The Girl in 419

who is a great surgeon at Emergency Hospital in an unnamed city. The action focuses on the police division of the hospital - where criminals and their victims are taken and treated. Actually, I've never seen such an early film with a hospital wing dedicated to crime, but it serves the plot well since it explains how Dunn's character, Dr. Daniel French, is so well known by both the criminal element and the police in the town.

The film opens with Dunn being called out to ride along with the ambulance on a case - the shooting of the leader of one of the local gangs. However, when French arrives the police inform him he's too late, the mobster has died. Furthermore the police inform him they have no clues as to who did it. French is apparently more observant than the police, speculating by certain clues in the room that a woman was involved. When the doctor returns to the hospital he's met by another case. An anonymous woman (Gloria Stuart) has been brought in. She's unconscious and has been badly beaten. As French works tirelessly to try and save her life, he finds he's falling for this sleeping beauty. Add to this the unusual interest the head of another gang in the city is taking in her case and I think you know where this is going. Complicating factor - the nurse who is assisting French on the girl's case was French's girlfriend and does not appreciate being thrown over, although you have to wonder what she thought was going to happen since up to now the sound of wedding bells had the effect of a fire alarm on Dr. French.

There are other rather comic things going on in the hospital to prevent the film from getting bogged down in melodrama. There's a patient in the hospital that is on the verge of breaking the world record for length of a sneezing fit, there's a lovable little orderly who is trying to woo one of the laundry girls who only seems interested in getting a genuine fur coat, and finally there is David Manners, who plays a young doctor who looks up to French like a kid brother to an older brother and wants nothing more than to follow in his footsteps and specialize in surgery.

Dunn and Manners complement each other well here. Dunn's performance is mainly verbal, while Manners' is primarily facial expressions and mannerisms that are quite telling, and in the end he figures to be a larger part of the conclusion than his small amount of screen time would lead you to believe. There are a couple of rather interesting precode moments. The first has nothing to do with the plot. A charity case in the hospital has eight children and wants to talk to Dr. French about putting her "out of production". French says nothing doing and scurries away. Apparently birth control - surgical or otherwise - was forbidden in those days and could get only a tiny disapproving mention even in a precode film. The second precode moment is the conclusion. Such a thing would not be allowed to go unpunished just a year later, even though the guilty party simply did what society could not or would not do but should have done.

Highly recommended as an interesting precode that moves along nicely.

Gee, Gloria Stuart sure made a lot of movies in 1933, the year she was chosen as a Wampas Baby but looking at her roles, apart from "Secret of the Blue Room" where she really got a chance at a part with light and shade, most of them could have been performed by any other actress. Which may have been the reason that, with all Gloria's prolific 1930s output, she never became a star. She was Mary Dolan, the mystery girl in 419 but she didn't enter the movie until the 20 minute mark (and in a 63 minute movie, that's not much time to strut your stuff)!! James Dunn (whose career was unfortunately hitting the skids by this time) plays play boy doctor Dan French who is summoned to look after a mystery patient who is bought in badly beaten up and delirious. Of course it is love at first sight for Dan who then has to shake off his latest fling comely nurse Irene. Shirley Grey probably has the meatiest role in the movie as a at first loving girl who later turns vindictive when she realises she is just one of the many love 'em and leave 'ems of French. And in a completely extranous role is David Manners as a young intern who idolises French. There was a small scene which made me wonder if Manners role had been cut. The scene had Manners indicating that he also liked Mary Dolan but was more than keen to step aside for his pal.

Mary's past is pieced together - she was involved with a mob boss who is hanging around the hospital posing as a concerned friend. He also has henchman Sammy (Jack La Rue) with him and his purpose becomes clear when he barks at Sammy to "next time finish her off"!! Film is also a nice little ensemble piece featuring Eddie Nugent as a go-getter medic, Kitty Kelly as the wise cracking receptionist, Vince Barnett as French's pal and old time comedian Johnny Hines as Slug. Funny that in 1933 Paramount was still persisting in the occasional dual director, a hang over from the early talkie days. Here the old hand was Alexander Hall, guiding Georg Somnes (who was born in the 1880s) - Somnes obviously didn't work out, he only directed four films and none of them on his own!!

It is a rare film from the pre Code era, and a film that I did not know at all. It is short, fast paced, never boring, inventive, well acted and directed, so why missing it? From time to time, it is agreeable to see such items. It belongs to the emergency hospital plots - a scheme often used in movies and especially series. Here, the crime element is light hearted used, not a rough, tough crime drama, as you have always understood. There were batches of those films in the thirties, but far less in the forties and fifties, because the TV industry was already in business and in charge of this kind of stories.

James Dunn is the head doctor in 'Emergency Hospital', and there are the usual assortment of comic switchboard operators, Vince Barnett as the alleged comic relief -- despite is reputation as a practical joker, I don't find his screen appearances funny -- and soap opera, in the person of Gloria Stuart, who shows up unconscious but beautiful, wakes to apparent amnesia, and turns out to be the central story.

Its short length proclaims this a B movie, but this is Paramount, so there are lots of recognizable performers, including Jane Darwell as a nurse with no lines, Billy Gilbert doing his sneezing routine, and David Manners as the young doctor who wants to be a surgeon. Some good, cynical lines proclai this a pre-code, and co-directors Alexander Hall and George Somnes keep this one rolling along.