Mi vida es tuya

Dr. Kildare faces a whopping $100,000 malpractice suit in "The People vs. Dr. Kildare," also starring Lionel Barrymore, Laraine Day, Alma Kruger, Benita Granville, Tom Conway, and Red Skelton. MGM used this series and the later Dr. Gillespie series as training ground for its young actors - often, seeing them today, they seem to have very important casts that have included people like Donna Reed, Van Johnson, Keye Luke, and Ava Gardner.

When a young ice skater (Granville) is paralyzed in one leg after an emergency roadside operation done by Kildare, he becomes the target of a malpractice suit. Today it would be for $100 million, but back in 1941, $100,000 was a chunk of change that put Kildare's career on the line.

This entry into the series isn't as good as some of the others. It was directed with a sledgehammer - the normally good Granville overacts like crazy, and Barrymore is off the charts with bad temper. Red Skelton is supposed to provide comic relief but doesn't really have the material to do it. And we again have to listen to Nurse Byrd lamenting the man who got away and the lack of fulfillment she has because she never married. Thanks for drumming that into my mother's head in film after film. Also, because of Court TV, the courtroom scenes aren't very credible.

Nevertheless, you can't help liking some of the characters and relationships, and especially Dr. Kildare and Mary. Ayres and Day are delightful in their roles.

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.

I really dont get the blah reviews on here. If you like the Dr. Kildare series you will enjoy this one as well! If you don't care for Lionel Barrymore why in the heck would you be watching this? Despite the title he steals the show always! Grumpy but underneath a heart of gold..Just like I have read the real man was! I just can't imagine anyone else as Dr. Gillespie! It's why I could not get into the TV series.

The only fault here is in the accident scene where Jimmy slaps the injured woman. That could not of been acceptable even back then! That was ridiculous! I suppose it was easier to cover over things back then. But when I watch this series I live in that time period and not judge by modern standards. Most of it is charming and delightful and great acting by everyone! And I love Lionel and Lew! What you call great chemistry!

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The title speaks for itself, Lew Ayres finds himself on the wrong end of a malpractice suit which will happen inevitably to any doctor if he practices long enough in America, this wonderful litigious country of our's. His predicament makes this particular Dr. Kildare film quite relevant for modern times.

It becomes The People vs. Dr. Kildare when Lew Ayres while driving Alma Kruger's car with fiancé Laraine Day gets into an accident. He does some on the spot surgery to ice skater Bonita Granville which saves her, but she is paralyzed in one leg after the operation. So what else can she do but sue the doctor who saved her life and everyone else remotely connected with the incident.

Unfortunately in Alma Kruger's car was half used bottle of liquor which Ayres can't account for, but he knows that he and Day didn't drink that evening. That fact gets leaked to Granville's lawyer Paul Stanton and it's the foundation of his case.

Of course it's the wise counsel of Lionel Barrymore that saves the day and on cross examination by the hospital and Kildare's lawyer Tom Conway an open question allows Barrymore to address the jury in the same manner he did in his Oscar winning performance in A Free Soul. I need not say that Barrymore did not drop dead at the end of his oration.

Red Skelton made the second of two appearances in the Kildare series as medical orderly Vernon Briggs. Skelton was taking the place of ambulance driver Nat Pendleton and his humor is there for comic relief and somewhat shoehorned into the film. An offhanded remark by him though is what gives the plaintiff in the suit ammunition to first start Granville's lawsuit.

An equal amount of time is spent in the courtroom as well as the hospital in The People Vs. Dr. Kildare, one of the better of the Kildare features.