They don't do melodramas such as this one anymore.Had Sirk seen it in the fifties,he would perhaps have thought of a remake .There's everything in this short movie (hardly more than an hour):two brothers,both students, one of them studying day after day to get his diploma,the other one wasting his time with alcohol and semi-whores .Both come from the country,but only the "bad" boy is the true son of the peasant mother who dreams of a better life for her son(s).All that follows is melodrama ,only melodrama and nothing but melodrama:the good boy unfairly thrown into jail ,imposture (but do not panic ,for good reasons)the good doctor who cures the poor for peanuts and charges the wealthy outrageously ,who is a saint in a hospital ,but who's got secrets to conceal.The only ambiguous character is the mother:does she urge his son to take his brother's name for the sake of suffering humanity or for personal ambition? Probably both.
Best scene:Barthelmess ,screaming in front of the medical board :" let me operate her!She's my mother! don't be inhuman! I'm the only one she puts her trust in!".If you hold back your tears ,you do not like melodramas.I do love them.Michael Curtiz wanted to be John M.Stahl and he pulled it off brilliantly.
Best scene:Barthelmess ,screaming in front of the medical board :" let me operate her!She's my mother! don't be inhuman! I'm the only one she puts her trust in!".If you hold back your tears ,you do not like melodramas.I do love them.Michael Curtiz wanted to be John M.Stahl and he pulled it off brilliantly.