Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940)
Movie: Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940)
“Dr. Paul Ehrlich was the German physician who developed the first synthetic antimicrobial drug, 606 or Salvarsan. The film describes how Ehrlich first became interested in the properties of the then-new synthetic dyes and had an intuition that they could be useful in the diagnosis of bacterial diseases. After this work met with success, Ehrlich proposed that synthetic compounds could be made to selectively target and destroy disease causing microorganisms. He called such a drug a “magic bullet”. The film describes how in 1908, after 606 attempts, he succeeded. Written by Anonymous”
- Director: William Dieterle
- Release Date: 2 March 1940 (USA)
- Run Time: 103 min
- Country: USA
- Genre: Biography , Drama
Tagline: Two women stood by him while all the world jeered…a world he was trying to save!
Trivia: It was hard to make a film about finding a cure for syphilis when they weren’t allowed to mention syphilis.
Goofs: Revealing mistakes: In this film’s first part, newspaper headlines talk of diptheria (sic). Must be the same ones who spell “opthalmology” (sic). The etymology of both words comes from Greek which confirms an “h” which is missing in both misspellings. Properly spelled, they are “diphtheria” and “ophthalmology.”
“The story of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin, and how their message for their generation made them targets of a US government plot. Written by Eric Wilson {ewilson@nr.infi.net}”
“Heather and Heidi Burge go to an inner-city school where they play volleyball on a team. Their father decides that they need to go to a bigger school outside of their school area so that they can get scholarships. At first the twins were supposed to be playing Volleyball at their new school but then 6′1 Heather is discovered by the basketball coach. Heidi is into drama but is forced to play basketball by her father. It’s discovered that they live out of the school zone so they have to move out of their big beautiful house into a small apartment because their father is stuck on them playing basketball. Can they overcome all of these obstacles and win the game at the end? Written by annonymous”