Business screen magazine (1946)

BLACK, GRAY, AND THE AMA In a departure from traditional films, the American Medical Association asked Mike Gray & Associates to produce a film to recruit young black people into the medical profession. "A Matter of Opportunity" should work well. "Hell! A doctor's got to be a politician, a social force to bring about change in a society which seeks to maintain the status quo!" "I don't want to be one of those Cadillac-driving, slick-haired physicians of the past!" "There are 721 whites for every white physician. There are 3800 blacks for every black physician!" The speakers are black doctors and medical students. They appear in A Matter of Opportunity, a 25minute documentary which examines the role of blacks in the medical profession. There is no music or enlightening narration. No capricious camera work, no optical effects. There is only talk. The result is an involving and emotionally charged — almost militant — film. Sponsored by the American Medical Association, the film presents a penetrating and often critical analysis of the medical-profession. That the AMA. traditionally a conservative trade association, paid for — and released! — A Matter of Opportunity seems rather strange. That the AMA hired Mike Gray OCTOBER, 1970 & Associates of Chicago to make the film seems masochistic. Director/cameraman Mike Gray and his associates are the longhaired, bearded and mustached moon-cats who ride monster motorcycles and convince airline stewardesses that they's a rock band. .Actually, they make films. Like American Kcvoliiiion II. the critically acclaimed documentary of how it came to pass that the Chicago Black Panthers forged an .•\lliance with the Young Patriots, a street gang of Southern whites. And Black Panther, Gray's newest film which focuses on Fred Hampton, slain chairman of the Illinois Panthers. Mike Gray and the AMA? Why? Continued on next page 29