Le docteur et son toubib

Going My Way was such a blockbuster hit for Paramount with the inspired teaming of Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald that sooner or later you knew they would be teamed again.

Going My Way had one problem; with Bing and Barry as priests you couldn't have any romance. So in this one, they're doctors. Bing is supposed to be a temporary replacement while Barry takes a long postponed vacation. Just like in Going My Way, they don't hit it off at first, but circumstances push them together and by the end of the picture they're fast friends and Bing ends up with schoolmarm Joan Caulfield.

Welcome Stranger does stand on its own merits as a picture, it's not just a pale imitation of Going My Way. Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke give Bing four good songs. Personally, I think the highlight of the movie is Bing singing and calling the square dance in Country Style.

He also sings a nice number called Smile Right Back At the Sun. Crosby had a song genre all his own, the upbeat philosophical songs and this is a perfect example of that kind of number. It's in the same vein as Swinging on a Star. No other singer ever sang so many numbers of that type as Crosby or sung them so well.

One of my favorite character actors Charles Dingle is the villain of the piece. Whether he's a serious or a comic villain like here, Dingle never disappoints with his patented brand of pomposity.

I would venture one criticism of the film. I believe Frank Faylen and Wanda Hendrix who play father and daughter could have had their characters more fully developed. I think a lot of their performances was edited out of the finished product.

But Welcome Stranger is still grand entertainment, Crosby and Paramount at their best.

This is a comfortable homespun story about a new doctor, Jim Pearson (Crosby), arriving in town to fill in for the older doctor who needs a vacation. At first Pearson doesn't quite fit in with the local townsfolk yet once he meets the pretty teacher, Trudy, he decides it's worth staying. Barry Fitzgerald takes on the role of crusty Dr. McRory who doesn't get along with or approve of his replacement, Pearson. Given time though events make him reconsider his first impressions. There is a liberal sprinkling of Bing's mellow crooning and even at one point grumpy Barry joins in the singing surprisingly. An enjoyable movie for any Crosby fans, as well as those who appreciate the delightful display of Barry's Irish wit.

WELCOME STRANGER (Paramount, 1947), directed by Elliott Nugent, with its dramatic sounding title, stars crooner Bing Crosby in another one of his most popular movies that's become forgotten during the course of the years. Aside from reuniting him with his charming BLUE SKIES (1946) co-star, Joan Caulfied, the attentions rests mainly on the reunion of Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald, stars and Academy Award winners from the Best Picture win of GOING MY WAY (1944). With Crosby and Fitzgerald playing priests with differences of opinion proved so successful, their second venture, basically the same premise, offers them another shot in the arm for their roles as doctors.

The story opens in Boston where Doctor Joseph McRory (Barry Fitzgerald), from the small town of Fallbridge, Maine, planning his first vacation in 35 years, arrives at the Physician and Surgeon Placement Bureau to meet with Mr. Daniels (Paul Stanton) to inquire about the doctor who's to fill in for him for the next two months. Being told that the selected Doctor Jim Pearson is on his way to Fallbridge, McRory takes the next train home to meet with him. While on board, McRory encounters a fellow passenger (Bing Crosby) who, through no fault of his own, constantly gets on his nerves. Upon his return, McCrory gets to meet Pearson, who turns out to be the stranger he met on the train. Going over his qualifications, he finds Pearson incompetent, resenting his down-to-earth medical methods, the clothes he wears, and occasional singing. Pearson soon meets Trudy Mason (Joan Caulfield), a local schoolteacher who volunteers her time assisting McRory at his clinic, who, too, finds the new city doctor quite arrogate and taking an instant dislike to him as well. As he tries to get to know her better, she informs him she's engaged to Roy Chesley (Robert Shayne), the town pharmacist. As much as Pearson has become an unwelcome stranger in town, the only one who's grown to like him is McRory's housekeeper, Mrs. Gilley (Elizabeth Patterson), who offers him advise how to improve himself, like "by not talking so much." As McRory gets to go on his long awaited fishing trip, an emergency occurs that prevents him from going. Through the course of time, Pearson proves himself an asset to the community, though McRory continues to have his doubts about him. Situations occur when Charles J. Chesley (Charles Dingle), head of the town council, arranges to phase McRory out of his profession in favor of a much younger doctor, Ronnie Jenks (Larry Young), to take charge of the hospital.

In the supporting cast are Wanda Hendrix as Emily, a young teenager with a crush on the Pearson; Frank Faylen as Bill Waters, Emily's father and editor of the Fallbridge Weekly newspaper with a drinking problem; Percy Kilbride in his droll but amusing pre-"Pa Kettle" caricature of Nat Dorkas, a local taxi driver; Thurston Hall appearing briefly as Congressman Beeker; as well as the film's own director, Elliott Nugent assuming a small role as Doctor White.

Concentrating more on plot than songs, it's become one of the least tuneful of the Crosby films at that time. All sung by Bing Crosby, the motion picture soundtrack, with songs by James Van Heusen and Johnny Burke, include: "Smile Right Back at the Sun," "Country Style," "My Heart is a Hobo," and "As Long as I'm Dreaming." "Country Style" is a highlight production where everyone gathers together in the barn as Crosby's character calls to lead and sing to a square dance. For the fishing sequence with Fitzgerald, Crosby catches more fish through his singing of "My Heart is a Hobo." "As Long as I'm Dreaming," is a nice tune worthy of mention set on a sleigh ride, through nothing close to becoming an Academy Award nominee as "Swinging on a Star" from GOING MY WAY.

WELCOME STRANGER has that sort of feel-good style of either directors Frank Capra or Leo McCarey. In true Crosby tradition, his character looks on the positive side regardless of negative obstacles. Crosby and Fitzgerald make a grand pair of opposites, which is why their chemistry works so well. Comparing their performances here to GOING MY WAY would not be out of the ordinary. Though teamed together again in TOP O THE MORNING (1949), it proved to be the weakest of their three collaborations and least known and revived. Taking a cue from Bob Hope comedies, Crosby gets into the act by throwing in an in-joke on his own. Being told there's Bob Hope movie being shown in town, Crosby's character naturally passes it up. The best portion of the entire film, however, in regards to comedy, is the official meeting between Crosby and Fitzgerald meet, where everything seems to go wrong.

Formerly shown on cable television's American Movie Classics (1995-1998), later on Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: January 24, 2013), and placed on video cassette in 1995, and a decade later on DVD as a companion piece to Crosby's earlier underrated gem, SING YOU SINNERS (1938), WELCOME STRANGER, as a whole, may not offer much by ways of excitement of car chases or courtroom tactics. In general, it's a simple leisurely-paced story with well-developed character study on small town folks living in country style, with diagnoses as to how opposites attract, especially these pipe smoking doctors having more in common besides the use of stethoscopes.(*** surgical gloves).

Welcome Stranger starts off promisingly, but loses steam. Bing plays a young doctor who comes to a small town and is met by a cold welcome from the townspeople, and most especially from Barry Fitgerald, an older doctor whom Bing has to work with. Yet Bing keeps a nonchalant attitude and doesn't let the people get the better of him. The results are predictable. This movie is overlong, but still any Bing Crosby movie is worth watching.

Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald, who scored a hit playing Catholic priests in "Going My Way," reunited a few years later in this tale of small-town doctors. I expected this to be just a secular version of the earlier film. In a way it is, but it starts out considerably darker.

Crosby's character, a free-spirited young physician named Jim Pearson, is pretty much like the priest he once played, except that this guy has an eye for the ladies. Pearson is easygoing, quick with a quip and blessed with a great singing voice.

But Fitzgerald's character, Dr. Joe McRory, is a less likable version of the crusty old priest he portrayed earlier. At least at the beginning of the film, McRory is not just eccentric and cantankerous, he's moody and sometimes downright mean.

Early on, Pearson heads to the little community of Fallbridge, Maine, to assist McRory's practice. The two men meet accidentally without knowing each other's identities, and due to a series of trivial mix-ups, the old doctor develops a nasty grudge against the young stranger. McRory's insistence on quarreling at every turn is supposed to be funny, but it makes him seem almost unhinged.

The misunderstanding is soon resolved. But McRory, instead of laughing it off, tries to drive Pearson out of town, denouncing him as a quack and a scoundrel.

The prickly old doctor persuades the leading folks in Fallbridge to give Pearson the cold shoulder, too. Among these people is pretty schoolteacher/amateur nurse Trudy Mason (played by Joan Caulfield), who fights her obvious attraction to the newcomer by repeatedly insulting him.

None of this makes any sense, because young Dr. Pearson is always the soul of geniality. In fact, the attitude of the old doc and the town's elite is so illogical that you wonder how the hero will ever get through to them.

Fortunately, this is a Bing Crosby movie, with upbeat songs, contrived situations and gentle jests, some of them done with the proverbial wink at the audience. Eventually, the Crosby charm starts to work its magic on these stony New England hearts. Better late than never.

Some of the most memorable characters in this movie are the minor ones, the town's more marginal citizens who, unlike the establishment types, are friendly to Pearson from the start. Percy Kilbride is perfect as a cabdriver who likes to share his homespun philosophy. Frank Faylen plays the town journalist and town drunk, an interesting mix.

And Wanda Hendrix is totally convincing as a lonely, plain 13-year-old girl (the drunk's daughter) who develops a crush on the kindly young physician. It's hard to believe Hendrix was already 18 and on the threshold of the glamorous, sexy roles for which she's best remembered today. She was a better actress than I'd always thought.