Dr. Sam Abelman (Paul Muni) is fighting the whole world. The poverty, the hypocrisy, the cruelty, his patients, the drug companies, dishonest doctors—all galoots! His gripes are so generic you might just see them on a t-shirt from Hot Topic.
But when the doctor gets his name in the newspaper as the “Good Samaritan of the slum,” TV executive Woody Thrasher (David Wayne) sees his next hit special. Thrasher convinces Sam to do it, then watches horrified as Sam starts badmouthing drug companies during a dress rehearsal. But Thrasher’s program is sponsored by a drug company!
On the night of the special, Sam has to rush down to the jail to see his patient Josh (Billy Dee Williams). While there, Sam has a heart attack; the show is canceled, and later, Sam dies. The doctor signs the death certificate: “Cause of death? Fighting other people’s battles.”
Rating: 4/10. Movie’s cause of death: boredom.
Cast and Crew
Legend of the screen Paul Muni had pretty much just moved to stage plays by 1946, so it was Oscar catnip when he came back for one last rodeo. Muni was a Golden Age of Hollywood star, receiving four Best Actor nominations between 1928 and 1937. Two of these were for biopics: he played French scientist Louis Pasteur in 1936 and Emile Zola in 1937.1 Muni was also in “I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang” (1932), which is a movie with a title that doesn’t leave much to the imagination, and also played Scarface in the original Scarface (1932).
Billy Dee Williams played Josh, the kid with “fits” (seizures) that Dr. Abelman is seeing. You may know Williams as Lando Calrissian from the Star Wars franchise, but he also played Chicago Bear Gale Sayers in Brian’s Song (1971). Most importantly, he starred in commercials for Colt 45 in the 1980s.
The Trivia
After Sam’s heart attack, he calls for “half a grain of morphine,” so today, we’re discussing systems of measurement! You’re probably aware of the metric system, also called the International System of Units (SI).2 All units can be expressed in terms of the seven base SI units.
“That’s crazy,” you might say. “I know so many more units than that. How can they all be expressed just using those seven?” Science. As an example, take voltage. Voltage represents electric potential, and electric potential can be rewritten as power over electric current.
“Yeah, okay, I see that electric current is measured in the SI unit amperes, but what the hell is power?” Power is wattage, which is measured in watts.
“But the watt isn’t an SI unit.” Yeah, but the watt can be decomposed into joules (a unit of energy) per second.
“BUT THE JOULE ISN’T AN SI UNIT.” Yeah, but joules decompose into newtons (a unit of force) times meters.
“I swear to God…” Don’t worry, we’re there. Newtons are equal to kilograms times acceleration—and acceleration is meters over seconds squared. So voltage = kg⋅m2⋅s−3⋅A−1. Four SI units, hooray!
“I didn’t like that.” Ah, maybe you prefer units like pounds and pints. That means you’re a fan of the Imperial system. This system is also fancily called “avoirdupois,” which is French for “goods of weight.” U.S. customary units, which also include pounds and pints, are similar—but not the same—as Imperial.3 Sometimes we have a failure to translate Imperial units to metric and burn up an orbiter in Mars’ atmosphere.
Though all these scales have units for weights, we use a separate scale for the weights of precious metals. These are troy weights; the name comes from the city of Troyes, in France. The troy pound is slightly heavier than an Imperial pound. It’s also subdivided differently: a troy pound is 12, not 16, ounces. That ounce is broken into units that aren’t used in Imperial: a troy ounce is 20 pennyweights, and each pennyweight is 24 grains.4
So what weighs more: a pound of feathers or a pound of silver?
Pharmacists also have their own weight system: apothecary weights. The pound, ounce, and grain are the same between apothecary and troy, but apothecary breaks their ounce into drams and scruples.
Because pharmacists also measure liquids, there are also wild ‘n’ wacky apothecary volume measurements. Two to know are the fluid dram (an eighth of a fluid ounce) and the minim (one-sixtieth of a fluid dram). Colloquially, “dram” is also used to refer to a little bit of liquor.
Odds and Ends
Thrasher says that 30 million people will be watching Dr. Abelman on TV; only sports can do those numbers today5…after Sam’s heart attack, a doctor gives him an electrocardiogram (EKG); this captures the electrical activity of the cardiac cycle (which is comprised of the P wave, the QRS complex, and the T wave)…after the heart attack, that doctor prescribes heparin, an anticoagulant…the phrase pig in a poke refers to when you buy something sight unseen…Thrasher casually pops dexedrine; dexedrine is the trade name for dextroamphetamine, which is now used to treat ADHD…Sam is jokingly compared to Albert Schweitzer, the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize winner who opened a hospital in Gabon…Paul Muni also originated the role of Henry Drummond in the play “Inherit the Wind.”
And some bonus units: survey measurements used to be taken in units that referenced the tools used to do the surveying. These included links, rods, and chains. Surveying also gave us the furlong (a furlong is 660 feet) and the league (a league is 3 miles).
That Zola film—The Life of Emile Zola—won Best Picture.
For Système international d'unités.
Our fluid ounce is bigger than theirs but our pint and gallon are smaller. We also have the short ton (2000 pounds) while they use the long ton (2240 pounds). Imperial also uses the stone, which is 14 pounds. Because things are difficult, there were once very, very small differences in distance measurement, but we won’t talk about that.
Carats, which are equal to 0.2 grams, are not considered part of these systems of measurement. Also, for reference, “karats” are different than “carats”: they’re used for gold and refer to purity, not weight (with 24 karat gold being pure gold).
Only three telecasts, all football, had over 30 million viewers last year.