Le combat du Capitaine Newman

It's 1944 and Capt. Josiah J. Newman (Gregory Peck) is in charge of the military neuropsychiatric ward. Other staff includes Cpl. Jake Leibowitz (Tony Curtis) and nurse Lt. Francie Corum (Angie Dickinson).

The military is resistant to Newman and his views on PTSD. He is challenged at every turn. The movie itself was probably at the cutting edge in 1963. The movie was filmed 10 years after the end of the Korean war, and that usually is when the Hollywood reflection movies start to be made. The acting is still movie versions of crazy in today's terms. But it was probably a good improvement on a realistic look at mental illness at the time.

For reasons I don't understand Captain Newman MD has always been singled out for criticism, most particularly directed at Gregory Peck saying he's too stiff for comedy. I don't agree on a number of levels and this is one of my favorite films with him.

First and foremost Peck's role is not one of comedy. What he does in the film is serve as Tony Curtis's straight man. Now his role is a comic one and very funny indeed.

Peck runs the psychiatric ward in an Army Air Corps Hospital out in the Arizona desert during World War II. There's no way a man like Peck would be in the command of George S. Patton who just didn't believe in Peck's whole profession. And in Patton like fashion if someone isn't shipped back to command in twelve weeks, Peck hears about it.

Captain Newman, MD is a serious film about such people and they are at the heart of the story with Peck trying his best to fix the broken minds and psyches in our Armed Forces. Three of his cases are the drunken, guitar playing corporal Bobby Darin, the catatonic flier Robert Duvall, and Eddie Albert the colonel who has gone psychotic. Peck has a mixed record of success with these three and with others in his ward.

Bobby Darin got an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, it's a fine performance but he lost that year to Melvyn Douglas for Hud. But personally I feel that Eddie Albert stole Captain Newman, MD from the rest of the cast. It's a tossup between this role and Attack for the best performances of Albert's carer.

Robert Duvall always credited Peck with giving him a good start to his long career with key roles in To Kill A Mockingbird and Captain Newman, MD. Funny thing is that Duvall has little dialog here and none in To Kill A Mockingbird. Far from the well spoken attorney who was consigliere to The Godfather. He's matched in his performance by his wife played by Bethel Leslie who is apparently much influenced by Grace Kelly in her performance. She's his prim and proper wife who tries to stir his interest in an attempt at an unusual kind of shock therapy.

Aiding Peck in his treatment of his patients are nurses Angie Dickinson and Jane Withers and orderlies Tony Curtis and Larry Storch. In his memoirs Tony Curtis says that he got along very well with Gregory Peck who he says was one of the best class acts in Hollywood. He didn't get along all that well with director David Miller who wanted Curtis to be more ethnic in his interpretation of Corporal Jackson Leibowitz. Curtis won out and I think he was right in this case. A friend of Tony Curtis's since childhood is Larry Storch and because of that Storch appears in a few films with Curtis. As Peck was Tony's straight man, Storch becomes his comic foil in a couple of scenes and they work well together.

Captain Newman, MD is a classic film, both entertaining and thought provoking, about the treatment of mental breakdowns among our military. As we certainly now are a country at war, Captain Newman, MD has a relevancy today that is timely. Absolutely do not miss it when it is broadcast.

Captain Newman, M.D. (1963)

Almost twenty years after WWII, a movie that reflected the growing public admission that there were many psychological victims from the war, often ignored or minimized at the time (unlike, say, Vietnam, which was just unfolding, and which demanded a different kind of accountability). And this one is set in the middle of the war, though in an Arizona military hospital far from direct action.

The star is certainly the title character, played by Gregory Peck, and Peck is his usual highly respectable self, moral and a natural leader, but likable and willing to take chances, too. That is, an ideal male, in many ways, the kind you might like to have as President, or at least the chief doctor in your hospital. He is, in particular, in charge of the mental ward, and his main intern played by Tony Curtis steals the show, on purpose. While much of the movie is funny, or at least peculiar enough to be ironic and wry, there are moments of heartfelt tragedy and even heartwrenching trauma (especially when a couple of the inmates go berserk). Third in line is a strong, sympathetic nurse (Angie Dickinson) and these three run the ward with unusual verve and intelligence. It clearly is a case in favor of the military giving good psych treatment.

There are several interesting patients, as well as a band of Italian POWs brought in for some nice comic relief (and for a reminder that people are people, even if they are enemies). The most famous and unusual is played by Bobby Darin, who I just saw in another movie from the period where he played a patient in an army psych ward, the riveting "Pressure Point." This is a whole different kind of movie, though Darin's performance is strong in similar ways in both cases. Here he even plays an impressive ten seconds on the guitar, and if you watch closely you'll see it's the real deal, not recorded later.

The color in the filming is unusually clear and vivid in a realistic way, and Russell Metty behind the camera has made a number of really solid, beautiful, richly colorful films ("That Touch of Mink" and "Imitation of Life" as well as the more earthy "The Misfits"). The lighting is usually fairly bright and broad, though there are some scenes pumped up with shadows. A couple of shots toward the end are oddly filmed against an obvious back projections (when they are rounding up the sheep) which is too bad because otherwise the standards are very high. Director David Miller isn't especially legendary, but he has one terrific film I'd recommend to anyone, "Sudden Fear" made a decade earlier. Here he shows general high production values and a sense of humor (mostly through the endlessly lively Curtis).

A nice little colorful film with a gently persuasive subtext.

I previously gave a terrible review to Peck's movie Spellbound. This movie just goes to show that he CAN make a good movie about psychiatry (unlike Spellbound--yuck).

Peck is an officer running a psychiatric ward stateside during WWII. He has a good heart and good intentions and tries a lot of different techniques to help these men. What I like is that although he is generally successful, it is very clear Captain Newman feels, at times, over his head dealing with these many patients. He is not a SUPERMAN but a decent guy who's trying his best.

Tony Curtis is the comic relief. So, while the movie is VERY serious at times, it also can be rather comical. This is a tough balance but it is done well and I liked Curtis in this film.

However, apart from Gregory Peck, the real standout in the movie is Bobby Darin. Although he only is a supporting player, his is the meatiest performance. He wonderfully plays a man suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (though he outwardly hides it with bravado and obnoxiousness)--this is particularly true when he is under the influence of Sodium Pentathol (or some other "truth serum"). I would say it is worth seeing the film just for this sequence--it's just so nice that there are many other good moments to recommend this flick.

I enjoyed the movie very much. Of course I am one of those baby boomer's born after World War II. So I and my siblings would play war (those were the days when parents would remind their charges that movies were make believe). So being 12 years old at the time, "Captain Newman, M.D." was one of the few adult films that I as a kid that I enjoyed and understood. Even being that young I had for the most part enjoyed, Gregory Peck, Tony Curtis, Bobby Darin and Eddie Albert in their respective rolls. I felt for Eddie's character as a Colonel Norval Algate Bliss. Having sent his people out to death, it was a memory his character could not live with. To me, he played the character well, not just acting, but because he had "been there, done that" and so he had seen his share of death during World War II at Tarawa. I would recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys acting at its best.