Errol Flynn plays a doctor in Green Light (1937) and it is delightfully weird

If you only know Errol Flynn as Robin Hood, seeing him in a sterile doctor's coat in Green Light is going to feel very weird. 🌲

It is absolutely worth a watch if you love dusty 1930s melodramas where men talk about 'duty' with tears in their eyes. But if you hate heavy-handed religious metaphors, you should probably run away fast.

Flynn plays Dr. Newell Paige, a surgeon who takes the fall for an older doctor's mistake during a fatal operation. Why does he do this? Because of some old-school gentleman code that makes zero sense to anyone living in the 21st century.

He basically goes off to the wilderness to find a cure for spotted fever, trying to commit suicide-by-science. 🔬

The whole movie has this weirdly intense, almost preachy energy. That is probably because it is based on a Lloyd C. Douglas book, the guy who specialized in making doctors look like secular saints.

Cedric Hardwicke plays a dean who spends his time giving long, radio-broadcaster speeches about the 'green light' of faith. He literally compares life to traffic lights, and it is so goofy but he delivers it with such grave intensity.

I kept waiting for Flynn to pull out a sword. Instead, he just stares intensely at test tubes.

There is a scene where a dog looks incredibly bored while Flynn is having a moral crisis. I honestly could not stop watching that dog. 🐕

The romance with Anita Louise feels like it was written by someone who had only read about love in a dusty dictionary. They just sort of stand near each other and sigh a lot.

The pacing has that slow, theatrical crawl you sometimes find in late silent films like The Manxman, though this one has a lot more talking.

Also, the music in this film is constantly blaring. Every time someone makes a decision, the orchestra behaves like they just discovered brass instruments.

It is not a great movie, but it has this earnestness that you do not see anymore. It genuinely believes in its own silly moral lessons.

If you are in the mood for something incredibly sincere and slightly ridiculous, give it a spin.