Dark Delusion

The final film of the gang at Blair General Hospital takes place with Dr. Gillespie having a new protégé in James Craig who is a brilliant guy, but who already has the bedside manner of Lionel Barrymore in Dutch Uncle mode. Craig's stepped on the toes of a few patients and Barrymore's solution is to send him on an 8 week vacation to the country where he can take over Dr. Art Baker's practice temporarily.

It doesn't take long for Craig to get in hot water in the country. The daughter of the town's wealthiest citizen Lester Matthews has been behaving erratically. Matthews wants to have her committed and he has his own physician Henry Stephenson ready, but it takes two doctors to commit and Craig does not think that Lucille Bremer belongs in an asylum.

Craig takes a very big chance with this case, enough to get him tossed out of the profession it he's wrong. He's got another crisis as well this one involving young married couple Warner Anderson and Jayne Meadows adopting a baby. Apparently the law requires a physical examination on the grounds of an adopted baby should have two healthy parents officially confirmed that way. Anderson is under the belief he has a heart condition for reasons never told by the film and he won't get a checkup. That one gets farmed out to Keye Luke.

The Blair General Hospital group may have ended its cinematic run on the big screen. But in the early 60s it was revived on television most memorably with Richard Chamberlain and Raymond Massey playing Gillespie without a wheelchair.

One comment I do have to say. Some kind of purple heart should go out to Nell Craig who played Nurse Parker who was Gillespie's personal nurse. The abuse that woman took from that man. She must have held him in great personal and professional esteem. I would have walked off that job in a New York minute.

The Kildare/Gillespie films were products of MGM's B picture unit. But even with that they had a certain MGM class to them. Dark Delusion was a fine one for the series to end with.

The Dr. Kildare series, which morphed into the Dr. Gillespie series, has its last episode with "Dark Delusions."

Filmed in 1947, it also stars James Craig as Dr. Coalt. Coalt is a brilliant doctor but a little too aggressive for a doctor starting out -- translation: he's in trouble with the upper crust.

Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore) sends Coalt to replace Dr. Art Baker in the country temporarily. There, his strong-mindedness and little regard for big monied people gets him embroiled in another tough case.

The father of a young woman, Lester Matthews, wants to have his daughter (Lucille Bremer) committed, but Dr. Coalt won't sign the papers. He believes that her problem can be cured and sets out to gain the young woman's confidence and help her, despite opposition.

A secondary plot concerns parents (Jayne Meadows and Warner Anderson) of a baby about to be adopted by them. In order to finalize the adoption, both parents have to pass a physical.

The mother has her physical, but her husband keeps finding excuses not to have one. It's up to Keye Luke to get to the bottom of the problem.

Good episode, but of the Ayres replacements, Craig was probably the most boring. The combo of Van Johnson and Keye Luke was the liveliest. I've never been a big fan of Van Johnson's, but he certainly brought lightness and charm to the proceedings.

Good, glossy series in the MGM tradition.

Dr. Leonard Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore) has enough of the young aggressive unconventional Dr. Tommy Coalt (James Craig). He sends him as short term replacement for a local small town doctor. He is asked to commit young socialite Cynthia Grace (Lucille Bremer) to an insane asylum but Coalt insists on searching for a cure of her disturbing behavior.

I don't know if this film is medically sound. I would have preferred a murder mystery, or maybe she's lying, or at least a cinematic multiple personality. I want something more dramatic. The movie goes off on a detour with a phone chase in the third act. It's like the writer knows that the movie needed some action to spice things up. Apparently this was the last film in the franchise which created Dr. Kildare. I can see this more as a TV medical drama. As a cinematic film, it's lacking.

In New York's Blair General Hospital, workplace of writer Max Brand's famous "Dr. Kildare", handsome recruit James Craig (as Tommy Coalt) is adored by young nurses, but has trouble getting along with his patients. There have been several complaints about Mr. Craig's poor bedside manner. Patients send protests to wise hospital head Lionel Barrymore (as Leonard Gillespie) regarding the new doctor's brash attitude. Craig is basically a good doctor – but he's a little bull-headed. When a nearby hospital asks Barrymore to "loan out" a surgeon for six weeks, he sends Craig. On the road, Craig meets a melancholy woman. Later, he discovers she is one of his new patients. Craig is immediately asked to co-sign papers committing gloomy Lucille Bremer (as Cynthia Grace) to a sanitarium. However, Craig has a feeling Ms. Bremer is more pretty than insane. He refuses to co-sign commitment papers...

MGM looks to have been setting up an additional spin-off series with this entry, but this was the last of their "Kildare/Gillespie" films – which lost Lew Ayres in the leading role, years ago. Van Johnson' "Dr. Adams" replaced "Dr. Kildare" as the young surgeon, but checked out after becoming a major box-office star. "Dark Delusion" did feature Barrymore and the staff, but took the story to another hospital. The tone is morose, with both the hospital and Ms. Bremer photographed in sinister shadows. A couple years later, Mr. Ayres returned as "Dr. Kildare" in a radio series. By the 1960s, the doctor got a big shot in the arm on TV, in a popular series starring Richard Chamberlain. The highlights in "Dark Delusion" are Barrymore acting up his usual storm, Bremer's pointedly tight party dress, and the telephone chase scene wherein series regular Keye Luke "diagnoses" Warner Anderson's heart condition...

Finally, there must be special mention of how director Willis Goldbeck and/or photographer Charles Rosher handle Craig and Bremer's climactic kissing scene – by spurting water in the lower left hand corner of your screen.

**** Dark Delusion (6/25/47) Willis Goldbeck ~ James Craig, Lionel Barrymore, Lucille Bremer, Keye Luke

The last (and least) of the Dr. Gillespie series focuses on a young doctor played by James Craig. He's a jerk who keeps ticking off patients. So Gillespie sends him to a small town hoping that might improve his bedside manner. It doesn't really because Craig spends the whole movie investigating a schizophrenia case. He even commits crimes that would lose any real doctor his license and probably see him serving time in prison. So the initial premise isn't even followed up on. I'm not a big fan of Craig so you can imagine how I feel about a movie where he gets 3/4 of the screen time. I did enjoy Keye Luke, though. This is a lackluster end to the Dr. Gillespie series, which was originally the Dr. Kildare series. The first and possibly only movie to feature a wedding where the bride is in an iron lung. So there's that.