Il est minuit, docteur Schweitzer (1952)
Directed by André Haguet

Film Review

Despite its - ostensibly - impressive cast and substantial budget, this film singularly fails to do any justice whatsoever to the great historical figure it portrays, Albert Schweitzer.   Hampered by a mediocre script and some misguided direction (to say nothing of some blatant historical inaccuracies), the film fails to evoke any real sympathy or interest in its subject.  Rather than a great medical man and humanitarian, Schweitzer is presented more as an obsessive musician, more preoccupied with his next organ recital than with saving human lives.   Pierre Fresnay's portrayal of the great man hardly helps matters - it is stilted and characterless, with the most absurd comedy accent imaginable outside of a seaside pantomime.

Film Synopsis

Winner of the Nobel Prize for peace in 1952, Albert Schweitzer's career began forty years earlier.  After qualifying as a doctor of medicine at Strasbourg University, Schweitzer made up his mind to become a missionary in Africa, a continent desperately in need of his medical expertise.  He is accompanied on his first trip to Gabon, then a French colony, by a young woman named Marie Winter, who is keen to put behind her an unhappy love affair.

Schweitzer's main preoccupation is the treatment of malaria, which presently poses the greatest threat to the indigenous population.  He receives little support from Leblanc, an administrator who sees nothing good in the doctor's work.  Assisted by Marie and another hardworking missionary, Father Charles, Schweitzer begins to make an impact, but his efforts are about to be frustrated by the momentous events that are about to overtake the whole of Europe.  The year is 1914...