Something the Lord Made (2004) on Netflix
Nashville, 1930: Dr. Alfred Blalock hires Vivien Thomas as a laboratory assistant, expecting janitorial work. Thomas's deft hands and sharp mind soon make him Blalock's research partner.
- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb8.0/1018,293 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes93%
Trailer
Plot summary
The partnership starts in Nashville during the Depression, when Alfred Blalock takes on Vivien Thomas as a helper in his Vanderbilt laboratory, a post Blalock means to be janitorial. Thomas's hands and mind prove otherwise, and he becomes a research partner in Blalock's early work on the heart. The two later move to Johns Hopkins, where black employees are janitors and Thomas enters by the back door. There Dr. Helen Taussig, a pediatric cardiologist, asks Blalock for an operation that would save her Blue Babies, infants born with Tetralogy of Fallot. In the laboratory the men induce the defect in stray dogs from the pound and work out how to correct it. When a patient with the defect is chosen, Blalock insists, against Hopkins administrators' objections, that Thomas stand beside him.
Cast
- Cliff McMullenas Lodel Williams
- Clayton LeBouefas Harold Thomas
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Something the Lord Made (2004)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Vivien Thomas remained virtually unknown outside the circle of Johns Hopkins surgeons he trained until Washingtonian writer Katie McCabe, told on the day of his death in 1985 by a prominent surgeon that he was an absolute legend, wrote the 1989 article Like Something the Lord Made.
- After Blalock's death Thomas continued his work at Johns Hopkins training surgeons, and in a formal ceremony in 1976 the institution belatedly recognized the importance of his work with an honorary doctorate. His portrait was placed next to Blalock's, which had hung there for years.
