They Meet Again

The Dr. Christian series that Jean Hersholt starred in for RKO Pictures came to an end with They Meet Again. As in the previous film Melody For Three it involves a musical prodigy. Young Anne Bennett is a road show version of Deanna Durbin who wants to represent River's End at the Minnesota State musical show. But young Anne has bigger problems, her widower father Barton Yarborough has been framed and convicted of embezzlement at the bank he works at. Of course he didn't do it otherwise Dr. Christian and staff wouldn't agree to help.

With Jean Hersholt going to St. Paul to see Governor Neil Hamilton for a conditional release Detective Christian with operatives Robert Baldwin and Dorothy Lovett go to work on seeing who did the deed. With a really clever ruse involving a singing telegram they flush out the real thief. And Baldwin is adept at worming evidence out of loose women to nail the perpetrator.

In the meantime young Ms. Bennett takes sick with one of those Hollywood maladies that Dr. Christian just calls a broken heart. He has his own problems trying to see Neil Hamilton.

Of course it all ends happily as these films do. But I have to say this one was the most maudlin of the Dr. Christian films I've seen and now I've seen them all.

I do hope Dorothy Lovett and Robert Baldwin eventually tied the knot, she waited for him long enough.

I will not go into the details of the plot. I barely suggest you should really watch this! It won't take long: in the first five minutes or so you'll understand all there is to know. Ja(i)ne, nine-years-old daughter of the wrongly accused Bob Webster is a small girl with a big, really big unnatural face that makes her look like a 35-years-old woman, and her voice, when she sings, lyrical style, is, accordingly, that of a full grown (bad) soprano. Even more freakingly geek is her best friend, a same-aged boy with uneven teeth, flat blonde hair, and constantly wearing a postman suit. If that was not enough, hark, he dances tip-tap.

A friend of the Webster family is Dr. Christian, in whose home lives, and who knows why - apart from the housekeeper - a young nurse, Judy, always wearing a nurse suit. Her lover is a Roy Davis, he himself a postman. Roy, during the investigations, meets with his collegue Susie, depicted as the ugliest woman on Earth. And that ends our collection of monsters.

Well, this has to be the very strangest of all the Dr. Christian movies. I like the series -- Jean Hersholt, with his charming Danish accent, makes a warm, friendly small-town Minnesota Dr., his housekeeper Maude Eburn, with her Bride of Frakenstein hairdo, is always amusing (and this time she spouts a continuous line of astrological wisdom which is -- incredibly for a movie -- completely accurate, according to the principles of astrology, and i say this as a professional astrologer, no joke!), and the shy romance between Judy and Bob, the young lovers, is, as ever, fascinatingly off-kilter.

But this time all sorts of strange side-shows are encountered. We get Neil Hamilton at his Leyendecker suit model best (in formal wear, no less) as the Governor, and the great Imogene Coca (uncredited) in a rousing performance as Lulu the romantic maid. And who on earth was the vocal double for little Anne Bennett when she burst into an entire aria from "La Traviata"? I suspect i will never know.

How can i recommend this movie to anyone who is not as weird as i am? I mean, if you want to see Maude Eburn in Bride of Frankenstein hair giving a completely accurate astrological rundown while Imogene Coca swoons on a porch glider and Neil Hamilton proves once again that he has the slickest hair and the straightest posture in town -- and you can stand hearing an entire aria from "La Traviata" mouthed by cute little Anne Bennett as Janie, who had earlier received a Shirley Temple doll for her birthday (the perfect gift for an aspiring child actor, of course) -- then this one's for you.

Oh, did i forget to mention Leon Tyler as Dick the tiny tap-dancing Western Union delivery boy? I think i did. Well, he's in there too, and so is Arthur Hoyt as the golf-obsessed secretary to the governor.

This film ranks a solid 5 out of 10 for weirdness alone. The only thing that would have made it better, would have been to have had it end with Arthur Hoyt in Imogene Coca's arms on the porch glider, while Dick tap-danced his way into Janie's heart and Bob and Judy got married. As for the Shirley Temple doll, it's worth hundreds now on eBay -- hundreds, i tell you!