The People vs. Dr. Kildare

Don't get me wrong. I love the Dr. Kildare series. But there are problems.

First off, the title. The title indicates that this is a criminal case, not a civil case. The suit is in actuality, Marlow vs. Kildare, et al. If it were "The People",the district attorney would be prosecuting.

Secondly, Lionel Barrymore is as irritating as possible as Dr. Gillespie. Why in the world Dr. Kildare would want to work for him I just can't imagine. But that's not just this movie ... it's every Dr. Kildare film. A lovable yet irascible curmudgeon would be, i.e. Charles Laughton at his worst. But Lionel Barrymore is just ridiculous.

It was fun seeing Red Skelton, but losing Nat Pendleton in this one is disaster. I look forward to Nat Pendleton every bit as much as Lew Ayres and Laraine Day.

But at least Dr. Kildare was not guilty of misdiagnosing as he was in the last two episodes. Now there are really major problems with those two.

Marie Blake gets one good gag per picture. They should have used her more. She misses Nat Pendleton, too.

They never miss an opportunity to use "Nosey Parker", as if Nurse Parker is the origin of the phrase. Sorry, it's not true.

Bonita Granvillie has been maligned unjustly here. Her character really is only doing what anyone in the same circumstances would do. She wasn't out to get Dr. Kildare or Blair General Hospital. She honestly felt that she was the injured party and that she should recover damages if damages were due. I liked her in this part. I even thought her lawyer did a good job for her in the courtroom. I thought Tom Conway's character wasn't much of a courtroom brawler. He let her lawyer walk all over him.

This is supposed to be a medical drama, not a courtroom drama. And, as always, not enough alone time with Lew Ayres and Lariane Day. Also missed Samuel S. Hinds and Emma Dunn for the first time. Oh, well ... this series is winding down. So sad.

It's almost unbelievable to see just how grumpy and bitter Dr. Gillespie really is around everyone--including the staff of Blair General Hospital--and LIONEL BARRYMORE overdoes the grumpiness to the nth degree with some pretty bitter, contemptuous statements about doctors and lawyers.

And yet, this entry in the Dr. Kildare series is graced by a couple of fine points--namely, LEW AYRES and LARAINE DAY, who do nicely in the leads and a supporting cast that includes no less than RED SKELTON, BONITA GRANVILLE, DIANA LEWIS, TOM CONWAY and ALMA KRUGER, all doing reasonably well with standard Kildare material.

Bonita is at her loveliest as the skater who needs an emergency operation after a car wreck--but then discovers that she can no longer move her leg after Dr. Kildare operates. The rest of the film is devoted to whether or not she'll win the malpractice case against him.

The courtroom scenes have no real bearing on reality, with Dr. Gillespie's impractical plea to the jury being just one of the things we're forced to swallow. The humor is pretty lame, with most of the burden falling on the upcoming Red Skelton as a dumb hospital worker under the thumb of chronic complainer Alma Kruger.

However, it moves at a brisk pace and is no worse than any other Kildare saga in the series MGM used to promote Ayres and Day, as well as their upcoming talent. But be aware, much of it is politically incorrect and very dated by today's standards.

The seventh in the Dr. Kildare series from MGM starring Lew Ayres as Kildare and Lionel Barrymore as his mentor Dr. Gillespie. This time around, Jimmy Kildare finds out the hard way that no good deed goes unpunished. After performing an emergency roadside operation to save the life of a figure skater (Bonita Granville), he is then sued by that skater. Yes, the Kildare series takes on medical malpractice lawsuits in this one.

Ayres and Gillespie are both great. Laraine Day, Alma Kruger, Nell Craig, and Walter Kingsford are as enjoyable as usual. Nat Pendleton is replaced here by Red Skelton as the comic relief orderly. Pendleton is missed. Bonita Granville is fine as a somewhat unlikable character. The rest of the supporting cast includes reliable pros like Tom Conway, Paul Stanton, and Chick Chandler. Look for Dwight Frye as the jury foreman!

The courtroom backdrop is a nice change of pace but I can already see from skimming other reviews that the same crowd that dislikes this series for its dated medical knowledge (how dare they not be able to see into the future!) also dislike this film's handling of legal matters. I guess I'll never get it. I don't look at photos from the 1800s and wonder why those people aren't driving cars. Anyway, this is a good entry in the series, but not one of the best. There aren't many of those wonderful little character moments for Lionel Barrymore that are my favorite parts of the series. Fans of the series should still like it.

Dr. James Kildare (Lew Ayres) and nurse Mary Lamont (Laraine Day) come upon a car crash. Ice skater Frances Marlowe (Bonita Granville) is dangerously hurt and Kildare does roadside surgery. With her leg paralyzed, she ends up taking Kildare to court. Dr. Leonard Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore) is itching to testify.

That nurse is really dumb to suggest that Kildare drank half a bottle of whiskey. The comedic attempts are too broad considering the frustrating subject matter and it is rather frustrating. Court dramas often skew one way to build tension. Kildare's lawyer keeps holding back. Again, it's frustrating. I'm also less than compelled by Gillespie's testimony. It rambles on and on. The movie builds it up a lot and my expectations may be too high. All in all, this is more of a court drama than a medical drama.

I enjoy these movies when they turn up. I never saw the TV series and don't know much about the background of the movie series. They're always entertaining though sometimes shockingly dated and politically incorrect by today's standards. In this one, for example, Lionel Barrymore tells a jury that injured skater Bonita Granville might be a "hopeless cripple" all her life if not operated on again. In another of these movies -- and could this have been acceptable at any point in the past 100 years? Was some of this series tongue-in-cheek? -- Barrymore tells the parents of a disturbed young man, "I'm sorry to tell you that your son is a psycho case." Lew Ayres was a highly appealing actor throughout his career, not least in these movies. Larraine Day has grown on me. Barrymore is a ham but so what? And the supporting casts are always good.

In this one, Red Skelton has a fairly large, supposedly comic, role. He is surely an acquired taste and definitely a taste I never acquired.