[Quick Summary: Since no one believes that mosquitos are carriers of yellow fever, Major Walter Reed asks five U.S. soldiers in Cuba to become human test subjects.]
Q: How do you possibly make a standard biopic interesting?
A: For me, it lies in the character of Dr. Finlay, a cranky, irascible physician with a huge chip on his shoulder. He's of Scottish-French descent, but grew up in Cuba.
Q: Why is he so cranky?
A: No one will publish his theory about the transmission of yellow fever for the last 20 years, and the medical community have openly mocked him.
Q: What makes his introduction memorable?
A: The writers do a great job of using the environment to convey something about a character. It's spooky, odd, makes us uneasy, just like Dr. Finlay.
In the scene below:
- Major Reed has just asked Dr. Finlay for some of his unhatched mosquito eggs, in order to conduct human experiments.
- Reed, Agramonte, Lazear, Carroll are all U.S. soldiers.
- Notice how the writers use the environment to inform us about Dr. Finlay's character: musty books, shuttered windows, creepy cages of mosquitos speak to a research who cares about his work, not looks.
- It tells also draws us in, makes us curious. What is this mystifying, unknown we're about to step into?
The scene dissolves into a close-up fo a CAGE OF LARGE STRIPED STEGOMYIA MOSQUITOES, which flash as they move about and give forth a curious droning sound. Then the view, drawing back, discloses DOCTOR FINLAY'S STUDY, a dimly lit room with curious angles. It has many cabinets containing the complex paraphernalia of a doctor and scientist...cases of musty books...a long table strewn with evidence of intensive and lonely study. In a corner near a shuttered window is the cage, placed on a table. Also on this table are several porcelain dishes covered with gauze. These contain dry eggs of the Stegomyia. DR. FINLAY leads MAJOR REED and his doctors up to the "menagerie."
FINLAY (pointing to the mosquitoes as they cling against the inside of the screen): You see her there... (He speaks with the purring affection of a connoisseur, relating the admirable qualities of his specimens.) My silver beauty...my spoiled darling! Do not think that she is a wild creature of the jungle. Ah, no....She is highly civilized. She would die wi'out your society - and epicure...feeding on the softest and tenderest parts of the human flesh...under the wrists or along the ankles...never on the face or the top of the hands. (With a soft chuckle) Those places are the most easily...slapped!
REED (peering closer to the screen): These are all females?
FINLAY: Aye...a bevy of bonny lassies, each wi' a kiss of death. The male is decent. He is not a vampire.
CARROLL (sharply): How did you pick this one out of eight hundred different kinds?
FINLAY: By her habits! She alone cannot live in the swamps. She alone can live only with human beings. She alone deposits her eggs only in clear pure water, in artificial objects - glasses, pitchers, flower pots....Is she not Greek in her purity?
REED: Amazing!
AGRAMONTE: Horrible!
LAZEAR: Fascinating!
CARROL (to Reed): Let's get out of here.
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: I learned a lot about Dr. Finlay simply seeing his carefully curated cages of flesh eating mosquitos.
And the fact that he's so proud of the mosquitos? It's another level of depth.
Yellow Jack (1938)
by Edward Chodorov
Based on the play by Sidney Howard, in collaboration with Paul de Kruif
* What is yellow fever?
It is a epidemic prone, viral disease that is spread by mosquitos. Its symptoms are fever, muscle pain, headache, nausea and vomiting.
A small percentage of people infected with the virus develop a life-threatening form
of the disease that involves high fevers, internal bleeding, vomiting
of blood and jaundice—which is where the “yellow” in yellow fever comes
from. It has been estimated that for every 1 case of severe infection, there are between 1 and 70 infections that are asymptomatic or mild.
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