Bedside

Warren William was often cast in detective series. But he is at his best in dark roles such as this one.

This movie could scarcely be improved on. It is director Robert Florey at his eerie best. William is ideally cast. Jean Muir, whose career was ruined by the Blacklist, is both touching and appropriately strong-willed.

William plays an ambitious young man a year short of his medical degree. A down-and-out doctor comes into the office where he's working. The guy is desperate for some morphine. William strikes a Faustian bargain with him.

"Bedside" is consistently chilling. William is not a bad person. He certainly is not an admirable one, though.

Kathryn Sergava is suitably exotic as the opera diva who ill-advisedly seeks his ministrations. And Donald Meek gives one of his more interesting performances as the physician William hires to work with him.

It's not a horror movie. It's an early version of what came to be called film noir. It also presages the often excellent MGM series of short, cautionary films called"Crime Does Not Pay."