The Great Moment (1944) - film review

This is the story of William T. G. Morton, one of the most important figures in the history of medical science.  Whilst practicing as a dentist in Boston in the 1840s, he investigated various ways to relieve pain during tooth extraction.  He found that by getting his patients to inhale ether, they became insensible to pain.  It was a discovery that should have made him a wealthy man, honoured by his peers and revered by all mankind.  In reality, he ended his days in near-poverty, shamed and shunned by his profession.   After his premature death, his widow looks back on his life and reflects on those momentous days in 1846 when William T. G. Morton changed the world forever...

Perhaps the least typical of Preston Sturges’s films is this oft overlooked biography of the man who is now credited with the introduction of anaesthetics in medical procedure.  It’s a curious beast in which the director makes an earnest attempt to tell an insightful and poignant story whilst simultaneously indulging his penchant for boisterous slapstick, with mixed results.  Whilst The Great Moment has some entertainment value, thanks to Sturges’s unflagging flair for comedy, and does shed some light on an important historical figure, it is far less satisfying than the director’s other films.  The narrative is slightly muddled, the characterisation is generally weak, and the frequent switches of mood, from serious drama to farce and back again, makes the film feel uneven and superficial.

One thing the film does lack is a strong central performance.  Joel McCrea was superlative as the lead in Sturges’s previous Sullivan’s Travels (1941), but here his performance lacks substance and whilst sympathetic, he is unconvincing as the dedicated man of science he is supposed to be portraying.  Another flaw is the film’s botched editing.  The executives at Paramount were unhappy with its original cut and had it completely re-edited, without Sturges’s input.  This accounts for the film’s confusing narrative construction, its choppy mood and its startlingly abrupt ending (the last scene was originally intended to have been in the middle of the film!).  It’s hardly surprising the film was ill-received by the critics and fared badly at the box office, marking the beginning of the decline in Sturges’s fortunes as a filmmaker.  Today, the film is regarded in a more positive light, and not only as a result of the resurgence of interest in Preston Sturges.   The Great Moment combines some enjoyable comedy with an informative account of the life of a man to whom each one of us owes a great deal, William T. G. Morton, the man who took the pain out of surgery.

© James Travers 2008

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