Watch Green Light For Free

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This is a rather uneven production, but still very good. Some of the dialog early on in the film occasionally seems a tad awkward, but on the other hand the scenes in surgery seem far more realistic (in terms of equipment, etc.) than would be typical, particularly for 1937. I will say that after watching part of the film, and then looking up the date, I was surprised it was filmed as late as 1937; I was thinking more like 1935 or earlier.As to the story, I noticed one of our reviewers said it was corny. If he/she means good-versus-bad, then yes, it's corny. Although I would prefer to use the term "old-fashioned". There are actually several stories here -- the botched surgery and who does/should take the responsibility; two women in love with the same man; the search for a vaccine for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever; the guilt felt by one surgeon. It's a good story, and I enjoyed it.As to the performances, this film was made just as Errol Flynn was first moving into his prime movie years. His performance here is excellent, and quite a change from the two films which preceded this one -- "Captain Blood" and "Charge Of The Light Brigade".Two women are cast here as the female leads. Anita Louise does very nicely here as the daughter of the woman who dies on the operating table. She alternates her feelings for the doctor she thinks is responsible (Flynn) from hate to love...and that's love before she learns he was not responsible for her mother's death. It's a very good performance. Margaret Lindsay as the nurse who loses Flynn but gains a cause is very, very good, as well.Sir Cedric Hardwicke is excellent here as the wise minister...in an interestingly broad portrayal as a man of God. Walter Abel is a fellow doctor who moves west and attempts to track down a cure for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Abel always interested me in films...I always like him, even though sometimes he just seems not quite right in a role...as here...yet, he does add to the enjoyment of this film. Spring Byington -- who actually was once middle-aged! -- is the mother who dies on the operating table; a good role, but brief.It you enjoy old-fashioned right versus wrong films, then you'll like this one. I did.

This one is marked for a disc-on-demand DVD release by Warner Brothers, though I don't think it will have many takers, aside from avid fans of Errol Flynn (whose co-stars, Anita Louise, Margaret Lindsay, Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Walter Abel don't exactly shine in the same kindly light). Adapted from the 1935 bestseller by Lloyd Douglas, the film could aptly be described as a Clayton's film noir, namely it's the film noir you have when you're not having a film noir. All the noirish elements are here – respected doctor who inadvertently murders a patient, idealistic colleague who takes the blame and not only sacrifices his own career, but is renounced by the murdered woman's daughter whom he had planned to marry – but they are handled in Douglas' usual disappointing lavender and lollipops style. Douglas can think up meaty, dramatic situations, but he handles them in a cop-out fashion and seems to go out of his way to avoid any real drama or suspense. He's an expert at pointing the finger, but failing to follow through. Instead, the heroic, self-sacrificing victim redeems himself not by telling the truth, but by expiating his nobility in some other fashion – in this case by allowing himself to be used a a guinea pig for an experimental vaccine that will supposedly counteract spotted fever. It does – in the book! It doesn't – in the movie! But our hero recovers anyway and is re-united with his ex-fiancée. Errol Flynn emerges creditably from this charade, whereas the girls are not only unable to disguise the rubbish that passes for dialogue, but are unflatteringly photographed to boot. In fact, Flynn is the only player who manages to emerge from Green Light with a degree of credibility. The other players, especially the young ladies in the drama, Anita Louise and Margaret Lindsay, are also unflatteringly photographed by Byron Haskin, and in addition to his shaky philosophy, Sir Cedric Hardwicke is further burdened with a ridiculous white wig.

***SPOILERS*** One of actor Errol Fynn's best as well as most underrated films as Boston Doctor Newell Paige who after being drummed out of the medical profession for a crime or blotched operation that he didn't commit put his life on the line in far off Boom Mountain Montana to develop a vaccine for the deadly Spotted Fever! It was the head of surgery Dr. Endicott, Henry O'Neill, who being heavily involved his his stock transactions that caused Dr. Paige to take it upon himself to operated on patient Mrs. Dexter, Spring Byington,because Dr. Endicott couldn't make it to the operating room on time. With Dr. Paige just about to successfully complete the operation Dr. Endicott barged into the operating room and with his stocks instead of his patient's health in mind ended up killing her by cutting her artery a bit too short that caused Mrs. Dexter to bleed to death!In covering up for Dr. Endicott's mistake Dr, Paige was forced to resign his job and look for work as either a hot dog and soda vendor at Fenway Park or or dock worker at the Boston waterfront. This at the height, 1936, or the Great Depression! What really shook Dr. Paige up more then him being blamed for Mrs. Dexter's death is that her daughter Phyllis, Anita Louise, hated him like poison for her mom's death.It was Phyllis whom Paige at first met him in Paige being introduced by his good friend Nurse Frances Ogilive, Margaret Lindsey, as Mr. Walker. It didn't take long for a starry eyed Phyllis in seeing what a hunk of a man Paige, or in her case Walker, was that she in no time at all fell madly in love with the handsome ex-doctor! That's until Phyllis found out his real identity ,the man who killed her mom, and dropped him like a hot potato!With his life and professional career in the outhouse all Paige could think of in how to redeem himself from the mess he now finds himself in. It's by Paige seeing religious radio personality Reverend Dean Hardcort, Cedric Hardwicke, that his faith is restored in the human race. That's in him doing the right thing is the road to his both freedom and redemption which the crippled and at one time suicidal Reverand discovered in his most darkest and depressing moments! This lead to a revitalized and almost angelic like Newell Paige to travel to Montana to help his good friend doctor and bacteriologist John Stafford, Walter Able, find a cure for the dreaded Spotted Fever that just about wiped out the entire state's population!Going nowhere with his research in discovering a cure and with people dying of Spotted Fever all around him Paige in an act of extreme self sacrifice infected himself, against Dr. Stafford's strong objections, with the disease in hopes of finding a cure for it. Going in an out of consciousness with his fever, as high as 104.2 degrees, reaching dangerous levels it's non other then Dr. Endicott in far off Boston who after getting the news from Nurse Ogilvie on Paige's condition who came flying in to help and save his life. Feeling responsible for Paige's degenerating condition Dr. Endicott while desperately trying to save his life blurted out the truth, with Phyllis Dexter in attendance, that he not Paige was the one responsible for Mrs. Dexter's death!***SPOILERS*** It was touch and go for a while but in the end Paige or now Doctor Paige fully recovered from the dose of Spotted Fever that he infected himself with. Using himself as a human guinea pig Dr. Paige did for mankind in that one supreme effort more then the entire medical profession did in something like 200 years in eradicating that deadly disease by using his own life to do it! That as well as keeping from the public, until he himself went public with it, the fact that it was Dr. Endicott who screwed up the operation on Mrs. Dexter that he, Dr. Paige, in fact nobly took the blame for!P.S Check out 1912 Olympic hero Jim Trorpe in a cameo role in the movie as Doctor Paige's Indian guide in Montana.

Because Green Light was done under the banner of Cosmopolitan Pictures for Warner Brothers, I've got a feeling that William Randolph Hearst might have originally intended Anita Louise's part for his amour Marion Davies. The thought of Marion Davies and Errol Flynn together in a film boggles the mind, but I'll bet Hearst would not have wanted Flynn opposite Davies for personal reasons as Errol was just starting to acquire his reputation as a rake.W.R. provided Flynn with a change of pace that he requested. After doing adventure films Captain Blood and Charge Of The Light Brigade, Flynn wanted something different. Green Light is based on a Lloyd C. Douglas novel of spiritual values and Universal had just had a smash hit in Magnificent Obsession that made Robert Taylor a major star. No doubt Hearst persuaded Jack Warner to get the film rights for Davies, but then Marion couldn't go through with it. The story does center on the man however and that was never something you would see in a Davies film.Errol Flynn plays an idealistic young surgeon who takes the rap for a botched operation that his mentor Henry O'Neill performed. Resigning the hospital he goes to work for research scientist Walter Abel who is looking for a cure for spotted fever in the west which is deadly to humans and livestock. Along the way he meets and falls for Anita Louise who is the daughter of the woman who died on the operating table, Spring Byington. Presiding over all of this is an Episcopal bishop played by Cedric Hardwicke. In her last hours Byington is heard listening to a broadcast by radio of one of Cedric Hardwicke's inspirational sermons. Hardwicke functions as the author's voice, he shares with the other characters and the audience the philosophy of self sacrifice and good works that Lloyd C. Douglas had. With all these people being so noble and self sacrificing, you know it has to turn out all right.Flynn never quite nails down the character which would have been ideal for Tyrone Power over at 20th Century Fox. Still he gives it a good try and the audience did respond. But it would be a long time before Jack Warner would cast him in a modern drama.For me the character I remember best is that of Margaret Lindsay who plays a nurse who really has it bad for Errol, but who loyally steps aside and even helps Louise get together with Flynn. Now THAT'S a sacrifice.