Bad for Each Other

Maybe if John Garfield had been cast instead of Charlton Heston (who looks and moves like Frankinstein's monster here); and if the producers (writers? director?) had not backed away from the mine safety, health, and company criminal negligence theme that packs a punch in the first ten minutes of the movie.

A freshly discharged army doctor passes up practice in blue-collar hometown for big- paying practice among a city elite that includes a cool blonde dilettante.

I got this epic as part of a package claiming to be all noir. The only thing noir in this movie are the several night time shots— otherwise, no crime, no hand of fate, and no moody atmosphere. Only blonde seductress Helen (Scott) instead, and she's hardly the standard spider woman. Actually, the movie's more b&w soap opera than anything else.

That's not to say there're no redeeming features. I guess I wasn't aware of what a racket doctoring among the wealthy can be. The movie shows what a cushy pandering job it can be, treating headaches with high-priced medicines and smarmy words. And coming from a muckraker like novelist McCoy, e.g. They Shoot Horses Don't They (1969), I take it as factually based.

And surprise, surprise, to me, at least—actor Heston is quite animated as the sell-out doctor. I guess this was before he stiffened into a big-screen movie god, but whatever, he's quite persuasive in the role. Still, I thought the script made the doc's transition from honorable soldier to money-grubbing pill pusher much too easy, more like a movie device than a character change. Nonetheless, get a load of the coal mine scenes, quite realistic and well done.

But, bottom line, the story follows a familiar pattern with no surprises, suggesting a production serving mainly as a vehicle for Columbia's newest hunk.

Bad for Each Other (1953)

Charlton Heston gets a bad rap sometimes--maybe that's what you expect after "Planet of the Apes"--but here he is the charming, confident, larger than life young man that made him famous. Yes, it's a B-movie, but it's a very strong performance for Heston and he is surrounded by a cast that is decent (Lizabeth Scott not at her best, which is saying a lot) to terrific (Ray Collins as the big business power guy he plays so well). The "business" at the center is a coal mine in a small Pennsylvania town, and Heston plays a doctor, Tom Owen, getting out of the military in a pseudo-noir kind of echo. Owen's dilemma is a worldly one--whether to doctor rich old women with frivolous pains or to work for the miners in their lower class afflictions.

And it is Lizabeth Scott, a pampered (and unabashedly pampered) rich girl who snags our hero, and so against his initial instinct Heston goes the rich and lazy way. But of course the coal mining town is all around him, and reminders pop up now and then. It's a great problem for a movie, and it's worked out with fairly predictable logic, so there is nothing to really fault here. Except that very predictability. Even Scott is a bit bland, not really getting to run her coolness to true ice. Some of the side characters are well developed, surprisingly (a "good" doctor untainted by money and an old woman who is wiser than she lets on at first), and director Irving Rapper (who should have been a music star in the 1990s with a name like that) makes it pop pretty well.

The less than sterling reputation of this movie is unwarranted, but it may be a result of higher expectations than this kind of movie deserves. Yes, the plot is boilerplate stuff, but so are half the movie plots out there. And Heston is sort of terrific. Yes, he plays a type, and he doesn't give the angst some other actor might, but I don't think the character, Dr. Owen, was an angst-y kind of guy. The way he wrestles with things is believable.

The cinematography by Franz Planer is better than I'd expected (the name didn't ring a bell) and there are small sterling moments, the camera moving around a group of people at a table, or across a wrought iron screen as the two leads start to hit it off. Nice stuff. The title is wrong, by the way--it's only Scott's character who is bad for the doctor, not the other way around. She's not about to be affected by anyone, especially a handsome young ex-GI who is such easy prey.

Bad for Each Other ([BFEO) is an obscure modestly regarded film that Charlton Heston made as a Paramount contract employee on loan out to Columbia at the dawn of his cinematic acting career. It was preceded by his excellent western movie Arrowhead, and immediately followed by his well regarded unusual adventure film The Naked Jungle (all made in 1953). BFEO (unlike Arrowhead and The Naked Jungle) is a contemporary social melodrama with a story set in a coal mining suburb of Pittsburgh. Heston is a recently discharged MD who is faced with the usual dilemma such folks often have to deal with: should he be a capitalist and seek out the most lucrative opportunity to practice medicine or a humanitarian and apply his skills to help the less fortunate people in his community? This is the issue at the heart of BFEO.

Heston is conflicted and somewhat self-righteous as he comes to grips with his personal values and convictions. Complicating matters are those individuals who are the major influences in his life: a predatory society woman who has set her sights on him (Lizabeth Scott), an idealistic nurse (Dianne Foster), a young doctor who believes that fulfillment can only come from assisting the poor (Arthur Franz), an older doctor who has a small practice in the mining community (Rhys Williams) and a.mother who believes that he should stay and work in his home town (Mildred Dunnock).

BFEO has a plot that contains echoes from other films: So Big (1932), The Citadel (1938), Not as a Stranger (1955), How Green Was My Valley (1941) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1948). It was directed in workmanlike fashion by veteran Irving Rapper, and the acting is consistently interesting. Heston is sincere, stalwart and occasionally naive in his troubled soul-searching, Scott (cast against type) is a spirited if not entirely credible rich young matron, Foster is a beautiful and appealing supporting player, Franz (a successful TV actor at the time) is quite engaging in his idealistic role, Williams is strong and dependable as always and Dunnock makes a most realistic mother trying to help her son with his choices in life. This excellent cast lifts BFEO from being a routine somewhat derivative entertainment, and the film certainly deserves a fresh reconsideration by a modern audience.

This film is an 83 minute sermon on selflessness vs selfishness, with particular emphasis on the medical profession. The dialogue is full of grandiose turns of phrase that often mean nothing and do not advance the plot. No one's acting stands out because almost everyone is playing a one-dimensional type.

Charlton Heston stars as the only character with any choices to make or an arc to follow. At the start of the story, he plays a skilled military surgeon on leave after the death of his brother. He is initially content to remain in the army where he has been doing good. However, immediately upon arriving in his old hometown, he is offered two positions in private practice. One serving the poor for little pay, one coddling the wealthy for big bucks. He doesn't even have to think about it. Lizabeth Scott plays his new girlfriend, although there is no chemistry between them at all. They both profess their love for the other, but his interest in her seems to be her rich friends, her interest in him is his status as the current fashion.

In case Heston's "bad choices" are not obvious enough, another young doctor and a nurse who both care more about people than money are provided for contrast. Both came to town because they were so impressed by Heston when he was a "real" doctor while in the army. Could that mean he might yet choose the right path?

Finally, to underline the film's version of right vs wrong choices even further is Mildred Dunnock as Heston's mother. She proudly lives in poverty and is distressed that her two sons both preferred a wealthy lifestyle and the corrupting influence of rich women. Neither of her sons appear to have done anything to help out their mother, not for any reason explained in the script, but just because for the sake of the film, everyone must be identified as poor or rich.

Subtle this script is not. Once everything is set up for us, with all the "correct" choices clearly flagged, the rest of the film is just following a predictable path (with some nonsensical speeches) until Heston reaches all the right conclusions.