''Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet'' is a 1940 American

biographical film A biographical film or biopic () is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or group of people. Such films show the life of a historical person and the central character's real name is used. They differ from Docudrama, docudrama films ...

starring Edward G. Robinson and directed by

William Dieterle William Dieterle (July 15, 1893 – December 9, 1972) was a German-born actor and film director who emigrated to the United States in 1930 to leave a worsening political situation. He worked in Cinema of the United States, Hollywood primarily a ...

, based on the true story of the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

doctor and scientist Dr.

Paul Ehrlich Paul Ehrlich (; 14 March 1854 – 20 August 1915) was a Nobel Prize-winning German physician and scientist who worked in the fields of hematology, immunology and antimicrobial chemotherapy. Among his foremost achievements were finding a cure fo ...

. The film was released by

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...

, with some controversy over raising the subject of

syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms depend on the stage it presents: primary, secondary, latent syphilis, latent or tertiary. The prim ...

in a major studio release. It was nominated for an

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People and fictional and mythical characters * Oscar (given name), including lists of people and fictional characters named Oscar, Óscar or Oskar * Oscar (footballer, born 1954), Brazilian footballer ...

for its original screenplay (by Norman Burnstine, Heinz Herald and

John Huston John Marcellus Huston ( ; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics. He rec ...

), but lost to '' The Great McGinty''.

Plot

Paul Ehrlich is a physician working in a German hospital. He is dismissed for his constant disregard for hospital rules, which are bound by

bureaucratic Bureaucracy ( ) is a system of organization where laws or regulatory authority are implemented by civil servants or non-elected officials (most of the time). Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments ...

red tape Red tape is a concept employed to denounce excessive or redundant regulation and adherence to formal rules for creating unnecessary constraints on action and decision-making. The occurrence of red tape is usually associated with governments but a ...

. The reason for his conflict is his steadily rising interest in research for selective color staining, the marking of cells and

microorganism A microorganism, or microbe, is an organism of microscopic scale, microscopic size, which may exist in its unicellular organism, single-celled form or as a Colony (biology)#Microbial colonies, colony of cells. The possible existence of unseen ...

s using certain dyes and marking agents which have a certain 'affinity' for their target and nothing else.

Emil von Behring Emil von Behring (; Emil Adolf von Behring: born Emil Adolf Behring; 15 March 1854 – 31 March 1917), was a German physiologist who received the 1901 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the first one awarded in that field, for his discovery ...

, whom Dr. Ehrlich meets and befriends while experimenting with his staining techniques, is impressed with Dr. Ehrlich's staining methods and refers to it as 'specific staining,' adding that this

optical microscopy Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultravio ...

diagnostic Diagnosis (: diagnoses) is the identification of the nature and cause of a certain phenomenon. Diagnosis is used in a lot of different academic discipline, disciplines, with variations in the use of logic, analytics, and experience, to determine " ...

technique is one of the greatest achievements in science. After attending a medical presentation of the eminent Dr.

Robert Koch Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch ( ; ; 11 December 1843 – 27 May 1910) was a German physician and microbiologist. As the discoverer of the specific causative agents of deadly infectious diseases including tuberculosis, cholera and anthrax, he i ...

demonstrating that

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

is a bacterial disease, Ehrlich is able to obtain a sample of the isolated bacterium. After an intense time of research and experimentation in his own lab, paired with a portion of luck and thanks to the empathy of his wife, he is able to develop a viable staining process for the microbe. This result is honored by Koch and medical circles as another highly valuable contribution to diagnostics. During his work Dr. Ehrlich is infected with tuberculosis, then an often-deadly, incurable disease. To recover, Ehrlich travels with his wife Hedwig to the hot dry climate of

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

. There he starts to discover the properties of

immunity Immunity may refer to: Medicine * Immunity (medical), resistance of an organism to infection or disease * ''Immunity'' (journal), a scientific journal published by Cell Press Biology * Immune system Engineering * Radiofrequence immunity ...

. This discovery helps Ehrlich and colleague Dr. von Behring to fight a

diphtheria Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacteria, bacterium ''Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild Course (medicine), clinical course, but in some outbreaks, the mortality rate approaches 10%. Signs a ...

epidemic that is killing off many children in the country. The two doctors are rewarded for their efforts. Ehrlich concentrates on work to create " magic bullets" - chemicals injected into the blood to fight various diseases, thus pioneering antibiotic

chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated chemo, sometimes CTX and CTx) is the type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (list of chemotherapeutic agents, chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) in a standard chemotherapy re ...

for infectious diseases. Ehrlich's laboratory has the help of a number of scientists like

Sahachiro Hata was a prominent Japanese bacteriologist who researched the bubonic plague under Kitasato Shibasaburō and assisted in developing the antisyphilitic drug arsphenamine in 1909 in the laboratory of Paul Ehrlich. Hata received three unsuccessful no ...

. The medical board, headed by Dr. Hans Wolfert, believes much of Ehrlich's work is a waste of money and resources and fight for a reduction, just as Ehrlich begins to work on a cure for syphilis. Ehrlich is financially backed by the widow of Jewish banker Georg Speyer, Franziska Speyer, and after 606 tries he finally discovers the remedy for the disease. This substance, first called "606", then Salvarsan, is now known as

Arsphenamine Arsphenamine, also known as Salvarsan or compound 606, is an antibiotic drug that was introduced at the beginning of the 1910s as the first effective treatment for the deadly infectious diseases syphilis, relapsing fever, and African trypanosomi ...

. The joy of discovery is short-lived, as 38 patients who receive the treatment die. Dr. Wolfert denounces the cure publicly and accuses Ehrlich of murdering those who died from the cure. As faith in the new cure starts to dwindle, Ehrlich is forced to sue Wolfert for

libel Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions ...

and in the process exonerate 606. Dr. von Behring (who had earlier told Ehrlich to give up his pipe dreams of cures by chemicals), is called by the defense to denounce 606. Behring instead states that he believes that 606 is responsible for a 39th death: the death of syphilis itself. Ehrlich is exonerated, but the strain and stress from the trial are too much for his weakened body and he dies shortly thereafter, his final words being counsel to his assistants and colleagues on the risks involved in advancing medicine.

Cast

Production

Warner Bros. Studios was concerned about ''Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet'' because it was about a

venereal disease A sexually transmitted infection (STI), also referred to as a sexually transmitted disease (STD) and the older term venereal disease (VD), is an infection that is spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, or ...

, syphilis, and because Ehrlich was Jewish. This was before the U.S. entry into the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Warner Bros. did not want the movie to be political or seem to have a Jewish agenda since Germany was still a market for American films. However, Warner Bros. had already produced a series of medical biographical films during the 1930s, including the Dieterle-directed '' The Story of Louis Pasteur'' (1935) and '' The White Angel'' (1936) about

Florence Nightingale Florence Nightingale (; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was an English Reform movement, social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during th ...

. In addition, U.S. Surgeon General Thomas Parran Jr. had in late 1936 begun a syphilis control campaign to get the public to consider it to be a medical condition and not a moral failure, suggesting that a film on Ehrlich' life would be acceptable. Ehrlich was one of the greatest Jewish doctors, and in 1908 his work on immunity won a

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

. However, the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

regime in Germany had systematically expunged all memory of Ehrlich from public buildings and street signs and censored books referring to him. The Second World War had already begun but the United States was not yet directly involved. Jack Warner, like other Hollywood moguls, was wary of criticism of pursuing any supposedly "Jewish" agenda on the screen. A memorandum circulated by the studio bosses stated with regard to the forthcoming Ehrlich movie: "It would be a mistake to make a political propaganda picture out of a biography which could stand on its own feet." So the words "Jew" and "Jewish" went entirely unmentioned in the film. Anti-Semitism in Ehrlich's life was no more than hinted at, and then only once or twice. In addition, the original version of the deathbed scene was changed so that Ehrlich no longer would refer to the

Pentateuch The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () o ...

(books of Moses in the Bible). Nevertheless, the film's story writer Norman Burnside declared "There isn't a man or woman alive who isn't afraid of syphilis, and let them know that a little kike named Ehrlich tamed the scourge. And maybe they can persuade their hoodlum friends to keep their fists off Ehrlich's coreligionists." One prohibited topic of the

Motion Picture Production Code The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the Cinema of the United States, United States from 1934 to 1968. It ...

adopted in 1930 was "sex hygiene and venereal diseases" and after 1934 studios were required to submit films to the

Production Code Administration The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, the mini-major Amazon MGM Studios, as well as the video streaming services Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Fo ...

for approval. Aware of the restrictions of the Code, Warner executives seriously considered not mentioning the word "syphilis" in the movie. However, Hal B. Wallis, Warner Bros. head of production, while advising caution, wrote to the PCA that "to make a dramatic picture of the life of Dr. Ehrlich and not include this discovery he anti-syphilis drug Salvarsanamong his great achievements would be unfair to the record." Following negotiations, the film received approval under the Production Code provided no scenes showing treatment of patients with syphilis were shown, and advertising of the film could not mention syphilis. The movie's title role star Edward G. Robinson, himself Jewish, was keenly aware of the increasingly desperate situation of the Jews in Germany and Europe, and anxious for the opportunity to break out of the police and gangster roles in which he was in danger of being forever stereotyped. He met with

's daughter who had fled to the US and he corresponded with Ehrlich's widow, who was a refugee in Switzerland. "During the filming," Robinson later recalled with regard to his role as Ehrlich: "I kept to myself, studied the script, practiced gestures before the mirror, read about his life and times, studied pictures of the man, tried to put myself in his mental state, tried to ''be'' him."

Reception

References

External links