Kings Row (1942)

Kings Row is a 1942 film starring Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings, and Ronald Reagan that tells a story of young people growing up in a small American town at the turn of the twentieth century, beset by social pressure, dark secrets, and the challenges and tragedies one must face as a result of these hard facts. The picture was directed by Sam Wood.

The film, which was Ronald Reagan's most notable role during his early acting career at Warner Brothers, was adapted by Casey Robinson from a best-selling 1940 novel of the same name by Henry Bellamann. The movie also features Betty Field, Charles Coburn, and Claude Rains. The musical score was composed by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and the cinematographer was James Wong Howe.

In the film, Reagan's character, Drake McHugh, has both legs amputated by a sadistic surgeon, played by Coburn. When he comes to, following the operation, he gasps in shock, disbelief, and horror, "Where's the REST of me???" Reagan used that line as the title of his 1965 autobiography. Reagan and most film critics considered Kings Row his best movie. Reagan called the film a "slightly sordid but moving yarn" that "made me a star.

Synopsis

The film commences in 1890 in the small town of Kings Row, focusing on five children. They are Parris Mitchell, who lives with his grandmother; Cassandra Tower, daughter of Dr. Alexander Tower; the wealthy orphan Drake McHugh; Louise Gordon, daughter of the sadistic town physician Dr. Henry Gordon, who has been known to perform operations without anesthetic; and the tomboy Randy Monaghan, whose father is a railroad worker.

Actors