Minor bio-pic on pioneering doctor Emily Dunning, first female to get an internship at a major NYC hospital, is pleasant and well-made, but never feels necessary. Boasting better than average turn-of-the-last-century period details for 1952 M-G-M, the film is too careful for its own good.* Only a few ambulance rides thru city streets rouse much response from director John Sturges while striving doctor-in-training June Allyson is her usual maddeningly nice self. (She’s even nice getting pissed at the hazing from the all-male staff.) Arthur Kennedy supplies romance as a fellow trainee leaning toward research abroad and Gary Merrill the most interesting character as the grumpy, but dedicated unit head who starts to question his bias against women in the profession as he warms to Allyson professionally and personally. You keep thinking someone might have done something special with the material. George Stevens’ I REMEMBER MAMA/’48 comes to mind; possibly because Barbara Bel Geddes would have been just right here. But the studio was in transition (founding M-G-M father L. B. Mayer OUT/message-driven producer Dore Schary IN), and this mid-list film got lost in the shuffle.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: For a plusher M-G-M take on a pioneering woman in the profession, try MADAME CURIE/’43. OR: Get an idea of what I REMEMBER MAMA’s Barbara Bel Geddes might have done. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/01/madame-curie-1943.html https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/i-remember-mama-1948.html
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *The script afraid to let Allyson’s young doc ever be wrong. In a major character building sequence she revives a man thought dead by a callous intern. If only her efforts had been correct . . . but for nought.
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