Dark Delusion

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.

Lionel Barrymore and Alma Kruger are fantastic in this film.

It is too bad the film didn't just focus on them.

The main storyline isn't fleshed out and you end up not caring.

Alma and Lionel make it worth a watch.

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

A doctor searches the causes of a young woman's mental illness to avoid her father's wish to intern her. This mystery is competently played by James Craig and Lucille Bremer, with Craig's delicate attention in discovering her problems. But there are unfortunately many comic scenes that ruin the rhythm. A very modest B movie, I don't know any title of the director Willis Goldbeck, who is better known as a screenwriter for "Freaks", "the Man who shot Liberty Valance" and lot of Dr Kildare.

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.