CALLING DR GILLESPIE
US, 1942, 84 minutes, Black and white.
Lionel Barrymore, Philip Dorn, Donna Reed, Phil Brown, Nat Pendleton, Alma Kruger, Mary Nash, Walter Kingsford, Nell Craig, Ruth Tobey, Charles Dingle.
Directed by Harold S. Bucquet.
Calling Dr Gillespie was the first of the Dr Kildare series without Lew Ayres. He had declared himself a conscientious objector but served as a medic and ambulance driver in World War Two – but was dropped by MGM and no mention of him was made in the Dr Gillespie films that followed. This film was directed by Harold S. Bucquet who directed eight of the Dr Kildare films. He was to die soon after, having directed Katharine Hepburn in Dragon Seed and Without Love.
The film is a period piece, especially with the interest in psychology and psychotherapy at the time – but, it has some very clunky lines, especially from Dr Gillespie informing the parents of a psychotic young man that he was a mental case. The film simplifies a lot of psychoanalysis while urging audiences to be very interested in it.
Lionel Barrymore does his crusty Dr Gillespie role – but is much more sympathetic to his new assistant, played by Dutch actor Philip Dorn, in a rather humourless performance. The supporting cast, however, brings a lot of vitality to the film, Donna Reed as the charming leading lady, Phil Brown as the aforementioned mental case, Nat Pendleton reprising his role as the security guard, fainting with danger, mixing his words up. Alma Kruger, Nell Craig and Marie Blake (Jeanette Mac Donald’s sister) resume their roles as the put-upon staff of the hospital.
The film has some interest in presenting ways in which Hollywood understood psychology in the 1940s and dramatised it in a hospital context. The dialogue seems rather bizarre at times – and can be quite unsubtle – as well as the doctors concerned either being sceptical (Charles Dingle as the family doctor) or enthusiastic without proper explanations (Philip Dorn as the assistant).
The film is meant to be a thriller. Donna Reed is at a finishing school but is engaged to a young man who, when she refuses to elope with him, picks up a rock and kills her dog. He then manifests other signs of being a psychopath, breaking windows and glass (with the suggestion that the sound of a train or the presence of a train sets him off). When Dr Gillespie and his assistant explain the situation to the young man’s parents, he becomes very suspicious, is treated by the family doctor but escapes to Boston and Detroit, sends menacing postcards to Dr Gillespie, decides to come back to New York in order to murder him.
The film shows the police involved in hospital security, the young man pretending to be a doctor whom he has murdered, getting access to rooms in the hospital, being persuaded by his girlfriend to approach Dr Gillespie, but allowing this to be a ruse whereby he pulls a gun on the doctor. It is the comic security guard who saves the day.
The film is interesting for those who have watched the series of Dr Kildare and Dr Gillespie – and there was a sequel in the young man in prison and escaping. It was the end of the series of Dr Kildare and Dr Gillespie until reprised in the 1960s with Richard Chamberlain as Dr Kildare.
