JohnHowardReid Copyright 12 October 1938 by Loew's Inc. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall: 27 October 1938 (ran one week). U.S. release: 14 October 1938. Australian release: 9 February 1939. 8 reels. 81 minutes.COMMENT: Although exceptions were occasionally made for Blondie, Charlie Chan, Sherlock Holmes and The Saint, series films were rarely contenders for even a supporting slot on all-important Saturday nights in Britain and Australia. Dr Kildare had a further impediment in that the setting itself had few glamorous associations for Australians - and still less for Britishers - during the dark days and nights of WW2.This one has some curiosity value, being the first of the M-G-M series. It was also the first feature film directed by Harold S. Bucquet, a graduate of the studio's shorts department. Bucquet's background was in scene design, but his directorial (or perhaps his health) problems surfaced in 1942 when Dr Kildare's Victory had to be completed and largely re-shot by W.S. Van Dyke. On the other hand, Bucquet did such sterling work on The Adventures of Tartu in 1943, he was handed two other prestige assignments, Dragon Seed (1944) and Without Love (1945), before his death in 1946 at the comparatively early age of 54.Alas, Young Dr Kildare is also saddled with a weak script. True, it does have a few interesting moments (Kildare peering through the door at his revived patient), but even some of these are ruined by Bucquet's mawkish tendency to over-emphasize. Only Nat Pendleton's gustoish playing of a muscle-bound ambulance driver and Monty Woolley's stuffed-shirt psychiatrist have any real appeal.

vincentlynch-moonoi This was a fine beginning to the MGM Dr. Kildare series. In fact, it had been years since I had watched any of these films, and I had forgotten just how good they were for B pictures. It's great that TCM occasionally broadcasts them.This particular story features a newly graduated from medical school, Dr. James Kildare. Although he has been chosen to be the assistant of Dr. Gillespie, he has to return to his hometown and his parents...his father is a small town doctor. They expect him to partner with his father in his medical practice. However, he intends to return to Blair General Hospital in the big city. The young doctor deals with attempted suicide, errors by medical staff, and Kildare's attempt to solve the suicidal girl through some detective work. There was something special about Lionel Barrymore, even here at the age of 60, all crippled up with arthritis. Lew Ayres was a fine actor, as well, although I remember him mostly for his television roles in his old age. Naturally, medicine has changed a great deal wince 1938 when this film was made. But this film is a sort of testament to the doctors who struggled to make a difference in the early years of big city hospitals and more modern medicine.

edwagreen Enjoyable film except for the fact that Lew Ayres, our young Dr. Kildare, resorts to being a sleuth to help determine why a young heiress attempted suicide. The film should have stuck with Kildare's encounters with the irascible, contentious, cantankerous Lionel Barrymore. The latter acted the same way years later in "It's A Wonderful Life,"Knowing that he wants more out of medicine, Kildare decides to leave his father's country practice and work at a N.Y. hospital. There he shows determination and foresight, which of course is caught by the ever-nasty Gillespie. (Barrymore)We see the idea of wealthy people getting better hospital treatment and the bureaucratic side of any hospital. Nothing much has changed.

Robert J. Maxwell Lew Ayres returns from medical school to his family. Dad is a doctor himself -- it runs in families -- and expects him to set up his office in the spare room so they can have a joint practice at home. But Ayres sadly informs his father that he's accepted an internship at famous Blair Hospital in New York, because, well, he feels there's more he wants to do than become a simple small-town practitioner. Dad nods understandingly. "It's true you can't make much money as a country doctor." The film doesn't pause long enough for the laughter to expire at this point.Well, Blair Hospital is a tough place, let me tell you. There are hide-bound administrators, elderly and out-of-touch specialists, and then there is Dr. Gillespie. That would be cranky old Lionel Barrymore bound in his wheelchair. He has a lot of juice around Blair Hospital and takes no guff from anybody. He treats new interns the way Mr. Murdstone treated David Copperfield.Ayres works his butt off, rushing around in ambulances, treating drunks and children, until he runs into a mysterious young woman who has attempted suicide. She won't reveal her identity but she has obvious class. She comes up with an archaic expression in French, so you can tell.Aside from Ayres' relationship with the home town girl we are absolutely certain is going to snag him, this is the big conflict. Who is this society dame and why did she try to off herself? Everybody else at Blair is convinced she's psychotic and they want to put her away, but Ayres believes she's quite sane and is suffering from genuine guilt.He's right, of course. But before he can prove it and get all the rewards coming to him, the movie must turn into a detective story in which the fresh-faced Ayres, accompanied by the affably physical Nat Pendleton, uncovers the secret she's hiding. It was all a misunderstanding. The classy babe melts into the arms of her sweetheart and Ayres takes off with the Homecoming Queen of Cockaigne.I don't know why this was so popular in its time. The cast is likable enough. Lew Ayres is youthful and handsome. (He was to come under a cloud a few years later for being a conscientious objector during the war. Kids, that's World War II. He served as a medic and was under fire but it didn't help much.) Lionel Barrymore is good as the whiny voiced curmudgeon. Still, this was the movie that launched a thousand sequels and there's nothing special about it. I suppose they were cheap enough and, in the absence of TV, audiences enjoyed seeing characters they were already familiar with.The story is by Max Brand, of all people. He wrote for Western pulp magazines mostly. A few of his stories became films, most notably "Destry Rides Again."