Emergency Call

And what an unusual topic, some kind of surprising racket, but unfortunatey real. But Pre Code movies used us to find out surprises, schemes never told later in the movie history. And don't forget that Edward L Cahn directed this little cute B picture. This is short, fast, tense, a bit funny, at least light hearted without being a comedy either. Not a true crime film, just a bit drama tat deserves to be seen if you have the opportunity to watch it. You can watch it a s a fiction documentary, disguised as a film. This could have been a perfect CRIME DOESN'T PAY feature for MGM. I guess there are plenty of those lost gems somewhere in old Hollywood catalogs.

In his pre-Hopalong Cassidy days William Boyd starred with William Gargan as an idealistic doctor who goes towork in a new Hospital. Gargan is an ambulance driver who shows him the ropes.

The possibilities of using the hospital as a place for rackets is utilized by racketeer Edwin Maxwell who has head doctor Reginald Mason under his thumb. Boyd gets disillusioned very fast.

Boyd's final confrontation scene with Mason is something I guarantee you won't find in a Hoppy movie. Special mention has to be made of Wynne Gibson as one of the nurses who is on the climax.

Nicely done medical drama.

Doctor Bill Boyd takes his turn as an ambulance driver for the hospital run by his future father-in-law. All too soon, he comes to realize the hospital is under the control of corrupt local politician Edwin Maxwell.

With a script by Joe Mankiewicz, this looks like a precursor of the Doctor Kildare series at MGM. It has plenty of interesting supporting actors and lots of snappy patter (mostly supplied by Wynne Gibson and William Gargan). Boyd, as usual, is his usual capable but bland self, at best in the fight scene shot wild. Director Edward Cahn, as usual, doesn't seem to add much to the proceedings; his strengths always seem to lay in letting his cameraman do his job, and here it's the undeservedly forgotten Roy Hunt, offering lighting that darkens with the mood.

Cahn would go on to MGM, where he would have a long and fairly undistinguished career in shorts and cheaper features. He seems to have been one of those directors who came in on budget and used his staff. We may scoff at some one who seems so non-auteur-like, but he turned out pleasant if undistinguished movies like this one. More than good enough for me.

This is a solid RKO B film that could have been much better if given an additional 30 minutes or so to develop its various relationships and story lines. We have here a new doctor who is also engaged to the daughter of the head of the hospital, and is suspect among some of the other doctors and workers for just that reason. However, there is one short scene between him (Bill Boyd) and her (Betty Furness), and we never see her again or even hear of her, even when Boyd has to come up against her father (who is involved with the Underworld and pretty much taking orders from a mob leader - played excellently, as always, by Edwin Maxwell). The relationship is never mentioned or given consequence again. Meanwhile, the secondary lead, played by William Gargan, is only an ambulance driver but seemingly knows everything about what's going on between the hospital and the Underworld (free access to ambulance chasers and dishonest insurance agents, purchase of condemned contraband, etc.) and he develops a real relationship with a hard-bitten nurse played by Wynne Gibson (maybe in her best-ever performance) and that relationship turns out to be the heart and soul of the film. Problem is, we bounce from scene to scene, sometimes months apart, with nothing much to connect them, as if continuity was an extraneous consideration at best. Boyd, who became an icon as Hopalong Cassidy before the decade was out, doesn't seem to have enough personality here to carry the lead (although he does get in one very good piece of rage-venting at his father-in-law to be), and the film is really Gargan's and Gibson's. The fact that Joseph Mankiewicz co-wrote the screenplay probably accounts for the surfeit of good lines ("I've never seen Rourke, but if I do, I'll be the last thing he ever sees"), but everything about the film indicates that it was something of a rush job where motivation, story line and just plain pride in one's product were concerned, and it is up to the actors (most especially Gargan, Gibson and Maxwell) to carry everything through. Gargan was always a mystery to me, in that he was a very good and natural actor who projected a maturity at this time far beyond his actual 28 years (he would have made a great member of the Irish Mafia stock company ensconced at Warner Brothers), but lacked the needed charisma to develop into a top leading man even in B films (he appeared in support in loads of terrific A films - think RAIN); here, he is a really rough jewel in a role that could almost have been written for his brother Ed, another really rough jewel who never got the girl, either. Except here, Gargan does get the girl, kinda, but Gibson's girl looks almost superannuated for the role she is playing - not to be mean about it, but it doth appear that God shorted her one neck! - (which is surely why she got to play so many molls, prostitutes and the like). But she is very affecting and, in the end, it is her film more than anyone else's, and she makes the most of it. Oh yes, there is one particularly well-filmed operating room scene of Boyd and his assistants performing an emergency operation, perhaps not visually equaled until Eddie Albert's similar turn in THE YOUNG DOCTORS almost thirty years later. God, how this film could have used another 30 minutes for character development, motivations, continuity and the like. It's almost as if RKO's slogan should have been, "Product is our most important product!" Too bad. But it's still worth a viewing for the actors (not forgetting a really vicious little turn by the usually semi-lovable and almost always affable-if-dishonest George E. Stone).

Well, after seeing this, now we know why there are auditing groups for hospitals, like the Joint Commiss ion, CMS, and General Accounting Office. This film illustrates some of the different ways people can cheat other people during hospital care... ya got someone selling bad "ether" as anesthetic; ya got the "ambulance chasing lawyers" mis-representing the truth and quality of care being provided at the hospital; ya got one big mobster running the show, and looking for kickbacks from everyone. ya got people throwing themselves under cars to take advantage. It's pretty un-even. not sure what it wants to be... there's a love story, there's death, there's crime-fighting. Stars Bill Boyd, who had played Hopalong Cassidy in so many films and tv shows. Edwin Maxwell is the hospital administrator. Betty Furness is "Alice", but some of us remember her as a guest on so many game shows and the "Today" show on NBC. This film is more of a training film for new employees, on what scams to watch out for as you work in a hospital, rather than entertainment. It's okay. no big deal, but does have some familiar names. It's a B shortie from RKO... directed by Ed Cahn, who had started in short films and moved into full length.