Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet

Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (William Dieterle, 1940) Credit Adolph Hitler for inspiring this film after decreeing in 1938 that "scientific discoveries by Jews are worthless."  There are all manner of refutations to such drivel, but producer Hal Wallis chose to focus on Dr. Paul Ehrlich, who, mere decades previously in Der Fuehrer's domicile, managed to rise above the medical community's flirting with anti-semitism by the sheer brilliance—and obvious results—of his research with the body's own facilities for fighting infections by creating blood serums for diseases, starting, along with Emil Behring, with diptheria in 1894.

But, that was just the beginning for Ehrlich. He began research on immunizations, their techniques, and other types of basic forms of therapy—what he termed, for the laymen and the money-men, "magic bullets" that would target and kill the diseases without harming any of the blood-stream's useful cells. 

John Huston worked on the screenplay (which won an Oscar nomination, losing out to Preston Sturges' The Great McGinty) and one can see the same template he would use to tailor the screenplay for his later film of Freud. We start seeing Ehrlich (played by Edward G. Robinson, who was anxious to get away from his gangster/thug roles) as the medical school nerd, barely tolerated by the senior staff at the medical facility because 1) he's Jewish, 2) he's curious, more so than the other students and 3) he uses an extensive amount of lab time on his own research, which is dismissed as frivolous.

It's hardly frivolous, but it's a stepping stone for more accurate diagnoses than the circumstantial evidence favored and relied upon by the older doctors (and form the basis of their expertise...and seniority). Ehrlich is experimenting with various dyes to enhance the parts of cells so they can easily be discerned through the microscope. The research is championed by one of his classmates in favor with the older doctors, Emil von Behring (Otto Kruger), who sees the value of isolating the nuclei of cells for diagnostic purposes. 

Now, that there is a procedure, a test subject is needed. Ehrlich attends a lecture on tuberculosis, and is able to obtain a sample of the bacterium for study. After much experimentation, he is able to tailor his techniques to isolate and target those cells with his identifying techniques, but in the process, catches the disease himself.

For recuperation, he goes to warmer climates of Egypt with his wife (Ruth Gordon), and in discussions with the doctors there, learns of their studies of the body's immune system and with Behring's help, starts work on a diptheria vaccine for an epidemic that is raging through the country's children at the time. His work is hailed as a major break-through in the treatment of disease through anti-biotics and immunization, but his own country looks at the work with skeptical eyes.

There's an interesting parallel between the science and the political: just as Ehrlich makes his greatest strides, the resistance to his work becomes stronger, as a disease will grow in its own resistance against treatment. Ehrlich will suffer set-backs both in his work and in the arena in which he pursues it, equating professional jealousy and outright prejudice as diseases in their own right. Given the tenor and nature of the the times in which the film was made, it's a carefully embedded message to attack a problem that might be cured in the subconscious, making the film a "magic bullet" of its own.

Dr. Paul Ehrlich c. 1908