watered-down penicillin?
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Ford-kp — 18 years ago(July 13, 2007 04:33 PM)
Given in the wrong dosis (and I think that's the point), the patient can become immune to penicillin treatment in the future (in some cases basically a death sentence). Maybe there are some negative side effects, too.
This man has eyes like a racoon.. But he has a good hat. -
Altho73 — 18 years ago(July 21, 2007 02:06 PM)
I would say that diluted penicillin would be ineffective in treating the illness. The below effective level of penicillin would be just sufficient to keep the patient alive but would be insufficient to prevent the bacteria from spreading and causing brain damage.
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hehadalottosay — 18 years ago(August 02, 2007 10:36 AM)
Graham Green got the idea from a true incident. There was terrible hunger and poverty across Europe which led to terrible diseases. Children were worst affected and penicillin, then a recent discovery, was needed to treat them. As it was in short supply, a black market sprang up, and to make more money some unscrupulous people started to dilute it. This watered down penicillin not only failed to cure, it killed.
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slainzcasl — 18 years ago(August 04, 2007 11:47 AM)
During the war, my mother was in hospital with a carcenoid tumour and was treated with penicillin which was in its experimental stages in those days. It actually worked. They just would not use penicillin for that sort of thing nowadays - people get nuked.
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frodo_unplugged — 18 years ago(August 11, 2007 02:57 AM)
that's why I never understood that the whole fuss about Harry Lime is a bad person, Harry Lime poisons the sick. penicillin doesn't turn into poison when watered down, it's just less effective, and since there wasn't enough penicillin on the market, most of those "poor" children would have died anyway. that's what makes Orson's character so ambiguous, doesn't it. he's not really such a bad chap after all, just trying to survive in a post war society.
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Buwzo — 18 years ago(August 12, 2007 06:02 AM)
Its quite clear that he is very aware that his making money from the diluted penicilin is at the cost of many lives. He says so himself in the scene on the wheel. I think you need to watch it again if you simply think that he is not such a bad chap and just trying to make a few quid, he is a murderer and he knows it.
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pmiano100 — 18 years ago(August 17, 2007 02:24 AM)
He didn't have to be in that post-war society. He could have always gone back home to the USA and gotten a job. Penicillin was pretty much the only effective antibiotic there was back then. By diluting it so badly it was ineffective, Harry caused the deaths of children who might have lived. Even one death was too many. America was shipping huge supplies of penicillin to Western Europe then. Greedy swine like Harry stole tons of it and sold it to the highest bidder, including the accursed Communists. They couldn't make enough of their own because their facilities were destroyed during the war.
Let's not forget he also murdered Sgt. Paine in cold blood. We don't even know if Harry or Holly were veterans. I don't recall either of them talking about being in the service. Harry might have been a deserter, or just a draft-dodging opportunist who went to Europe after the war to make an illegal fortune. Like all psychopaths, he didn't give a tinker's dam if he made a bad situation worse and children died - just so long as he got rich. Yes, he really was a bad chap. Killing him was the best thing Holly ever did in his whole life.
I liked that Holly was a fool, believing almost to the end that his old college buddy was a nice guy. I am so sick of stories where ordinary men and women magically turn into near super-heroes, outfighting and outsmarting professionals who've been in the business for years. -
Altho73 — 18 years ago(August 19, 2007 04:03 AM)
'I liked that Holly was a fool, believing almost to the end that his old college buddy was a nice guy. I am so sick of stories where ordinary men and women magically turn into near super-heroes, outfighting and outsmarting professionals in the business for years.'
Yes I entirely agree with you there, Holly Martins a pretty ordinary man found himself completely out of his depth with regard to Calloway and the police and Harry Lime's criminal organisations.
I absolutely hate modern movies where the simple, naive, ordinary guy or girl (Will Smith in 'Enemy of the State', Demi Moore in 'The Juror', Tom Cruise in 'The Firm', Steve Guttenburg in 'The Bedroom Window' etc, etc, etc, etc, the list is endless) manage to completely outsmart, outfight, outthink, outclass dedicated professionals (FBI, CIA, police. Government etc) and dangerous criminal organisations (The Mafia etc) who are experts in their jobs. In reality these characters would have been jailed or wiped out in their first confrontation with the big guys.
Another thing I hate is that whenever these people visit any building, a hotel, nightclub, office block etc they are always able to park directly outside the main doors! I've been trying in vain to do that for the past fifteen years! -
pmiano100 — 18 years ago(August 21, 2007 09:13 PM)
That parking thing has bugged me for years too. For that alone, the bad guys should kill them.
I think the average shnook today feels pretty powerless and wants to believe that if necessary, he or she could strike back and come out on top. The truth is, most of us wouldn't know where to begin. Even if we did win a temporary victory, it wouldn't last. The big boys have a long reach and longer memories. Sooner or later, there would be an "accident." -
Altho73 — 18 years ago(August 23, 2007 01:11 PM)
Another thing I hate about today's films is that often the hero of the film (a detective, lawyer, secret agent, cowboy etc) are such repulsive, foul mouthed, arrogant jerks that I am unable to relate to them at all and end up rooting for the bad guys.
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pmiano100 — 18 years ago(August 23, 2007 09:33 PM)
And the women heroes are arrogant, contemptuous, foul-mouthed bxxxxxs as well. Of course they're all drop-dead gorgeous so they can get away with anything. To be PC, I can't even say "heroine" anymore. I think they make the main heroes/heroines that way to appeal to teenagers, who are the majority of filmgoers, especially in the summer and holidays.
Holly started out being arrogant and snotty, but he was humbled when he realized how wrong he'd been about everything. I'm glad he didn't get the girl. She was worthless anyway. She thought being a police informer was worse than being a child-killer.
Also, have you ever noticed how well the men and women heroes handle firearms, even if they're not law officers or even military veterans? I am a military veteran and it takes at least months to develop expertise with a firearm. Those movie firearms often never have to be reloaded either. I once saw a movie where Clint Eastwood fired a six-shooter twelve times without reloading. -
Altho73 — 18 years ago(August 24, 2007 10:23 AM)
Dead right about firearms, it always amuses me when they show 5 foot nothing, 90 pound women who have never used a handgun, holding a Colt 45 in one hand and hitting a moving target. In reality they'd have problems hitting a wall ten yards away.
Try watching 'Where Eagles Dare' where Clint shoots every German in sight with a silenced pistol whereas the German army had made the incredible error of arming their entire division with blanks.
Other film traits that I find totally amusing -
A trait of 1970's films, actors playing military men, characters based in the 1920's, 30's, 40's etc appear in character after flattening down their hippy hair and slicking it back behind their ears thinking that it would look realistically short! Were they afraid of having haircuts?
A trait of 1980's films, almost every attractive woman that the hero meets ends up in bed with him TEN SECONDS LATER!!!!! They fall for the most nauseating chat up lines,,, take a sick bag with you to watch these films!!!! -
pmiano100 — 18 years ago(August 25, 2007 12:49 AM)
I saw "Where Eagles Dare" too. Eastwood fired two full-sized submachine guns, one in each hand, into a stone corridor without breaking his wrists or the bullets ricochetting all over the place. He would have needed a magazine 3 feet long to fire as many rounds as he did without reloading.
Other TV/movie traits that bother me:
Martial-arts heroes able to defeat 12 foes at once. Actually, it's never at once. The idiots always attack him one at a time. None of them has a gun or the good sense to stand back and throw a lamp at his head while he's busy.
Skinny "kick-butt" heroines who manage to throw 6'6", 250 lb. men through windows or across rooms.
Heroes who get up and fight totally unaffected after taking blows that would put anyone else in a coma, and have no bruises, marks, or bleeding.
Whenever the hero has to switch clothes with an enemy he's killed or knocked out, the clothes are always a perfect fit. This happens even if the two are nowhere near the same size.
No matter what her rank, every policewoman is gorgeous and none look over 40 except the African-American woman on "Law & Order." -
Altho73 — 18 years ago(August 25, 2007 01:39 AM)
More things in movies that I hate -
In 'GI Jane' Chief John Urgayle grabs Jordan O'Neil by her shirt and delivers a full force punch directly in her face and she's okay a few seconds later.
In reality her the bone structure of her face would have been shattered.
How the hero is involved in a car chase where his car is shunted, does a triple turn-over, skids along on its roof for a few minutes, crashes into a stone wall and the hero emerges unscathed and runs after the bad guy. - In reality a friend of mine was shunted at 40 mph and spent three weeks in a neck brace.
When the hero is cornered on the Golden Gate Bridge but avoids the bad guys by diving of the top of the bridge into the bay and then swims away. - In reality he'd be dead.
How the hero, maverick cop is always right and the police chief is always wrong, and how can he always keep his job when he swears at the chief and calls him every name under the sun.
How US and British soldiers always stay behind cover when firing at the Germans, Japanese etc, yet the Germans and Japanese always stand on top of the barricade and present themselves as sitting ducks. -
pmiano100 — 18 years ago(August 25, 2007 08:52 AM)
In response -
"5 foot-nothing, 90 lb. women" knock huge men out with one punch.
Women in films are allowed to punch out men for the most minor slight but men can't even slap women no matter what they do. In "Live Free or Die Hard," good-guy Bruce Willis gives multiple murderer Maggie Q a well-deserved beating and the critics gave him hell.
Heroes crash through windows and glass doors and come out unscathed instead of covered with a thousand cuts and bleeding profusely.
Enlisted men and junior officers defy and insult colonels and generals and get away with it. In real life, they'd be court-martialed for insubordination.
A fugitive gets help from people who've only known him 5 minutes, risking jail themselves, because they believe him when he says he's innocent.
WWII pictures where German officers curse out the one Nazi in the whole unit (you'd think there were only 12 Nazis in all of Germany), totally unconcerned that one word from the guy will send them either to Russia or a firing squad. -
Altho73 — 18 years ago(August 26, 2007 03:20 AM)
How plain, mousy women are suddenly transformed into drop dead gorgeous beauties by merely letting their tied back hair down or removing their glasses. How these women wear glasses for the first half of the film, yet when the hero shows an interest in them, they suddenly have perfect eyesight and never need glasses again!
In 'A Time to Kill', Samuel L Jackson's character takes a rifle and kills two men (and seriously injures a completely innocent bystander) yet he gets acquitted by reason of insanity and amazingly is set free, (not sent to an institution to undergo the tender loving care of Nurse Ratchet.)
In 'Mississippi Burning' Gene Hackman's FBI agent beats up and tortures a suspect in front of several eyewitnesses. Yet this act is regarded as perfectly acceptable.
In 'The Unforgiven', Clint Eastwood's character ends up in a gunfight with a sheriff and seven deputies and manages to shoot each of them in turn while they all miss him.
In 'Silence of the Lambs' Jodie Foster is a TRAINEE FBI AGENT, yet she gets put in charge of a case and orders experienced cops around as if they were junior school children.
In 'Speed', Where do I start????