The Great Moment (1944 film)

The Great Moment
theatrical poster
Directed by	Preston Sturges
Produced by	Buddy G. DeSylva Preston Sturges (uncredited)
Written by	René Fülöp-Miller (book) Preston Sturges Ernst Laemmle (uncredited)
Starring	Joel McCrea Betty Field
Music by	Victor Young
Cinematography	Victor Milner
Edited by	Stuart Gilmore
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	August 24, 1944 (Los Angeles) September 6, 1944 (U.S.)
Running time	80, 83, 87 or 90 min. (see #Production)
Country	United States
Language	English

The Great Moment is a 1944 biographical film written and directed by Preston Sturges. Based on the book Triumph Over Pain (1940) by René Fülöp-Miller, it tells the story of Dr. William Thomas Green Morton, a 19th-century Boston dentist who discovered the use of ether for general anesthesia. The film stars Joel McCrea and Betty Field, and features Harry Carey, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn and Porter Hall.

The movie was filmed in 1942 but not released for over two years, and the released version differed from what Preston Sturges had wished, although he publicly accepted the film as his own. Paramount Pictures disliked the film Sturges had made, and pulled it from his control, re-titled and re-edited it, in the process making it (especially in the early segment) more confusing for the audience to understand. The studio's released version was marketed in a way that made it appear to be one of Sturges' comedies. The film was not well received by the critics or the public, and marked the end of a sustained run of success for Sturges, who had already left Paramount by the time the film was released.

Although rarely seen today, the film is worth viewing for its flashback structure – comparable in some ways to Citizen Kane, which was influenced by the earlier film The Power and the Glory, for which Sturges wrote the screenplay – and for its irreverent and subtly satirical tone, unusual for a time when most Hollywood biopics were over-inflated and sentimental. In 2003 a medical-dental historian in a lengthy analysis of the movie and its history -- which cited its flashback structure, timeless subject, injections of humor, and "un-Pasteur-like" treatment of its protagonist, while adhering reasonably well to the historical record -- concluded that "The Great Moment may now be due for a general reevaluation by movie historians and critics who, like most folks, have never felt much affection for dentists past and present."