El extraño caso del Dr. Kildare

Favorite movie quote - "You're the doctor, remember?"

Is this worth a chuckle?.... Next door to L.A.'s prestigious Blair General Hospital (BGH, for short) sits Sullivan's Hospital Cafe whose slogan (which is clearly visible to anyone who walks through its front door) says - "Doctors eat here - It must be good!" (Ha! I think that's funny!)

At BGH (in between the incessant gossip, the personal dramas, the non-stop bickering, and physicians pulling rank amongst each other) I'm actually very surprised that any of the medical staff finds any time to prescribe medicine and/or perform surgery.

As well at BGH - Doctors try to cover for each other's errors (especially when a patient dies on the operating table). They also perform operations without the patient's consent, and, generally, defy strict hospital regulations.

But, as it turns out - It was a bloody good thing that hospital ordinance was defied by the young & diligent Dr. Kildare, otherwise the morgue would have had yet another stiff to deal with.

1940's "Doctor Kildare's Strange Case" was the 4th of 15 Kildare movies to come out of MGM Studios. Filmed in b&w, this marginally entertaining Medical-Drama had a brisk running time of only 77 minutes.

For this fourth entry of the fifteen feature films in the much admired Dr. Kildare series, the regular assemblage of talented M-G-M supporting players enlivens a somewhat rambling plot, with acting honours shared by Lionel Barrymore as young Kildare's overseer, curmudgeonly Dr. Gillespie, and Laraine Day, cast as nurse Mary Lamont who has an eye upon James Kildare (Lew Ayres) as spousal material. James, diagnostic intern at "Blair General Hospital" finds he has a rival for Mary's affections in brain surgeon Gregory Lane (Shepperd Strudwick), whose losing streak of dying surgical subjects brings out the compassionate best from the eponymous hero who, clandestinely with Mary's aid, applies the sticky method of insulin shock (accepted at the time of filming as valid) to a Lane patient in order to correct his condition of dementia, possibly caused by Lane's procedure, while at the same time hoping to save the surgeon's waning reputation. The film was successful upon its release due to audience perception that a graphic depiction of the sanctum within a major hospital is being revealed; it benefits from splendid cinematography of John Seitz, and also the familiar sterling cast of the series including those mentioned as well as Frank Orth, Nat Pendleton and Samuel Hinds as the senior Kildare, in addition to a raft of other performing stalwarts.

In the previous film in the series, THE SECRET OF DR. KILDARE, the good doctor is practicing well outside his area of expertise. Despite being a diagnostician, he performed like a trained psychiatrist and since it was a Hollywood movie, everything worked out in the end! Well, once again, Kildare behaves as if he's a well-trained psychiatrist AND he does very risky and dangerous work using insulin therapy--a type of therapy with dubious effectiveness.

Now the logic of this film is completely absent--but the film is still quite watchable due to the excellent acting and characters. In fact, this was a trademark of the Kildare series--excellent cast but occasionally goofy stories.

Which is very similar to electro convulsive therapy (ECT), which they still performed in the early 90s when attended certain, ah, institutions. Back then they were run by charter health systems, which I believe went out of business. The last time I was ever there was in 1999 and it reverted back to the control of the local hospital in that area. But that was the year "managed care" came into its full authority, turning the mental hospitals into nothing better than prisons, and they had actually erected a very high fence around the grounds of the campus and put guards on all the entrances. And this was one of those hospitals where the patients have all chosen to be in there, but instead they have turned it into a locked ward. Because of managed care the quality of care has dwindled greatly. Ironically this film shows a hospital where psychiatric patients share the same ward with regular patients.

As far as the hospital where I was treated, I know that they had an ECT room, and I used to have long discussions with a patient there who was undergoing continuous treatment. I had several discussions with my own doctor about it and that was when he explained the difference between the insulin treatment and ECT.

In this film dr. Kildair explains it as a type of regression back into the primitive reptilian brainstem, the root of most animal's "Feed, Fight, and Reproduce" drive for existence. The way Dr. Kildair explains it here, is almost exactly the way it was explained it to me.

Thank goodness that this archaic form of therapy is no longer used as it is both demeaning and humiliating.

But it was surprising to see this treatment accurately described and depicted, every once in a while in these old 1940s comedies that were loosely based on reality, they will come out with something very accurate and hit the nail right on the head.

Along with the medical and psychiatric aspects of this film there are comedic aspects that are examples of "how to get your girl back from a rich suiter who takes her to dinner is where they have two dollar soup", The person giving out this wisdom is of course the host of the café next to the hospital, who is as wise with "street psychiatry" as Dr. Gillespie is with regular psychiatry in his manipulation of Dr. Kildare and his nurse girlfriend, and the way Dr. Gillespie cleverly gets Kildare to turn down a better paying job.

But what I loved about these series is how Dr. Gillespie, even though he was ill and confined to a wheelchair (just like the real Lionel Barrymore), and basically facing mortality in the eye, had a great sense of humor about it.

I love every single one of these, I wish there had been more made.

Growing up in the '60s, my Dr. Kildare was Richard Chamberlain, but my mother's Dr. Kildare was the attractive Lew Ayres.

In the MGM serial, Dr. Kildare was called Jimmy by his nurse girlfriend (later his fiancee) Mary Lamont, played by lovely Laraine Day. His boss, Dr. Gillespie, was played by Lionel Barrymore.

In this entry into the series, Kildare attempts to save the reputation of a neurosurgeon (Sheppard Strudwick) who has had a streak of bad luck, i.e., his patients have died.

When a patient makes it through surgery but appears to have become demented, Kildare administers insulin shock therapy, an accepted form of treatment until the 1950s to treat psychotic disorders. The treatment put the patient into a coma and upon awakening, saline was given as well as glucose to terminate the treatment.

Insulin shock therapy had some efficacy in schizophrenia that was of less than 2 year duration. Kildare's explanation of how it worked and what it treated deviated somewhat from the above description.

The subplot is Kildare's hesitance to ask Mary to marry him because it would entail waiting awhile, and his competition for her affections from the aforementioned doctor.

Barrymore as Gillespie seems a lot more irascible around Kildare than he did when the series revolved around him later on. Lew Ayres created a huge hoopla when he became a conscientious objector during World War II, and MGM got rid of the Kildare character; theaters were refusing to show Ayres' films.

Ayres did serve in the military as a medic on the front lines and resumed his career, winning an Oscar nomination for "Johnny Belinda." He worked almost until his death in 1996. But post-war, he only played Dr. Kildare on the radio in the early '50s.

The very likable and excellent cast elevates the series, and this is one of the better Kildare films.