Bedside

This melodrama pulls out all the stops. It features a lovely, self-sacrificing nurse who is used by a ne'er-do-well who deep down *wants* to be a good guy, a "French" danseuse born on 10th Avenue, a Russian opera singer (Kathryn Sergava) who places her life in the hands of said ne'er-do-well, a once-prominent doctor (David Landau) who has hit the skids, a brash publicity agent (Allen Jenkins), a mousy, but competent doctor(Donald Meek) who partners with our hero to make him look good, and a passel of neurotic society lady patients.

Two people flirt with death on the operating table. One person forgets to look both ways before stepping off the curb, with disastrous results. There is on-again, off-again romance. There is even a machine that performs a seemingly medically impossible task! All in all, the plot is beyond belief.

That said, Warren William and Jean Muir make the most of their lead roles. Muir is especially charming, and really saves the film from being a complete waste. Jenkins, Landau, Meek, and Sergava are also fine in support. Too bad the script wasn't a little stronger.

William Warren plays Louis, a mostly-sympathetic scoundrel. He is a womanizer and gambler who has some medical school but lacks the discipline necessary to finish. David Landau shines in a supporting role: a washed up, morphine-addicted doctor who sells Louis his medical license for cash and a lifetime supply of morphine fixes. (The bio on Landau says "wooden." He doesn't seem so here.) Louis' ego and greed propel him to increasing medical risks. You know that sooner or later his ineptitude will result in death. The only question is "Whose?"

This movie was made when physician advertising was considered highly unethical. But Louis cleverly bends the rules! It was also made when the dangers of radiation exposure were unknown; notice that none of the characters in the X-ray room wear any protection.

Warren William is a real wastrel who completed 3 years of medical school before quitting. He works as an X-ray technician and dates nurse Jean Muir when he isn't hitting the town and picking up other women. What he is is really charming, so Muir, convinced that his way with patients would make him an excellent doctor, lends him the money to return to medical school.

He loses all her money playing poker on the train. Afraid to admit what happened, he works odd jobs while writing her letters telling her how well he's doing at school. He meets David Landau, a former doctor who's morphine addiction has lead him to ruin. He buys his medical degree and doctors the diploma promising to keep money flowing his way. He moves to New York City and hires real doctor Donald Meek to set up practice with him, essentially tricking him into doing all the work.

Pre-code films are really something. There's not a chance that film with a lead this despicable would be made even a year later. William pulls it off rather convincingly, working the charm while being an enormous cad. The madness by the film's end includes Meek experimenting with raising the dead and William having to admit his fraud when Muir's life is threatened.

Bob Brown (Warren William) dropped out of medical school a year before graduating. His nursing girlfriend Caroline Grant (Jean Muir) insists that he finishes his degree and even pays for it. Instead, he loses all her money. He lies to her while working as a hospital orderly. He comes back to her pretending to have graduated.

This is not the expected opening premise. It is interesting to paint him in the good while he is pulling off this scam. It seems outrageous until I realized that this is the olden times. One could get away with this or at least, believe that he could get away with it. Nevertheless, it is tough to root for him and his lies.

Usually Warren William played someone who starts down the easy crooked way deliberately. Here it is more of an accident, almost the stuff of film noir if you look strictly at the plot. Warren plays a X-ray technician, Bob Brown, in love with a beautiful nurse, Caroline Grant (Jean Muir). Bob seems happy with his easy-going although somewhat chaotic existence, but Caroline wants more for him. She talks him into returning to finish his one remaining year of medical school and gives him her life savings - fifteen hundred dollars. Bob, always a victim to his impulses with liquor and gambling, gambles Caroline's money away on the train there. He manages to cover this up by writing fake letters about his progress, but then his year is up and he must return home.

Before Bob has to tell Caroline the truth he runs across a morphine addict who happens to be an ex-doctor. Bob makes a deal with the devil, almost literally, and agrees to supply the addict with morphine if the ex-doctor will let him use his licensing credentials. Bob seems to forget one key point - by definition an addict can never have enough and thus always comes back for more. By the end of this film the real Dr. Martel is popping up everywhere and under the oddest circumstances to the point where the viewer wonders if this guy's appearances are always real or perhaps sometimes an apparition as a metaphor for Bob's conscience finally getting the best of him.

Bob sets up practice in New York City, where nobody knows him, as Dr. J. Herbert Martel. He gets an actual doctor - Donald Meeks as the unsuspecting Dr. George Wiley - to be the actual physician and his partner. Wiley always sees the patients first, and then Bob as Martel just cleans up behind him dispensing charm and useless advice and prescriptions. He's aiming at the society crowd whose only illnesses are boredom and weight problems, but occasionally a real patient with real problems wanders in and catches Bob off guard. With all of Bob's slickness in this operation he has done one really un-slick thing - hired his girlfriend, who knows him so well, as his nurse who thinks Bob is on the level and is an actual licensed physician. This proves to be Bob's undoing.

If you like Warren William as the precode cad, as the guy who knows right from wrong but does the wrong thing anyways, as the hard guy who ultimately has a soft spot for the right woman, you'll love this short little feature film. The best precode touch of the movie is unexpected, and actually comes from Donald Meeks as Dr. Wiley pulling a Dr. Frankenstein and bringing the dead back to life with one of his inventions. Highly recommended