Internes Can’t Take Money

Friday, May 21 - Sunday, May 23, 2010

“[A] significant revelation… unexpectedly delicate… INTERNES (the antiquated spelling comes from the source material, a magazine story by the prolific Max Brand) casts [Barbara] Stanwyck as a young widow who has spent two years in prison, unjustly charged with having harbored her husband when he was a fugitive. She works as a clothing presser in New York City, spending her nonworking hours searching for her young daughter, whom her husband hid away in an orphanage. Even as she’s drawn to a young intern, a certain Dr. Kildare (played here by Joel McCrea, before Lew Ayres took over the character for a series of B pictures for MGM), she’s prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice and spend the weekend at the country home of a lascivious gangster (Stanley Ridges) who says he knows where the child is being held.

“Remarkably, these plot contrivances (and a few more besides) vanish into the highly stylized yet emotionally intimate atmosphere created by Santell and his cinematographer, Theodor Sparkuhl. Long camera movements through spatially complex sets create a trenchant sense of ephemerality; the dialogue direction, slow and unemphatic at a time when fast and loud was the default setting, establishes an attentive tenderness between the main characters, further developed by the emphasis on the silent looks they exchange.” – Dave Kehr, The New York Times, April 25, 2010

• Country USA
• Rating NR
• Year 1937
• Running Time 78 minutes
• Director Alfred Santell

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