User reviews

This is one of the "lost but found" films shown on TCM on 4/4/07. Apparently this and two other films shown that night were held out of public release due to litigation concerning royalties and now the powers that be at Turner Classic Movies have taken care of the licensing issues. Of the three films shown that night, none of them were great treasures but all three were excellent--very solid examples of the type of films RKO made during the era. Normally, when you think of RKO in 1933, you think KING KONG or Astaire and Rogers as a team, but there were other good films that might rank just below them in quality and entertainment.

This film is rather reminiscent of several other doctor dramas from the era (such as THE CITADEL and ARROWSMITH) where the doctor's nobility and sacrifice are celebrated. A younger Lionel Barrymore (sporting a dark doo thanks to hair dye) comes to a rural area to set up a medical practice. However, at first, he is unsuccessful and only begins to get patients when he agrees to use the barter system. Because of this, he is constantly in financial straits, but because he is so noble and decent, he doesn't give up and is eventually accepted and loved by the community. While all this could have been VERY syrupy, thanks to good writing and a terrific performance by Barrymore it is not.

There is certainly a lot more to the movie than this--including an excellent (as usual) performance by May Robson and an early performance by Joel McCrea. See this film and see a "small" film that really packs an excellent punch.

Lionel Barrymore got to play a nice guy for a change in this sentimental drama. In an unusually subdued performance, Barrymore plays a widowed family doctor starting a new life with his young son in a small town. The locals are leery of the outsider and the few cases that come his way are paid for with potatoes and eggs. When one of his patients dies in childbirth, the angry husband wants nothing to do with his infant daughter, so the kind doctor takes her in. Soon feisty May Robson comes aboard as a volunteer housekeeper. The story fast-forwards twenty years to find the son (Joel McCrea) a hotshot Type-A doctor with little time for his beautiful and long-suffering fiancée Frances Dee. At the end of course, everyone realizes how fortunate they really are. It was nice to see the luminescent Miss Dee on the big screen only two days before she died at age 94. Screened at Cinefest in Syracuse New York, March 2004.

Lionel Barrymore gave a memorably restrained performance in this 1933 film. It stands as a precursor to films such as 1959's "The Last Angry Man" with Paul Muni.

The setting takes place in rural America circa 1910. Having lost his wife in childbirth, Barrymore returns to his roots only to lose his first patient there as well to child-birth. The embittered husband is ready to take the baby to the poor house but Barrymore takes the little baby girl in along with his young son. Just on the girl's 4th birthday, the father returns and seems much reformed. Barrymore gives the girl, Letty, back to him. Letty maintains a father-like relationship with Barrymore through the years.

As the years pass, Barrymore wins the hearts of the town with his dedication and free services for the impoverished.

He lets opportunities pass which could have gotten him out of the town. Some how we know this from the George Bailey effect of 1946's "It's A Wonderful Life." Like George Bailey, this doctor is going nowhere.

May Robson costars as a beloved housekeeper who enters the Barrymore home at precisely the right time.

This is a nicely done heartwarming story of rural America from 1910 through 1933.

It's strange to see the similarities in this film and "It's A Wonderful Life" from 13 years later. Barrymore plays a country doctor, Eli Watt, who has failed at a bigger practice, has become a widower, and now returns to his small town along with his small son to set up practice on his on. His first case has a horrible outcome, although it is not the doctor's fault. A farmer's wife dies in childbirth and the farmer (David Landau) does not want the baby girl and says he will get the poor farm to come and get her. Dr. Watt takes the baby girl in as his own and raises her as his daughter, Letty. In one plot turn I could not figure out, Mae Robson appears out of nowhere and says her life is empty and figures it can be fuller by keeping house for the doctor and his family.

The film is rather melodramatic, but the great acting of Barrymore and company make it worth your while, as the good doctor gets paid rarely in money and more often in potatoes, handles epidemics, and his son Bill grows up to be...Joel McCrea! (Bill Watt as a young man). Eli has always dreamed of specializing and even traveling to Europe to study with some of the great doctors, so he can bring what he has learned back to his community. However, time after time some emergency, Bill's tuition for medical school, plus just the plain old passage of time delays that dream until finally, old age finds Eli Watt, and he resigns himself to his fate, although with contentment rather than the anger and bitterness of George Bailey.

Will anyone ever notice his sacrifice and all he has done for the town? Watch and find out. It's a sentimental journey, but worth watching.

Other odd coincidences between this film and It's A Wonderful Life - one of the characters that Dr. Watt crosses paths and locks horns with over the years is a rich banker who thinks money can fix everything and therefore everybody wants his money - much like Barrymore's character in IAWL. Also, one imminent physician who respects country doctor Eli Watt and his accomplishments and sacrifice is played by Samuel S. Hinds, who played Pa Bailey in IAWL.

One thing that came out of nowhere for me and seemed a bit silly too, and doesn't have anything to do with the plot, so I will talk about it. When Dr. Watt first shows up and Sarah (May Robson) becomes the Watt housekeeper, she looks about 20 years older than Dr. Watt - and May Robson was in fact 20 years older than Lionel Barrymore. At the end of the film Dr. Watt has aged twenty years, and Sarah looks the same, to the point that she proposes marriage and he gives one of the most unromantic acceptances in the history of the world.

Films did give quite a few age un-appropriate roles to May Robson - she was 75 when this movie was made. I guess her great energy just makes you forget her age most of the time.

Lovely movie from an earlier time. Incredibly well-acted by most concerned. Except for McCrea, who, it seems to me, is as stiff as a board. While I realize he was supposed to exude a sort of heartless diffidence, I don't think that's the problem; I just don't think he had really come into his own yet. Of course he was a tall, handsome guy with a good voice and, with time, he became a solid actor -- but it's interesting to see him upstaged by almost everyone in this early entry.

And while the film can feel "dated," what is one to expect from a bit of art that was made so long ago? Perhaps that sense of "datedness" comes from the fact that today we are just so "aware" and cynical. Personally, I like the tone of the film....

One Man's Journey is the sentimental filmed tale of the life of a country doctor as played by Lionel Barrymore. It's a nice, but very dated story, doctors like Barrymore are sadly a thing of the past.

Barrymore arrives back in his hometown, a widower with a small son who later grows up to be Joel McCrea and follows in his father's footsteps as a physician. In fact he starts off on the wrong foot by losing the mother during a difficult pregnancy. The daughter from that pregnancy grows up to be Dorothy Jordan and she's more Barrymore's child than she is of David Landau.

May Robson's in this film also as Barrymore's feisty housekeeper who brings an aged feminine touch to his household as well as a streak of practicality. She's probably the best one in the film.

One Man's Journey bears a lot of resemblance to Goodbye Mr. Chips. Like Chips the schoolmaster in Great Britain, Barrymore's Doctor Eli Watt affects literally hundreds of lives during the course of his time on earth. Like his son Joel McCrea said in a much later picture, Eli Watt enters his house justified.

It's a nice film, terribly dated though and that's not a good thing.

Soap opera spanning from the horse and buggy through to the current day, 1933, following the career of Eli Watt (played by Lionel Barrymore), a widower who has come back to his rural hometown where he fixes up "the old place" and sets himself up as town doctor (and mostly gets paid by the locals with sacks of potatoes). On his very first doctoring job, a mother giving birth dies, the angry, heartbroken dad wants nothing to do with his new baby daughter, so Doctor takes the baby home to raise along with his own young son. After four years the angry dad now regrets his decision and takes the girl back - then the years progress as Eli's son grows up and is training to be a doctor himself, and Eli becomes a hero during a local smallpox epidemic.

This is a warmhearted, interesting film boosted up by a very well done performance given by Lionel Barrymore who plays the kindly doctor with a lot of charm. May Robson is appealing here playing a plucky local woman who comes to live with the doctor and help care for the household and baby alike. Joel McCrea also appears in this as the doctor's son - he gives a nice performance but isn't really given that much to do. All in all, a quite entertaining film.

One Man's Journey (1933)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Standard drama from RKO about a country doctor (Lionel Barrymore) who could have had anything in life but he gave it all up to help others. This is the same role that Barrymore played in D.W. Griffith's The Country Doctor and he pretty much nails it. I guess there could be debate on whether John or Lionel were better actors but I think I'd give my vote to Lionel for being able to be more calm and deliver performances that aren't just over the top. He's very caring and stern here and the strong supporting cast including May Robson, Dorothy Jordan, Joel McCrea and Frances Dee do fine work as well. The one problem is that it's all very familiar and there aren't any surprises along the way.

LIONEL BARRYMORE is the central figure in a slow paced drama about a country doctor who becomes a beloved physician when he selflessly devotes himself to the care of patients, most of whom are too poor to pay him anything in return. He takes in an abandoned girl and raises her, along with his own son, although he is a widower and hasn't remarried. A fussy but helpful housekeeper (MAY ROBSON) keeps him in line and cares for the children.

Eventually, the boy grows up to be JOEL McCREA, and he too becomes a country doctor who eventually marries a young woman (FRANCES DEE) who is unhappy being a doctor's wife until Barrymore shows her the error of her ways. Dee would later marry McCrea in real life.

It's all told in an hour and twelve minutes with no background music whatsoever except for the opening titles and closing credit. The pace seems dreadfully slow, but it's interesting to see Lionel Barrymore at a stage in his life where he was still walking around and not wheelchair bound as grumpy Dr. Gillespie, the character he would play in all those Dr. Kildare films. He's less mannered than usual.

Here, he's the definition of kindness in a role you might expect Edmund Gwenn to inhabit. JOEL McCREA has a very subordinate role and he's given little to do except look handsome before he became a western star.

Summing up: Average drama with modest results.

Lionel Barrymore played a country Doctor who healed bodies as well as hearts. He helps Dorothy Jordan and James Bush and than later, Joe McCrea ( as his son) and Frances Dee. He played a character who was good hearted & hard working & was often only paid with potatoes as recompense. Sentimental, up-lifting, self-sacrifice & nobility all figure into the picture. It was remade in 1938 as A Man to Remember with Edward Ellis in the Barrymore role. The roles of Dee & Bush were dropped & in this case the son ( lee Bowman) falls in love with Anne Shirley--as the Jordan character. Acting was good all around. Jordan is pretty much forgotten today. She made several films in the early '30's and then married Merian C.Cooper. McCrea & Dee married shortly after making this picture. James Bush was in many films up to the early '50's, mostly in small, uncredited roles.

"One Man's Journey" is a rather bland movie starring Lionel Barrymore, Joel McCrea, and Frances Dee. Though it was released years before it, "One Man's Journey" reminds me of a duller version of "Mr. Holland's Opus" (1995).

This Radio Pictures movie follows Dr. Eli Watt (Lionel Barrymore). One day he came back to his humble hometown with his only son Jim and struck up his practice. He was such a caring and giving doctor that he accepted being paid in potatoes and squash. His doctoring was only outstripped by his capacity to care for his patients.

And that was pretty much it.

His life was dedicated to the country folk in his area even though he could've gone to greener pastures. There wasn't much drama or much to pay attention to. Sure, some things happened. He even had to give a "The Sin of Madelon Claudet" speech to his son's fiance to keep her from leaving him (a speech extolling his virtues though he was a busy doctor). If you slept through half of it you could wake up before the end and still have a good idea of what the movie was all about, and that's never a good thing for a movie.

Free on Odnoklassniki.

Just discovered on Mark Evanier's blog that Turner Classic Movies-on their blog-are running a feature every month. One Man's Journey is for June. This just-rediscovered RKO release from 1933 stars Lionel Barrymore as Dr. Eli Watt, a widowed man with 6-year old son Jimmy (Buster Phelps) coming back to his old country roots. Since many of the townspeople are nearly poor, Dr. Watt accepts payment in potatoes or other foods. That's what the husband of his first patient offers to him. This husband-a McGinnis (David Landau)-gets some good news and bad news. Good: He has a healthy baby girl. Bad: The mother died giving birth. McGinnis wants no part of his girl's life and threatens to kill Eli. For four years, Eli helps raise the girl with Jimmy, a dog, and their housekeeper Sarah (May Robson). Then McGinnis, having rehabilitated himself, wants her back. We then flash-forward about 15 or so years with that daughter Letty (Dorothy Jordan) grown up and helping Dr. Watt care for several children with smallpox. Son Jimmy (now played by Joel McCrea) is becoming a doctor himself. I'll stop here and mention some other players: James Bush as Bill Radford-Letty's eventual husband, Frances Dee as Joan Stockton-Jimmy's fiancée (and later McCrea's real-life wife), Dorothy Gray as Letty's daughter who has a heart-tugging scene with Barrymore when he's carrying her, and Samuel S. Hinds (or Sam Hinds as he's credited here) as Dr. Roger Babcock who pays Eli a very high compliment at the end that makes a marked contrast to me when I remember their later roles on It's a Wonderful Life as-respectively-Peter Bailey and Henry F. Potter-fighting over foreclosures in front of Bailey's son George. All of them give wonderful performances with Mr. Lionel Barrymore at his most heartwarming throughout. There's also some stirring yet underplayed musical scoring by Max Steiner. In summation, One Man's Journey is one of those "they-don't-make-them-like-they-used-to" pictures that makes you wish they still did!

Very confusing, this movie. There were automobiles, but apparently no vaccination for smallpox, which also seemed to be caused by dirt, according to the doctor. I'll bet that came as a surprise to the smallpox bacilli. I can actually remember when doctors made house calls, so I'm not going just on hearsay. Doctors, and everybody, had to wait to collect sometimes, and I'm sure there were times during the depression when eggs, a chicken and even potatoes were very welcome. I just think this movie went overboard on the sentimentality. I like a good old sentimental movie as much as anyone, but this one just slathers it on like butter. Makes you yearn for a little vinegar. I would say this movie is about as far removed from real life as you could get. Even the car wreck was clean.

This 1933 film starring Lionel Barrymore was lost for many years in the RKO vault and was finally released and is a gem of a film to view. Dr. Eli Watt is played by Lionel who returns to his home town in farm country and starts up practice after not being successful and returns with his son, Joel McCrea,(Jimmy Watt). Eli Watt finds that the local people in town cannot afford to pay a doctor and bargain with potatoes, squash and everything else but money. There is a patient who gives birth to a baby girl, however, the mother dies and the husband does not want his baby girl and threatens to kill the doctor. So Eli Watt decides to raise the baby girl who is later played by Frances Dee,(Joan Stockton). In real life Joe McCrea and Frances Dee became husband and wife and had a long marriage together. This is a very enjoyable film showing how country doctors operated years and years ago. Enjoy.

Wonderful film. Saw it last night on TCM and it made me pine for more feel-good films just like it. That's not to say it's sappy, just a refreshing break from all the cultural downers that remind us constantly how screwed-up we are. I like it when a film tries to put a spotlight on virtues like generosity and selflessness. Moreover, Lionel Barrymore is always wonderful to watch, very, very convincing, and the little song near the end (I won't spoilt it!) almost had me in tears.

With regard to the depiction of virtue, other films that come to mind are "City for Conquest," "Angels with Dirty Faces" (that ending!)and of course "Casablanca." It's especially satisfying when a character of questionable virtue steps-up when the chips are down.

I ask your help to identify a painting shown in this film. In this film, at about the 5 minute point from the beginning, there is a framed painting or print on the screen, almost filling the screen. The picture is of a doctor in a buggy racing after a stork flying with a bundle suspended below its beak. The implication is clear. Then it fades to the scene of Barrymore racing in his buggy to attend a childbirth. That scene is "boxed" by the frame. I would like to identify the name of the artist who did the painting or the name of the painting, preferably both. I saw one of these prints, from an engraving, in an antique shop. Some damage, apparently from excessive humidity. The price was too high, I thought. A few days later I went back intending to negotiate on the price. The print was sold. The seller could not recall the artist nor the name of the print. Please help me with this information if you are able to do so. Obviously, the painting was done prior to 1933 and the fact that the print was from an engraving probably dates it from the 1800s. Your response will be appreciated.

Most of these reviews are older now. But this is one movie that should not be forgotten. I disagree it's dated and somewhat stiff if you take it for what it is. Highly recommended! Wonderful story of the trials and hardships of a country doctor and the sacrifices he made. It was filmed during the Great Depression as several of Lionel's films were. I am thinking his calm presence and great acting was a comfort to the audiences then. It takes place around 1910 and progresses through the next 30 years. Very cleverly done and I think skilled direction for an early film. Lionel is always a joy to watch! Whenever he is in a movie I know we are in for a treat! One of the best actors ever! Yet it's not like he's acting at all at times. Great supporting cast too. I enjoyed him and Mae Robson together. Maybe a little sentimental but so what!