science

Not as a Stranger

Not as a Stranger is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Not as a Stranger rather than just read about it. In short: Not as a Stranger is a 1955 American film noir drama film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, starring Olivia de Havilland, Robert Mitchum, Frank Sinatra and Gloria Grahame. It is based on the 1954 novel of the same name by Morton Thompson, which topped that year's list of bestselling novels in the United States.

Key takeaways

Not as a Stranger belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Not as a Stranger to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Not as a Stranger from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Not as a Stranger is a 1955 American film noir drama film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, starring Olivia de Havilland, Robert Mitchum, Frank Sinatra and Gloria Grahame. It is based on the 1954 novel of the same name by Morton Thompson, which topped that year's list of bestselling novels in the United States. The film's supporting cast features Broderick Crawford, Charles Bickford, Lon Chaney Jr., Lee Marvin, Harry Morgan and Mae Clarke.

Plot Lucas Marsh is a brilliant and dedicated medical student who has aspired to be a doctor since childhood. His mother is dead and he is estranged from his alcoholic father, who has squandered the family's money, leaving Lucas unable to pay for medical school. In order to get the needed tuition money, Lucas marries older nurse Kristina "Kris" Hedvigson, who has substantial savings. Although Kris loves Lucas and helps him in a variety of ways, he is indifferent toward her and considers her "stupid" although she is an excellent nurse. Lucas cares only about his medical work and frequently clashes with other doctors whom he considers incompetent; he even heavily criticizes his best friend, the wealthy Alfred Boone. Kris, Alfred, and Lucas' mentor Dr. Aarons try to humanize him and teach him that all doctors sometimes make mistakes. Lucas looks down on doctors who focus on making money, and after completing his internship, he accepts a position working with Dr. Dave Runkleman in his busy practice in rural Greenville, where many patients lack the money to pay. Runkleman, who has a life-threatening heart condition, hired Lucas to help with the workload and perhaps take over the practice. Lucas is overworked and frustrated with the incompetent head of the local hospital. He has an affair with rich widow Harriet Lang, causing Kris, who is secretly pregnant, to finally leave him. When Runkleman's heart condition flares up, Lucas performs surgery to save his life, but makes a mistake during the surgery and Runkleman dies. Struggling to cope with his failure, Lucas begs Kris to help him, and the two reconcile.

Cast

Production The picture was Stanley Kramer's first time directing a theatrical film.

Reception In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther panned the film, including Kramer's directing and Mitchum's acting: "The delineator of this exegesis is a stolid young medical man whose personality and fierce determination should make a feature-length study in themselves. And the fact that Mr. Kramer has not managed to force a clear understanding of his man is quite as much a shortcoming of the picture as is the flat performance of Robert Mitchum in the role. ... With so much dissecting in his picture—and so much of it being good—it is too bad that Mr. Kramer couldn't have done a little on his characters." The Philadelphia Inquirer, citing the huge sales of the source novel, thought the film had "perhaps the largest ready-made audience since Gone With the Wind", though "Whether this audience will be satisfied with the compressed, considerably altered version Kramer has given them remains to be seen….a disturbing lack of courage in the script which treads timidly in dealing with the seamier side of medicine…badly miscast in its two key roles…. Mitchum is, bluntly, a shattering disappointment…. Expressionless, ill at ease, Mitchum moves stolidly through a series of episodes which should certainly have revealed him as more than a robot. Equally at sea is Olivia de Havilland, bleached and with a Swedish accent that comes and goes….she even, following her husband's infidelity, orders Luke from the house, a thing Thompson's devoted doormat of a woman would never have dreamed of doing…. far better than the stars are Charles Bickford…and Broderick Crawford…. Lon Chaney is grotesque as Luke's alcoholic father; Gloria Grahame a conventional movie siren…and Myron McCormick far too pleasant as the unethical, incompetent head of Greenville's mismanaged hospital." The Citizen-News praised the film's authenticity: "There is a fine ring of authenticity to every scene involving the story's medical aspects, and the fast 'shock' clip showing the beating heart of a patient takes you, scalpel in hand, into the surgical center of the hospital." However, the paper's review was critical of the acting and casting: "... Bickford's acting was the one bright spot in a set of standard performances. ... [T]he principal roles were miscast, with the exception of Bickford and Miss Grahame." The Los Angeles Times described the film's premiere at the Stanley-Warner Beverly Hills Theatre as "... truly festive ... with an especially large street crowd, and a mood of celebration that was all prevailing." The newspaper's critic Edwin Schallert praised the film, calling it "... one of the strongest dramatic pictures exhibited to the public thus far this year."

Release Not as a Stranger earned a worldwide distribution gross of over $8 million, and a profit of $1.8 million. It was United Artists' highest-grossing film at the time. The film was released on Blu-ray disc by Kino Lorber in 2018.

Awards Not as a Stranger was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound Recording (Watson Jones). Frank Sinatra was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actor, and Charles Bickford won the National Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actor.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Not as a Stranger

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Not as a Stranger claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Not as a Stranger before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Not as a Stranger ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Not as a Stranger

In research: Not as a Stranger appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Not as a Stranger in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Not as a Stranger is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1954 American novels, 1954 English-language novels, 1955 American films, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Not as a Stranger outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Not as a Stranger in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Not as a Stranger means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Not as a Stranger out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Not as a Stranger in simple terms?

Why does Not as a Stranger matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Not as a Stranger?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Not as a Stranger.