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Warren William is a real wastrel who completed 3 years of medical school before quitting. He works as an X-ray technician and dates nurse Jean Muir when he isn't hitting the town and picking up other women. What he is is really charming, so Muir, convinced that his way with patients would make him an excellent doctor, lends him the money to return to medical school.

He loses all her money playing poker on the train. Afraid to admit what happened, he works odd jobs while writing her letters telling her how well he's doing at school. He meets David Landau, a former doctor who's morphine addiction has lead him to ruin. He buys his medical degree and doctors the diploma promising to keep money flowing his way. He moves to New York City and hires real doctor Donald Meek to set up practice with him, essentially tricking him into doing all the work.

Pre-code films are really something. There's not a chance that film with a lead this despicable would be made even a year later. William pulls it off rather convincingly, working the charm while being an enormous cad. The madness by the film's end includes Meek experimenting with raising the dead and William having to admit his fraud when Muir's life is threatened.

Back in the 30s whenever you needed a scoundrel portrayed Warren William got first call. Bedside is a perfect Warren William part.

In Bedside Warren William gave up the study of medicine some time for a life of conning and carousing. But in due course he hits on a brilliant idea after encountering a disgraced former doctor in David Landau. Landau sells him his degree and William moves to New York.

What William has is charm in abundance and maybe if he had decided to just have a neighborhood practice somewhere he might have gotten away with it. But with a press agent in Allen Jenkins to promote him, former girlfriend Jean Muir to be his nurse and an associate in Donald Meek who is a superb diagnostician and researcher content to stay in the background William becomes a known society doctor, but it's all one big front.

Bedside is an almost perfect Warren William vehicle, no one else on the screen at the time could have played the con artist doctor with quite the aplomb William brings to this part. I would also recommend David Landau's performance here as well. Dope addiction was a forbidden topic and this film was on the cusp of the code. But Landau's is a tragic and pitiable figure as a morphine addicted physician whose career went to ruin because of it.

Bedside is a real sleeper of a film, an undiscovered gem from Warner Brothers in the 30s. A must for fans of Warren William.

Once upon a time, old films on the Late, Late Show were the object of derision, antiquities from another era, now merely of interest as something to chuckle at in the wee small hours of the morning. Happily, those days are gone forever, and vintage films now get the respect they so rightly deserve, no matter what their age, and no one more than I supports this more intelligent, enlightened attitude. But there are still quite a few turkeys lurking in the vaults which deserve the raspberry, but still manage to provide an hour's perverse diversion simply because they are so bad. One such is Bedside. In March 1934, Variety noted that "after being exploited for a solid hour as a gambler, drunkard, cheat and fraud, Warren William is unable in the last three minutes to rehabilitate himself in the grace of the spectator...the chief emotion aroused is regret that he gets the girl instead of taking the jail sentence he very richly deserves...the story is beyond saving, nor is it worth salvage...no picture is better than its plot, and this scenario is hopeless." A classic this is not, but therein lies the secret of its charm. Today's viewers can sit back and watch an abundance of such pre-code plot devices as pre-marital sex and drug addiction, with critical brain operations and bringing the dead back to life merely thrown in as side issues, set against a background of slick 1930's sets, one mind-boggling situation following another, the sum total of which would keep one of today's soaps going for at least six months if not a year. You won't believe a word of it, your jaw will frequently drop at the sheer, shocking absurdity of it all, to say nothing of the fact that the players manage to say their lines with total sincerity, without ever once cracking up. So relax and enjoy it. That's what movies like this are for. Watch for it on Turner Classic Movies; it's in their library.

William Warren plays Louis, a mostly-sympathetic scoundrel. He is a womanizer and gambler who has some medical school but lacks the discipline necessary to finish. David Landau shines in a supporting role: a washed up, morphine-addicted doctor who sells Louis his medical license for cash and a lifetime supply of morphine fixes. (The bio on Landau says "wooden." He doesn't seem so here.) Louis' ego and greed propel him to increasing medical risks. You know that sooner or later his ineptitude will result in death. The only question is "Whose?"

This movie was made when physician advertising was considered highly unethical. But Louis cleverly bends the rules! It was also made when the dangers of radiation exposure were unknown; notice that none of the characters in the X-ray room wear any protection.

This melodrama pulls out all the stops. It features a lovely, self-sacrificing nurse who is used by a ne'er-do-well who deep down *wants* to be a good guy, a "French" danseuse born on 10th Avenue, a Russian opera singer (Kathryn Sergava) who places her life in the hands of said ne'er-do-well, a once-prominent doctor (David Landau) who has hit the skids, a brash publicity agent (Allen Jenkins), a mousy, but competent doctor(Donald Meek) who partners with our hero to make him look good, and a passel of neurotic society lady patients.

Two people flirt with death on the operating table. One person forgets to look both ways before stepping off the curb, with disastrous results. There is on-again, off-again romance. There is even a machine that performs a seemingly medically impossible task! All in all, the plot is beyond belief.

That said, Warren William and Jean Muir make the most of their lead roles. Muir is especially charming, and really saves the film from being a complete waste. Jenkins, Landau, Meek, and Sergava are also fine in support. Too bad the script wasn't a little stronger.