Customer Reviews

Sister Kenny [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This movie is superb and chronicles the life of Sister Elizabeth Kenny, the Australian nurse, who was a pioneer in Physical Therapy, and who invented a successful treatment for polio. As a nurse in isolated areas, and without prior knowledge of the traditional treatment for polio, she treated victims based on her observation of the symptoms. She used new words like "spasm", used hot compresses, and re-educated muscles. Her treatment was so successful that she eventually opened her own clinics. The movie shows the sacrifices she made in her own personal life, because of her calling to help children who contracted polio. It took a long time for her approach to be recognized by the male dominated medical establishment. It is a very heart-warming story and I admit I get goosebumps in a few places, especially at the moment that she realizes that children who are not treated using her method are still crippled from the disease. I would strongly recommend this movie. It's a real classic.

Sister Kenny was an amazing, interesting woman. I would have loved to have met her. The movie is just a taste of her amazing full life; well worth watching. Such a pity it is not on DVD yet.

At first I felt this film was pretty slow. I had difficulty liking sister Kenny since I felt it was foolish of her to want to marry when she was so needed by all those sick kids. But the film grew on me, and the enormity of her sacrifice and the hardship she endures to try to persuade the stubborn doctors to change their treatment of polio was quite moving.

By the end of this film, I felt quite impressed. Kenny was a courageous woman who did what she thought was right.. No matter the cost to her own happiness.

This was well worth the watch. I only wish Kenny had found a boyfriend who could've supported her and her cause, or a doctor who could've sponsored her research... Things might've been easier.

Rosalind Russell has done it again. She is just as convincing in this role (of a dedicated woman trying to save kids from the crippling affects of polio), as she was in "Auntie Mame" (guiding young Patrick through life's pitfalls). She does her best work with kids; such as in "Gypsy", and "The Trouble With Angles" (where she plays Mother Superior to two mischievous students in a convent school). If you feel the need to be inspired by a truly dedicated and forthright person within a world of adversity; then this film is for you. Also; if you are a Russell fan (and haven't yet seen this one), you are in for a treat. If only more dedicated people out there (and there are many) could have their work recognize (within various fields); this would be a most fortunate world indeed. I am a Philosopher and writer of aphorisms (thematic verse); my work is found at Lulu,com/RachelPugh.

"Sister Kenny" is a worthy film-biography about a worthy woman. Rosalind Russell usually turns in a good performance, as she does in this role.

Having said, I was disappointed in the "Australia-lessness" of this production. I find Australia a fascinating country and was hoping for a good story with some cultural authenticity. But the only thing Australian about this film was the outline of the continent at the beginning and end, behind the credits, and the occasional reference to the "Royal" commissions. But nary an authentic Australian accent anywhere -- not even an attempt at one. Even in the short scene set in England the voice over the train station's public address system is American.

Apparently it was easy and cheap to represent Australia in the 1940s, if mostly on a studio set. Well, the wagons are similar (borrow from the Western props), the "frontier" feels the same (lots of fences and painted skies handy); throw in a few Irish or Scots accents (immigrants, don't you know) and, voila, Australia! When Sister Kenny finally disembarks at San Francisco you feel, well, she's come home at last. G'day, mate.

Thanks to the real Sister Kenny for a good and useful life. Her story deserves a more realistic re-telling. Let the Australians do it. She belongs to them.

This movie is a very impacting movie chronicling the uphill battle of Sister Kenny in getting her innocent, yet revolutionary, methods for curing the symptoms of polio accepted by the medical community. Rosalind Russell received an Academy Award Nomination for her flawless portrayal of a strong-willed nurse who challenges the medical community for being so closed minded and clinging to their archaic methods that come out of books and not out of treating real patients. This is a must see.

This movie was written by Dudley Nichols, who had written many of John Ford's greatest movies. I wonder if he ever offered it to Ford to direct. Certainly John Ford would have done more to suggest the Australian outback and the general "frontier spirit" of the people Sister Kenny toiled among. In fact, maybe Ford's last movie "7 Women," similarly about a pack of nurses stranded along the frontier, is a kind of tip of the hat to Nichols version of the Sister Kenny saga.

When watching the Nichols movie, it's important to realize that Kenny was still alive when this film was made, only sixty in fact when it was released, and she was to live on into the 50s. The script was taken from her memoirs, AND THEY SHALL WALK, which appeared during the War in 1943, during a critical time in US-Australia relations. Sister Kenny had sort of been rebuffed from her native Australia, and was practicing at the clinic she had set up in Minnesota, so perhaps in filming this biopic the US was patting itself on the back for accepting yet another "refugee: with impractical ideas.

Alexander Knox, who had starred in the dreary WILSON, was brought in to play the Scottish doctor who comes to approve of Sister Kenny's unorthodox methods. Dean Jagger is his usual cold self. Rosalind Russell does a great job of acting in the old "HAM" acting tradition she seems to have founded herself. One appealing thing is that, Roz must have taken a shine to little Doreen McCann, who plays the young girl she heals of polio, for Doreen was to turn up in a prominent part is another Russell film of the very next year, THE GUILT OF JANET AMES, also worthy of DVD treatment.

I think they should make a new version of SISTER KENNY that would stick to the facts better, and taking a while chance they should showcase Kylie Minogue in it. Kylie has been a successful pop star but had never had a suitable nexus for her acting. Certainly there is little in her past that would wuggest she would make a good Sister Kenny, but Rosalind Russell had never played anything as dramatic either at this point in her career, and look how well it turned out! And now that Kylie is approaching her late 30s, it would be nice if she had something to fall back on. Plus she works well with children, of whom there would be plenty in this movie. And she has helped thousands of sick children (and adults) with her charity work. This role would be an extension of that. At least she would have the Aussie accent down pat.

Sister Elizabeth Kenny was ,beyond question,a remarkable woman.Her pioneering treatments for polio victims were eventually hailed all over the world and her triumph was achieved in the face of often implacable resistance from the medical establishment in her native Australia and elsewhere.It is an inspiring story about a redoubtable woman
This is not alas a movie that does either her or her achievements justice.It is too slow,the tone is over reverential and the acting is just plain bad.Lighting is dull and unimaginative and pacing funereal
The story is there on screen but presented in so flat and unimaginative a way that audiences will most probably cease to care long before it crawls its way to a climax that is leaden rather than inspirational
Misfiring tribute to an exceptional person but hopefully the movie will inspire some to read about the woman and if so it will have served a useful purpose