Disputed Passage (1939)

A young doctor (John Howard) is taken under the wing of an esteemed surgeon (Akim Tamiroff) whose philosophy is the focus of science and medicine over a personal life. But when the young doctor falls in love with a Caucasian woman (Dorothy Lamour) raised as Chinese, the older doctor takes it upon himself to interfere in the relationship. Based on the novel by Lloyd C. Douglas (THE ROBE) and directed by Frank Borzage (7TH HEAVEN). Douglas was a minister turned author and his novels had a spiritual bent. This tended to make films adapted from his books rather heavy handed and it took a director like Douglas Sirk (who directed Douglas's MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION in 1954) whose lavish style was able to make some sort of cohesive cinematic sense of Douglas's preachy writing. Here, Borzage seems to have a handle on the material in the early portion of the film only to ultimately be defeated by the didacticism in the material which makes the latter half (set in China) sluggish. With Keye Luke and Elisabeth Risdon.