will have a good makes music. She seduces him while he is sitting in a chair home. I’ll end the story here in case you want to see it. and in the best Hollywood tradition, she gets pregnant. After The film, which was nominated for four Oscars (best three home pregnancy tests are positive she tells her best picture, director, actress, and screenplay) cost $7.5 million to friend Leah (Olivia Thirby), who suggests that she call the lo- make and has grossed over $85 million in less than two months, cal abortion clinic, which she does on her hamburger phone due both to critical acclaim and word of mouth. Page is out- saying, “I’m calling for a hasty abortion.” Outside the clinic standing, and the ­rapid-fire dialogue is raunchy, full of “pop” she encounters a lone picket, a school friend, Su Chin (Valerie references, and undeniably clever, almost too clever. There Tian), who tells her that “all babies want to be borned” and are very few moments when Juno, who is constantly smart- that at her stage the fetus has “a beating heart, feels pain, and ­mouthing and manipulating all around her, shows any tender- has fingernails.” The receptionist, who is incredibly dense, ness. The decision to give up the baby is rather facile. Not only offers Juno blackberry condoms, which she says makes her does she seem to pay little emotional price for her decision, boyfriend’s stuff smell like pie. Juno refuses the offer and sits but she views the whole thing as a chapter to be closed in down in a chair and, surveying the crowd, which looks pretty nine months and never to be re-opened.­ Screenwriter Diablo squirrelly, she decides to leave, telling the receptionist “to keep Cody (aka Brooks Busey-Hunt), an ex-­stripper and phone sex

The Pharos/Spring 2008 33 The physician at the movies

­operator, is clearly quick-­witted and an accomplished writer with the opening shot at the seashore where one gets an en- who is already involved in other screen projects. She ascribes tirely different impression of the bearded protagonist. A flash- her facility in writing to the daily blog she kept about her per- back then shows a handsome soccer star with Real Madrid, sonal life during the year she spent as a stripper. A stepmother Jose (Eduardo Verastegui), who is on his way to a big payday herself, she said she made the stepmother nice rather than, as in his flashy convertible when he strikes a little girl who runs routinely pictured, “monsters and witches.” 1 That’s all well and out in the street after a ball. Convicted of vehicular homicide, good, but I wish she hadn’t given the stepmother the following after his release from prison he is reduced to being a line chef throwaway line: “Doctors are sadists who like to play God and in the restaurant owned by his ­obsessive-­compulsive brother laugh at lesser people’s pain.” Manny (Manny Perez). When Nina (Tammy Blanchard), a re- peatedly tardy coworker learns she is pregnant after getting a Reference home pregnancy test kit on credit, she is fired. Jose leaves the 1. Hughes RJ. A film finds a fresh take on teen life. Wall Street restaurant to console her and Manny fires him, too, setting up J 2007 Dec 7: W5. a family conflict. Jose accompanies Nina to an abortion clinic, where she also has a change of heart. Bella There is a great scene with Jose’s warm family on Long Starring Eduardo Verastegui, Tammy Blanchard, and Manny Island, one that reminded me of growing up in a home with Perez. a mother who was a Spanish/Italian court interpreter and a 2 Directed by Alejandro Gomez Monteverde. Rated PG-13. stepfather who was a Spanish merchant seaman. The rest Running time 91 minutes. of the film consists of a reconciliation of the brothers; and Jose helping Nina and her child, Bella (Sophie Nyweide). The he classiest of the three films, Bella won the “People’s whirlwind filming in ­twenty-three days on location in and Choice” award at the Toronto Film Festival, but had around New York City, led one snide reviewer to say that the troubleT getting a distributor until Lion’s Gate agreed to do so. surroundings upstaged the story.3 I don’t agree. Actually, it’s a It was shown in very few theaters despite grassroots support heartwarming, unassuming story of compassion, selflessness, from Catholics and pro-lifers.­ The Variety critic dismissed it and redemption, whose premise is articulated early in the film as “a mediocre film that wows crowds” and got appropriately when Jose says “My grandmother always said, ‘If you want to slammed by all four bloggers to his site.1 Another called it make God laugh, tell him your plans.’ ” “certainly a sweet life-affirming­ picture but just not authentic or captivating enough.” Yet another called it “predictable,” as if References most films aren’t. Strangely enough, it isn’t predictable, starting 1. Koehler R. Bella. Variety 2007 Jan 31. www.variety.com/re- view/VE1117932633.html?categoryid=31&cs=1. Tammy Blanchard and Eduardo Verastegui in Bella. 2. Dans PE, Lepkoff RL, Wasserman S. Life on © 2007 Roadside Attractions. the Lower East Side: Photographs by Rebecca Lep- koff, 1937–1950. New York: Princeton Architectural Press; 2006. 3. Goldstein G. Surroundings upstage relation- ship in ‘Bella.’ Baltimore Sun 2007 Oct 26: 5C.

Another vintage doctor film Continuing the plan to highlight past films featuring doctors, here is a British classic to put on your DVD wish list.

Green for Danger (1946) Starring Alistair Sim, , Leo Genn, Sally Gray, and Rosamund John. Directed by . Rated PG-UK (2005). Black and white. Running time 91 minutes.

here are two signature studio trademark openings that get me in the mood for a movie.T The first is MGM’s Leo the Lion, prefer- ably the early one who gave three roars rather

34 The Pharos/Spring 2008 Megs Jenkins, second from left, Leo Genn, fourth from left, and Trevor Howard, far right in Green for Danger. Eagle-Lion Films Inc/Photofest. ©Eagle-Lion Films.

than the later lazier lion who only roars twice. The other is who is injured by an exploding V-1 bomb, the unmanned buzz the one that opens this film: the man stripped to the waist bombs the Nazis began launching in 1944 that could go up swinging the big hammer twice to gong in a J. Arthur Rank to 210 miles before the engines cut out and they fell to earth. Production. Based on a 1944 book of the same name by Higgins has to have his arm repaired and dies of hypoxia be- Christianna Brand, Green for Danger is a murder mystery fore the operation begins. It’s assumed to be an unfortunate laced with droll English humor and set in a rural British event, but the surgeon points the finger at the anesthesiologist, emergency hospital at Heron’s Park, an Elizabethan manor connected to a similar occurrence before the war, although he commandeered during World War II. The principals include was exonerated of malpractice. When Nurse Bates interrupts two doctors: anesthesiologist Doctor Barney Barnes (Trevor a dance to announce over the microphone that it was murder Howard), and surgeon Mr. Eden (Leo Genn). Four nurses and she knows who did it, you know that she’s not long for this complete the primary hospital staff: “Freddie” Linley (Sally world. This prompts the appearance of the bumbling, quirky Gray), Esther Sanson (Rosamund John), Marion Bates (Judy Inspector Cockrill, who dismisses the premise that there’s Campbell), and Nurse Woods (Megs Jenkins). The story is a simple explanation, saying in his most imperious Simsian narrated by Scotland Yard Inspector Cockrill (Alistair Sim) as style, “Don’t be fatuous. We are dealing with two premeditated he types his final report murders.” He assembles the staff and tells them that “four of The first to die is postman Joseph Higgins (Merle Marriott), you are in mortal danger from the fifth.”

The Pharos/Spring 2008 35 The physician at the movies

The picture is like the TV shows of today, little medicine Trevor Howard was born in 1916 and educated at Clifton and lots of staff romances and intrigues, especially involving College and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. His perfor- Mr. Eden, who before the war was a Harley Street physician mance as the doctor in ’s 1945 film with a Rolls Royce and a practice consisting of lovely ladies catapulted him into stardom. My particular favorite is his por- who, as Nurse Woods says were “happy to leave their ap- trayal of Major Calloway in one of the all-time great films, The pendices behind” and loved being in the consulting room of a Third Man. Those who have seen it will remember the sound man with “those eyes, the wounded stag look that no woman of the zither playing the unforgettable theme. Howard was can resist.” The dialogue is laced with Shakespearean quotes in one hundred other films, including Tom Jones, Von Ryan’s and witty repartee, such as when the hospital administrator Express, and The . Dr. White (Ronald Adam) expresses chagrin when told that Leo Genn, the least known of the three, was born in 1905 Cockrill can’t keep the press out and the inspector responds, and had the most interesting life experience. He studied law “I don’t mind; they always give me a good write-up.” Or at Cambridge and was a practicing barrister when he started when Cockrill calls nitrous oxide “laughing gas,” and is told in films in 1930. He didn’t give up his day job until 1939 when by Barnes that it is the impurities that cause the laughs and he debuted on Broadway. During World War II he served with Cockrill replies, “Oh, just the same as in our music halls.” the , was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1943, Watching him pull up a chair as the two doctors duke it out is and awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1945. At war’s end, he also a hoot. Also watch for his double takes during his bedtime joined the British unit investigating war crimes at the Belsen reading and when he hears noises that could be buzz bombs. concentration camp and served as an assistant prosecutor for There are enough red herrings to keep the viewer guessing the Belsen trial. Among his noteworthy performances were right up to the end. The British censors, who were stricter a small role as the sarcastic Constable of France in Laurence than their American counterparts, temporarily banned the Olivier’s while on loan during his military service film on the grounds that any wounded soldier seeing it might in 1944, and Petronius the counselor to ’s Nero become so overcome by dread of being murdered in hospital in the 1951 film Quo Vadis, for which Genn earned an Oscar that it might impede his recovery.1 Director Gilliat countered nomination. He was also the doctor in The Snake Pit. that the setting in the film was no longer a military hospital as Sidney Gilliat, born in 1908 and a graduate of in the book and they relented. University in English and History, made a number of classic Green for Danger was made during the period called the English comedies and thrillers with his partner . Golden Age of British Cinema, from the 1940s through the They include , , and early . The excellence of the films made then was in the St. Trinian’s series. large part due to actors and directors such as , Similar things can be said about other English and , David Lean, , and the principals of American actors like Alec Guinness, Donald Pleasance, David this film, Sim, Howard, Genn, and director Gilliat. What is Niven, , , Tyrone Power, Charlton particularly striking is their breadth and depth of experience Heston, , Charles Bronson, , and acting, in contrast to many of the callow and shallow film George C. Scott, Eddie Albert, and , many who stars of today. Many had a university background and a long served, often with distinction, in the war. When one considers apprenticeship on the stage, as well as a life experience, both in what these people brought to their acting compared to today’s the workaday world and during the war, that clearly enriched crowd, it’s not hard to understand why many have stopped their performances. A little about their history will prove my going to movies. point, for which I am indebted to Ephraim Katz’s The Film Encyclopedia.2 References Sim was born in 1900 and educated at Edinburgh University. 1. Shortland M. Medicine and Film: A Checklist, Survey and He was a professor of elocution before becoming an actor at Research Resource. Oxford: Wellcome Unit for the History of Medi- thirty, first on the stage and then in memorable films such as cine; 1989: 32. the original School for Scoundrels, with two other comedic 2. Katz E. The Film Encyclopedia: The Most Comprehensive actors, Ian Carmichael (who played Lord Peter Wimsey in the Encyclopedia of World Cinema in a Single Volume. First edition. Dorothy Sayers mysteries) and the gap-toothed Terry Thomas, New York: HarperCollins; 1979. who also was in A Matter of WHO. In Scoundrels, based on the Lifemanship and Oneupsmanship books of Stephen Potter, Dr. Dans (AΩA, Columbia University College of Physicians and Sim is hilarious as Potter, who runs a school to teach people Surgeons, 1960) is a member of The Pharos’s editorial board and how to one-up one another. Other Sim classics are the por- has been its film critic since 1990. His address is: trayal of Scrooge in A Christmas Carol; the headmistress and 11 Hickory Hill Road her brother the bookie in The Belles of St Trinian’s, and the Cockeysville, Maryland 21030 enigmatic inspector in The Inspector Calls. E-mail: [email protected]

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