Recalling a friendship that led to greatness

Working together despite the strictures of Jim Crow racism, a white surgeon and a black lab technician make revolutionary strides in cardiac surgery techniques at Johns Hopkins Hospital in “Something the Lord Made,” a moving historical drama premiering Sunday on HBO.

If viewers experience a sense of deja vu as the movie unfolds, that’s probably because this extraordinary story also was explored in a PBS “American Experience” documentary called “Partners of the Heart” in February 2003.

As the HBO drama opens in Nashville, 19-year-old Vivien Thomas (actor/rapper Mos Def), a bright member of that city’s thriving black middle class, sees his dreams of medical school dashed as his savings are wiped out by the Depression.

In a desperately tight economy, Thomas is forced to accept a low-paying janitorial job at Vanderbilt University’s medical school, where his precocious medical insights and aptitude soon catch the attention of Dr. Alfred Blalock (Alan Rickman), an ambitious white surgeon not known for suffering fools gladly.

Over the next few years, Blalock becomes so impressed with Thomas’ resourcefulness that the two men become an unofficial team, and in 1941, when Blalock is offered a coveted position at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins facility, he accepts only on the proviso that Thomas will move to Baltimore as well.

If Thomas and his wife, Clara (Gabrielle Union), had hoped a move farther north would decrease the racism they encountered, they were disappointed. If anything, Thomas faced an even more openly dismissive attitude within the hallowed halls of Johns Hopkins, where he was not allowed to enter through the same door as Blalock.

Somehow, however, the soft-spoken Thomas found the resolve and the courage to bear up under the bigotry, and he and Blalock wound up creating a surgical technique to save the lives of “blue babies,” assisted by a colleague, Dr. Helen Taussig (Mary Stuart Masterson).

Thomas “struck me as someone who had a very defined idea of himself that couldn’t be disturbed by his surroundings,” Def, 30, says. “I believe he remained true to that. He had a great deal of integrity, a great deal of pride, and he was also a man of quiet resolve. He was just very attractive as a historical figure and as a character to portray.”

As the other half of this exceptional team, Rickman manages a creditable Southern accent and a subtly multifaceted portrait of Blalock, a combination of genuine compassion, a self-confidence bordering on arrogance and a willingness to recognize excellence that crosses social, cultural and racial boundaries.

Even more strikingly, however, the British-born Rickman captures the more casual kind of racism practiced by many white American professionals in the mid-20th century, men who turned a blind eye to the segregated water fountains, restrooms, building entrances and passenger seating unless these restrictions crossed over into their own world.

“It’s an amazingly complicated story and extraordinary relationship,” Rickman says, “and it’s like basic food to an actor to play something that rich, that complicated.”

Rickman and Def spent time with technical advisor Alex Haller to learn how to believably simulate surgical techniques of the period.

“We had to know what we were doing in all of the operations, and there was this whole series of [them],” Rickman says. “You can’t be holding a scalpel when you should be holding a clamp.”

Likewise, director Joseph Sargent demonstrates a deft hand of his own in the way he films and paces this mostly low-key double character study. In addition to sterling work from his two stars, he also draws fine performances from Masterson as a third valued member of this experimental team, as well as Charles S. Dutton as Vivien’s demanding father and Kyra Sedgwick, who brings substance and texture to the underwritten role of Mary Blalock, Alfred’s wife.

There are no car chases, no explosions, no acts of extreme violence, but this engrossing tale of a special and very human friendship will hold an audience spellbound right through its poignant conclusion.

John Crook writes for Tribune Media Services.

“Something the Lord Made” airs at 9 p.m. on Sunday on HBO. The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children).

Cover photograph by Bob Greene.