Emergency Call

"Emergency Call" is well worth seeing just because the subject matter of this Pre-Code film is so unusual. Imagine...a film about a hospital working hand in hand with organized crime!!

William Boyd (who later remade himself as the screen cowboy 'Hopalong Cassidy') stars as a young doctor, Joe Bradley, who works at a most uusual hospital. It seems that SOMEONE working there is helping organized crime! How? First, lots of fake injury cases arrive and the doctors treat the 'victims'....even though they know the folks are faking they aren't allowed to discharge them. Second, ambulance chasing shyster lawyers are being alerted when real accident cases arrive and they sneak in and get the patients to unknowingly sign away all their rights to them! But Joe and his friend, the ambulance driver, are making it hard for these crooks...and the crooks decide to fight back with a vengeance! Additionally, no one knows who at the hospital is helping these folks...but they must be identified as soon as possible.

I loved this film...particularly the second portion. This is because Post-Code they simply couldn't have made the very gritty ending...one that was very satisfying and violent! Wonderful acting, wonderful writing...and a pretty amazing picture.

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.

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.

that being a county hospital and the ambulances that bring in the patients. It starts out ordinarily enough, with Joe (Bill Boyd), a new doctor, telling Dr. Averill,his future father-in-law and director of the hospital, that he wants to start out as an ambulance doctor, that he doesn't want to miss anything, that he wants no special favors. At first the other doctors are cool to him, and his ambulance driver (William Gargan as Steve Brennan) practically hazes him with fast and reckless driving on their first call. But when that first call turns out to be a crazy man with a knife who doesn't seem fazed by having furniture broken over his head, Joe and Steve become good friends with Joe earning Steve's respect.

The hospital has problems though. They have ambulance chasers that seem to know which patients have good cases and get them to sign papers making them their legal representative and giving them all cash verdicts but a pittance, they have people stepping off of curbs and into the paths of wealthy people, taking up bed space in the hospital while they settle their phoney cases, and worst of all the hospital is buying substandard equipment, and more than they need of it. It turns out that Dr. Averill is the reluctant partner of racketeer and grafter Tom O'Rourke, and he'd like to get out from under his thumb but can't figure out how.

When Steve tells Joe his future father-in-law is in bed with these grafters, it at first almost ends their friendship. But then Joe learns the truth and decides to stay and fight the graft. Joe's interference begins to get in the way of O'Rourke's hospital rackets- and you know how racketeers usually like to deal with inconvenient people. Also, the hospital has just bought a bunch of ether from O'Rourke - ether that was condemned by the army as unfit for humans. As a side plot, Steve only has eyes for a certain nurse (Wynne Gibson), but she only has eyes for millionaire patients, trying to get them to propose when they are sick and dependent, she says.

All of these strands of the plot - the graft, O'Rourke vs. Joe, the materialistic nurse, and Averill summoning the last bit of courage he has - and it's not much - lead to an exciting conclusion. It also leads to a precode ending in which a (technical) wrong doer is allowed to get away with murder. I'm being purposefully cryptic here in hopes you'll watch it if it ever comes you way. It starts out slow and humorously but the ending will have you on the edge of your seat. Highly recommended.