RKO, Warner Brothers and several other studios remade many films during the 1930s--often less than a decade later. As a result, when watching one of these films, it's common to have a strong sense of déjà vu--realizing after a few minutes that you'd seen this before, but with different actors. As for me, I almost always score the remakes lower as they rarely improved upon the original idea and lack originality.
This film is a remake of ONE MAN'S JOURNEY--which was also made by RKO just a few years earlier in 1933. I scored the original film a 7 on IMDb, as it was an exceptional film with fine acting by Lionel Barrymore and May Robson in the leads. This remake, while good, wasn't all that different and starred the relatively unknown actor, Edward Ellis. While Ellis was very good and seemed like a real doctor, he was hamstrung by the fact that Lionel Barrymore was such a wonderful and exceptional performer in the original--it just wasn't possible for him to outdo Barrymore. The biggest names in the film are Anne Shirley and Lee Bowman--neither which were exactly household names! They all did a competent job, but once again you can't help but compare them to the originals.
There were a few plot changes, though nothing major. Ms. Shirley's role was expanded in this film and she did NOT return to live with her biological father like in the original and May Robson's wonderful part was eliminated (this was a BIG mistake). Additionally, Garson Kanin and Dalton Trumbo gave the film a strong Populist and anti-big business slant that was NOT in the original film. In the original, ALL the people of the small town tended to take the poor old doctor for granted, whereas here the average common man DID but the evil business men did not. Considering that both director Kanin and writer Trumbo were both later blacklisted in the 1950s for their leftist sentiments, this isn't all that surprising that they'd give this slant. This isn't criticism of their politics--just how flavored this screenplay. This slant didn't hurt the film much at all, but it did tend to portray the rich in a rather one-dimensional manner. On one hand, this made the film more important as a political and social statement, but on the other it totally changed the meaning behind the original film and lacked the sentimentality as well. Still, all in all, this is an entertaining little B-movie that is well worth your time. BUT, if you only want to see one version, I do recommend you see ONE MAN'S JOURNEY--it's just a bit better.
A couple final notes. First, the only known surviving copy of the film was in a Dutch archive and has Dutch language subtitles. This isn't usually a problem and you soon don't notice this--except when letters are shown on the screen--they are in Dutch and TCM did NOT provide an interpretation of the writing! Second, a very odd and kind of creepy aspect of this film I didn't mention above is the relationship between Bowman and Shirley. They are step-brother and sister and late in the film, they seem VERY attracted towards each other. While this isn't technically incest, some might be creeped out by this!
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