The first part of the movie is the most interesting ,the plot sometimes recalling that of AJ Cronin's "the citadel" (which King Vidor transferred to the screen in 1938 with Robert Donat):the main difference is that King's film takes place in Northern Canada and the other one in a mining town in GB .
"The country doctor" is everything the title indicates: the life of a country doctor,devoted to his work,who often gets paid in chickens or in eggs ,who sometimes must cope with his patients' ungratefulness,who tries to urge the city chic people to do something about the plight of the country where "women deliver their children on the kitchen table".
Quints generally did not survive at the time.That the doctor succeeded in saving all of them was a miracle in itself .All the ending of the movie is given over to the first year of these quints ,relagating the nephew's love affair and the city folks' selfishness to a position of secondary importance.