Dr. Kildare (Lew Ayres) and Mary (Laraine Day) are about to be married. But, when Kildare meets his future brother-in-law (Robert Young), he suspects the guy might have epilepsy. But, instead of dealing with this directly, Kildare mopes about and keeps this from Mary--and even the brother-in-law until well into the film. That's because if it IS epilepsy, it might mean he can never get it on with this sexy lady!
Normally I am a big fan of the Dr. Kildare movies. They are fun, intelligently written and very appealing...until this film. The sad fact is that the film is horribly written--mostly because the writer didn't bother to learn ANYTHING about the problem discussed in the film. If you look at the trivia section on this film, you can see that the film did not do a very good job of portraying epilepsy. I was surprised myself when a textbook Kildare read said that the disorder 'could lead to insanity' as well as that it's an inherited disease!!! What nonsense! Also, the film acts as if epilepsy is some dreaded disease--worse than leprosy, rabies and syphilis PUT TOGETHER! Nonsense! And, not only does the film get all this wrong, but with such misinformation, it unduly scared people and set back public perceptions on this disorder. And, since it makes up a HUGE portion of the film, it made the overall film...well,...suck!
The bottom line is that although the film has some nice MGM polish and decent acting, the script is such a stupid mess that I cannot recommend it unless you'd like a laugh. Dumb and worthless.
Normally I am a big fan of the Dr. Kildare movies. They are fun, intelligently written and very appealing...until this film. The sad fact is that the film is horribly written--mostly because the writer didn't bother to learn ANYTHING about the problem discussed in the film. If you look at the trivia section on this film, you can see that the film did not do a very good job of portraying epilepsy. I was surprised myself when a textbook Kildare read said that the disorder 'could lead to insanity' as well as that it's an inherited disease!!! What nonsense! Also, the film acts as if epilepsy is some dreaded disease--worse than leprosy, rabies and syphilis PUT TOGETHER! Nonsense! And, not only does the film get all this wrong, but with such misinformation, it unduly scared people and set back public perceptions on this disorder. And, since it makes up a HUGE portion of the film, it made the overall film...well,...suck!
The bottom line is that although the film has some nice MGM polish and decent acting, the script is such a stupid mess that I cannot recommend it unless you'd like a laugh. Dumb and worthless.