Adaptation of Charles MacArthur's short story "A New York Cinderella" has Spencer Tracy cast as a barrios doctor (so committed to his work that he spends his vacation doing medical research!) who saves Park Avenue beauty Hedy Lamarr from shipboard suicide. Once in New York City, she locates him (eating in a cafeteria!) and discovers his neighborhood hospice is the perfect place for her to recover and take stock of her life. Their eventual marriage (which appears platonic in nature, with barely a kiss between them) isn't fraught with many anxieties, and a subsequent move uptown seems to make them both happy, but the scenarists have invented a "former flame" for the woman who turns up at every restaurant and nightclub she goes to. This poor man is just a plot device (a bad one), unconvincingly written and only present to give the good doctor some doubts. Yet, if the movie goes out of its way to cause cracks in the marriage, it bends over backwards to give the two principals a happy ending (one that must be seen to be believed). It raises a happy tear or two, though the movie is so flimsily constructed and rudderless, it evaporates from memory before you can even recall the title. Tracy--playing both doctor and daddy to Lamarr--throws away much of his dialogue (charmingly), holding together most of the picture even as its fairy tale plotting takes the slow boat to China. **1/2 from ****
