Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case

Lionel Barrymore is the omniscient Dr. Gillespie in this episodic entry into the popular Dr. Kildare/Dr. Gillespie series.

The overworked doc has two ambitious men working under him, cute Van Johnson and charming Keye Luke, and they both want to be his top man.

Donna Reed is a beautiful young woman who comes to Gillespie for advice as the film begins - she wants to get married, but she's worried about a crazy man, crazy about her, who is now in jail for murder. Gillespie endeavors to get the man institutionalized.

He helps give a young man who lost his legs during the war have the will to continue; he saves four little girls in the children's' ward; wrecks Van Johnson's love life - it's all just business as usual for Dr. Gillespie of Blair General.

The cast is charming but this film is just too sweet for words, and Dr. Gillespie is a real fantasy character even for 1943.

I suppose with the war on, this is what America wanted to see. It's interesting that like our President at the time, Gillespie is also in a wheelchair, in a position of power, and larger than life.

... of course with the suave Dr. K no longer part of the cast at Blair Hospital. The case is that of Roy Todwell, the man who killed three people in "Calling Dr. Gillespie" from the year before, but remembers none of it when "sane". Now in prison for those crimes, Gillespie is intent on trying to get Roy transferred from the penitentiary to an institution where he might be cured. Of course how he plans to legally do this is never explained, as the legal system has already spoken during his trial and declared him sane, thus his prison sentence. This isn't just Dr. Carew Gillespie is sparring with here, but I digress.

One of the interesting side stories is that of a Honolulu taxi driver, a young man of about 25, who lost both legs below the knee in the attack on Pearl Harbor. He is at Blair to receive surgery that he could not in Hawaii. What is not unusual in such a story is that the young man has given up on living and seems intent on just spending the rest of his life feeling sorry for himself. What is unusual is that he is a civilian rather than a soldier receiving such devastating injuries.

What really breaks up the rhythm of the entire film is a lengthy section inserted in the middle about the outbreak of a potentially deadly infection in the children's ward. This is mainly used as an early opportunity to let child actress Margaret O'Brien overemote in some scenes that are just too saccharine given the noirish continuation of Roy Todwell's story. The good part about it is that the crisis is a chance for Dr. Red Adams (Van Johnson) and Dr. Lee Wong How (Keye Luke) to bond as something other than just competitors for the spot as Dr. Gillespie's assistant.

I would say it is worth sticking around for the exciting conclusion involving Roy's story. As usual the regular cast is terrific,and Henry O'Neill is impressive as the warden.

I saw this movie a few months ago, 2005. I, also, saw it in 1957 on our new black and white television.

The year this movie was made was 1943. There was a war going on and we needed heroes who could help keep the home fires burning and save the women and children. Doctors today can't do everything like Dr. Gillespie could. He was busy saving the lives of 4 little girls who are suffering, putting two young residents who are vying to be Gillespie's assistant in their proper places, messing up the love life of Dr.Red Adams (Van Johnson) and trying to help Marcia Bradburn (Donna Reed) by institutionalizing a murderer, her ex-fiancée Roy Todwell. He was making her life miserable by trying to keep her from marrying a young soldier. And to add interest to the situation Roy breaks out of prison. What's the good doctor to do? Will he be able to save the lives and mend the hearts of so many?

And when you realize that Lionel Barrymore is doing all this from a wheelchair then we must marvel. He had severe arthritis in both legs and had started using crutches when he starred in You Can't Take It With You (1938) with Jimmy Stewart and Edward Arnold. As his illness progressed the needed items to make his acting career easier to handle were written into the script.

MGM looks like PRC or Monogram in this hodgepodge. It picks up on characters in "Calling Dr. Gillespie" (on which I have commented.) Donna Reed is still in it but the man she'd planned to marry, now in prison, is another actor. He's OK but the original was very powerful.

Several plots are tossed into this stew. In one, Keye Luuke and Van Johnson are vying for the job of Dr. Gillespie's assistant.

Then we have the beautiful woman who offers Johnson everything -- except a hiding place from the call of hospital emergencies.

And we have a ward of little girls with a contagious disease. Margaret O'Brien is appealing as one of these girls.

Another story involves a vet who's lost his legs. This character is played with great intensity by William Lundigan.

And: the holdover. Is Reed's ex insane or is prison the right place for him? Far be it from me to answer that here. However, though this one contains the word "criminal" in its title, the first one was a tense noir and this is a pan of scrambled eggs.

Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case deals with some unfinished business from Calling Dr. Gillespie. Although why he's bothering I can't figure out other than he's a dedicated man of medicine and possibly an opponent of capital punishment.

In Calling Dr. Gillespie Donna Reed is charmed by young Phil Brown who turns out to be a homicidal maniac. He gets caught and Lionel Barrymore as Dr. Gillespie tries to get him a guilty by insanity verdict which a jury doesn't buy and sends him to a regular prison instead. But Gillespie doesn't give up, especially when Reed playing the same character shows up announcing she's found someone new and is about to wed.

Barrymore has two young interns in this film who he keeps busy. There's Van Johnson who is with him when he goes to the prison on behalf of John Craven who has taken over the role that Phil Brown played in the earlier Gillespie film. The other is Keye Luke who gets involved in the rehabilitation of William Lundigan who was a taxi driver from Honolulu who lost both his legs when a bomb hit his cab.

All three of them are involved in an outbreak of erysipelas in the hospital pediatric ward, one of the children being Margaret O'Brien. As you can see everybody at Blair General Hospital has a full plate of responsibility.

I think the film would have been better had the part of the story involving John Craven wasn't there. Craven tries to kill Barrymore in the previous film and no one would blame Barrymore if he wanted nothing more to do with the case. But back in the day doctors were saints on the silver screen.

Still Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case is not a bad film and did a lot of good for the popularity of MGM's rising new star, Van Johnson.