Syringes and Scalpels

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 671, 16 May 1952, Page 17

Syringes and Scalpels

WHITE CORRIDORS (Rank-Vic Films) ET almost entirely in a hospital and very neatly enclésed between its opening and closing shots, White Corridors is, I feel sure, a film whieh just about everyone will like. Its main story concerns the search by Dr. Neil Marriner (James Donald) for a drug which will be effective against penicillin-resist-ant infections-a search which is given added point when a most likeable small boy (Brand Inglis), who has jabbed a gimlet in his hand, develops such an infection. In the end Dr. Marriner infects himself with the same poison, leaving his fiancée, Dr. "Dean "(Googie Withers), to choose between using an unproved drug which he has developed and letting him die. I’m afraid the orthodox might not approve of the way this is worked out. If this story had been magnified to fill the screen, so to speak, White Corridors might have turned out a_ rather ordinary film. Instead, it is set against a quickly changing picture of the busy life of a hospital, where other people also have their worries, private and professional, and have to do something about them. The new probationer learns to look at a man’s burned face. A man with lumbago finds out how to get admitted to hospital The management board faces its staff and money problems. A selfish young surgeon puts his private affairs before the proper diagnosis of a woman’s, "headache," which turns out to be a cerebral abscess for which his father must do an "emergency." A staff nurse is jilted and finds revenge. White Corridors, which is based on Helen Ashton’s Yeoman’s Hospital, is, of course, a fiction film, but its direction (by Pat Jackson), photography (by C. Pennington-Richards) and even in places its script (by Pat Jackson and Jan Read) give it a strong documentary flavour which adds greatly to its power. This flavour isn’t surprising, since Mr.

a a nn SSN Jackson (who, by the way, made Western Approaches) comes from the British school of documentary directors. _ For a film of this flavour, the choice of players is excellent. Miss Withers fits very naturally into her role, and in a very quiet way Mr. Donald is | impressive in his. Their personalities don’t obtrude which is true also of the rest of a very good cast.