MovieChat Forums > Three Comrades (1938) Discussion > Miracle of cinematic medicine

Miracle of cinematic medicine


They surgically removed her rib (even collapsed a lung in the procedure), yet I see no bandages, dressings nor drainage beneath her gown in the last scene! And I didn't see her wince with pain even once when she got up and walked to the window! Their surgical techniques must have been much more advanced back then! ;-)

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i missed the beginning of the film, what was wrong with her anyway? TB?

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Do everything in Love. I Corinthians 16:14 NIV

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Yes, I think the plot synopsis (on one of these sites) said tuberculosis.

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Having undergone major surgery, I also find it miraculous that she can look so luminous with perfect hair and makeup, lipstick and mascara while lying in a hospital bed shortly after surgery. Most people look like they've been in a fight! That's why I loved Bette Davis' refusal to wear "hollywood" bandages in her role as Mildred in "Of Human Bondage," where she left the studio and allowed her own doc to "make her up." Guess realism wasn't in vogue back then.

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They overdid the mascara on Margaret Sullivan throughout the film with its many close-ups of her, both when she was sick and when she was well. It only made her final scene with Taylor look slightly ridiculous.

That's one of the reasons she looked better in this film than most of her other MGM films--but it worked against the character she was playing.

"Somewhere along the line, the world has lost all of its standards and all of its taste."

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Speaking of Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage. I never knew that tidbit but the scene of her dying in the hospital is about the sickest I ever seen anyone real or in a movie. And the scene haunts me every time I see the movie. Thanks for the 411. In most movies the stars never look sick. They sleep in their makeup, get operations with makeup and even when they get beat up they look good. A little piece of their hair is always a mess but that is about it.

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Actually...according to wikipedia... it was in Marked Woman that bette davis had her doctor do her bandages...

" When Davis was made-up for the scene in the hospital room, she was unhappy with the minimal bandaging that had been used, so on her lunch break she drove to her personal doctor, described the injuries that the script called her character to have, and had him bandage her accordingly. When she returned to the studio, a guard at the gate saw her bandages and called executive producer Hal B. Wallis to tell him that Davis had been in an accident. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marked_Woman

And about Of Human Bondage...

" Davis designed her own makeup for the scenes depicting the final stages of Mildred's illness, changed from syphilis to tuberculosis to satisfy the demands of the Hays Code,[8] which finally was being enforced four years after it was adopted. "I made it very clear that Mildred was not going to die of a dread disease looking as if a deb had missed her noon nap. The last stages of consumption, poverty and neglect are not pretty and I intended to be convincing-looking. We pulled no punches and Mildred emerged . . . as starkly real as a pestilence." "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Human_Bondage_(1934_film)

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I concur, it is indeed the miracle of cinematic medicine that allows the quick healing of cuts, bruises, broken bones, concussions, and even gunshot wounds. Many times without even the benefit of a doctors treatment!? Injuries that would completely incapacitate a normal human being, are just a slight annoyance to the hero, leading man/woman!!

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