Wonderful character development!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

That was the first time Ava Gardner had been credited for a movie .Although Marilyn Maxwell plays the female lead,today everybody knows that the star is Ava .Fortunately ,it's her scenes which are the most endearing in a routine Kildaresque medical melodrama.All that concerns her disabled mama is moving if a bit implausible (dr Miracle) The main plot concerns an old doctor (that was the first time I had found Lionel Barrymore almost unbearable,probably because of a poor direction)who must choose an assistant and tries to decide between two enthusiastic young colleagues ;but both have more than one string to their bow. Van Johnson has also got to make up his mind ,because there are two ladies.

**SPOILERS** With his top kick or head man at Blair General Hospital Dr. Kildare, or better yet actor Lew Ayres, off to war as a conscientious objector, driving ambulances on the front lines, Dr. Gillespie, Lionel Barrymore, is desperate to find his replacement. After searching high and low among his hundreds of interns Dr. Gillespie boils his search down to two candidates for Dr. Kildare's job doctors Randall "Red" Ames, Van Johnson, and Lee Won How, Keye Luke.Giving the two young doctors the task of finding a cure to a assigned patient's illness within a specific amount of time, like he's conducting some kind of game show or scavenger hunt, Dr. Gillespie will choose as his assistant the one who finds the cure first. A cocky Dr. Lee gets the job of finding out why little Mary Jones, Patrica Barker, is allergic to sugar like candy and sweet potato's. Red on his own takes up the task of finding out why this young woman-who refuses to reveal her name-Jean Brown played by Ava Gardner is walking and driving around dead drunk yet doesn't have a single drop of alcohol in her system?Wise old and manipulative Lenny Gillespie is really in favor of Red taking Dr. Kildare's place as his #1 assistant but Lee is determined to beat him to it by finding out what's the reason for Little Mary's acute anti-sugar problem. Meanwhle Red has his hands full with finding out the cause of beautiful brunette Jean's non-existent alcoholism which in fact turned out to be an anti-depression pill Jean had given to her by a friend of her's at a party she attended! Where at the same time Red's having this gorgeous blond Ruth Edley, Marilyn Maxwell, hounding him day and night to go out on a hot date with her! That on his measly $20.00 a month salary as an intern!As things tuned out Lee beats Red out in finding the cure, with Dr. Gillespie subconsciously tipping him off, for his patients, Litte Mary,illness and thus is to be rewarder in being Dr. Gillespie head man at Blair General. Lee also clues in Red, by showing him a nine year-old boy playing hop-scotch on the sidewalk, to what's the reason for Jean's drowsiness as a result of her pill popping which has to do with her depression over her mothers Mrs. Brown, Barbara Brown, arthritic condition. As it turned out the arthritis caused Mrs. Brown's right leg to be shorter then her left leaving her confined in a wheelchair for years. All Red now had to do is fit Mrs Brown with a special set of custom made shoes, at his bear bones salary where did he get the cash to buy them?, and everything including Jean's depressive state of mind, as a result in caring for her mother, would turn out fine.Red now feeling that he lost out to his colleague Lee in being top assistant to Dr. Gillispie, not knowing it was in fact Dr. Gillespie not Dr. Lee who came up with the cure for Litte Mary's illness,is ready to pack it in and join the US Marine Corps to fight the Japs in the far off South Pacific. It's then that Dr. Gllespie comes to his rescue pulling strings in getting Lee drafted into the Chinese Army as a field doctor on the front lines! Something that Lee wanted even more then being Dr. Gillespie's assistant!There's still the messy matter of Ruth messing up Red's mind by wanting him to hook up with her, for life, endangering his career in medicine! It's here that Dr. Gillespie, with a little help from his friends, saves Red's neck, as well a everything below it, in getting him out of that "terrible terrible jam" in a way that only he knows how.

This entry in the Dr. Kildare series (without Dr. Kildare) was a pleasant entry. I missed Dr. Kildare, but MGM had to add new characters for its financially successful series to continue.In this entry, neophyte doctors Van Johnson and Keye Luke compete in a friendly and cooperative manner, showing decades earlier that different races need not be afraid of each other, long before we became more politically and socially correct. Both actors turned in believable performances. However, I did find Van's character to be a bit silly trying to steer clear of Marilyn Maxwell's romantic machinations. I know it was the 1940s, but his character acted as if he had never been with a woman on a date before.In this entry, I found Dr. Gillespie to be rather annoying and more puerile in some of his behaviors: throwing away an invitation since he would have to send a gift without even opening the invitation, dumping his waste basket on his desk and then blaming the janitor, not accepting the responsibility that he missed the said affair, despite the fact that he had been told several times of the correct date. I did, however, enjoy his sparring with Nurse Mollie Byrd.I also missed Sally the switchboard lady. Blossom Rock/Marie Blake (from The Addams Family) was always fun to see.And what's up with the title? Why did MGM not include any reference to Dr. Gillespie in its final three entries in the series? Wouldn't that have defeated the purpose of the series? Wouldn't they want fans to know it was part of the Dr. Kildare series?A treat to see was a young and beautiful Ava Gardner. She also turned in a nice performance, allowing me to hear strains of her future Julie from Show Boat.This may not be one of the best entries in the series, but it's worth the time to see it and take a trip back to 1944.

This is a rather annoying entry into the series. With Dr. Kildare persona non grata at MGM after Lew Ayres became a conscientious objector, the franchise now belongs to irascible Dr. Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore). Barrymore was a wonderful actor, but these were B movies slapped together probably in days, and it shows. This particular film had Barrymore overplaying to the balcony at the top of his lungs. Van Johnson and Keye Luke are cute as the energetic interns vying to be his assistant (again) and each taking on a difficult case. Johnson, of course, also has to deal with a woman. This time, it's pretty Marilyn Maxwell.The chief interest in seeing this film is for an early appearance by Ava Gardner as Jean Brown. She is flawlessly beautiful as a young woman caring for her arthritis-stricken mother.I liked the Dr. Kildare series with Lew Ayres and Laraine Day much more, I have to confess.