Who payed the critics

Pretty Good

Masterful Movie

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Paul Muni plays a small town doctor who becomes mixed up with a wounded criminal (Barton MacLane) and falls for a pretty hitchhiker (Ann Dvorak). A fine WB crime drama that moves with a crisp pace. Mustachioed Paul Muni reunites with his Scarface costar Ann Dvorak. Muni is excellent in one of his more subdued roles. Dvorak is lovely and gives an effortless performance. As different as Muni was from other Hollywood actors at the time, Dvorak was just as different from the other actresses. She rarely goes for the theatrical or hysterical. Her performances are usually much more grounded than, say, Bette Davis, who never saw a rafter she didn't reach for. The standout of the movie is Barton MacLane, shouting and swaggering his way through every scene. It's a real treat to watch. As usual, the stable of WB supporting players are superb. Remade as King of the Underworld with Kay Francis and Humphrey Bogart, whose first wife Mayo Methot appears here as MacLane's moll.

Ann Dvorak first hit Hollywood as a choreographer and dancer but once she broke out of the chorus line and into dramatic parts she made an immediate impact. With her intensity and ravishing beauty she could have spent her career being an adornment in any film she was placed in but she was a fine actress and wanted better parts and treatment - unfortunately she received neither. Warners lost interest in their feisty star and started putting her into any film that came along. There were duds (she must have cringed when she recalled her part in "Heat Lightning") but there were also some interesting ones. "Dr. Socrates" had her starring with Paul Muni who in the 1930s was Warner's most important star even though Robinson and Cagney were far more popular.This is a great little movie about a small town doctor jokingly called "Dr. Socrates" by the local wags because he always has his head in a book and Jo (Dvorak), a young hitch-hiker, who unwittingly finds a ride into town with the local bad boy turned vicious gangster, Red Bastian (Barton MacLane). Unfortunately for Dvorak and Muni, once MacLane hits the scene there is no room for anyone else. Barton "why speak when shouting will do" MacLane is just fantastic as the "rough as guts" gangster - he never leaves centre stage, whether he is making a call on the doc to remove a bullet or holding forth among his gang (Marc Lawrence has a bit as a young punk) - even Mayo Methot as his moll "Muggsy" is no match for his brawling and brutish ways.If it wasn't for Barton and Ann, this would be just another movie about "down home folk" with a few holes. Muni's doctor doesn't have a particularly warm persona and he doesn't seem concerned when "Ma" can't pay the grocery bills. When Jo realises she is riding with bank robbers she tries to escape but is shot and taken to the doctor. For a while I thought it was going to be similar in plot to "Fury". The establishing shots had shown a lot of the town's people as narrow minded, finding the doctor a figure of fun just because he is a square peg in a round hole. Word gets out that Jo is a gun moll and there is a scene where it seems like the whole town converges on the doctor's doorstep to run Jo out of town.The last part of the movie takes place at the gang's hideout. Red has kidnapped Jo - she is going to be his girl from now on and the doctor, on finding her, realises that the hideout is in the vicinity of a typhoid outbreak. MacLane seemed to have so much fun with his role, especially when he tries to convince Jo that he can be real fun to be around while threatening to knock "Muggsy" silly!!! Terrific fun!!

(There are Spoilers) Having lost his nerve as a brilliant surgeon after surviving a car crash back in Chicago, that killed his fiancé Sylvia, Dr. Lee. Cardwell aka Dr. Socrates, Paul Muni, moved from the big city of Chicago to little Big Bend Ind to reopen his practice. Lee not interested in money never takes cash from his patients but only IOU's which, from watching the movie, are never repaid. Just making ends meet Lee has difficulty paying his bills but somehow has no problem maintaining a big house as well as a full-time maid Ma Granson, Helen Howell. Things are about to change and that has to do with Lee's taking his oath as a doctor seriously to the point of not only helping those who need his services with or without health insurance, as we've already seen, but even those on the lamb from the law like bank robber Red Bastian, Barton MacLane.The Bastian gang picking up Jo Gray, Ann Dvorak, hitch-hiking to California end up in a shoot-out in Big Bend where both Bastian and Jo end up wounded. Lee taking Jo to his home to be treated for her wounds is accused with Jo of aiding the Bastian Mob. Since Jo is suspected, by being with the gangster at the time of her getting shot, to be Bastian's gun moll and getaway driver. Lee refusing to release Jo to a vigilante mob until she's fully recovered from her wounds later get's involved with Bastian himself as he, and a number of his fellow hoodlums, break into his place demanding treatment for his gun shot wounds. Bastian grateful for what Lee did for him gives him a C-Note, 100 dollar bill, for his troubles. That bill will later have the FBI and local police trace it back to the Bastine bank robbery thus implicating Lee, as well as the already suspected Jo, as a suspect and member of the Red Bastian gang.With all this going on and Lee about to be taken into custody it's found out that Red had his hoods raid his home and kidnap Jo whom Bastian has take a strong liking for. Getting the FBI and police to go along with him Lee goes to Bastian's hideout, where he was earlier taken by Bastine's mob, and devises a plan to not only get Red Bastian to release Jo but also give himself, and his gang, up; by being tricked into facing something that's far worse then any police bullets or a life behind bars.As he's treating Red Bastian's wound Lee taking his temperature see's that it's normal, 98.6, but tell the shocked gangster that it's 103. Lee tells a shocked Bastain that not only does he but his entire gang, together with Lee & Jo, have contracted typhoid from the well water that they've been drinking. Vaccinating Bastian and most of his gang Lee instead of a typhoid vaccine shoots them up with dope causing the mobsters to conk out before the FBI, who told Lee that they would start moving in on Bastian's hideout in less then an hour, make their move.Lee's actions still didn't prevent a wild shoot-out outside in the Bastian hideout. Since the hoodlums there weren't and couldn't all be vaccinated by him but it prevented an even bigger shoot-out and massacre inside where most of the Bastian mob was. All of this didn't give the film the feel-good ending that you would have expected. Bastian staggering from the influence of the dope tries to make his last stand but is so groggy that he could barley stand on his two feet. Instead of shooting it out with the Feds, and going out in a blaze of glory, Bastian falls down a fight of stairs landing right on his head and into a pair of handcuffs instead.

With Paul Muni in the lead, I was expecting something out of the ordinary. However, Dr. Socrates is ordinary. It is a run-of-the-mill 1930's crime drama with Muni's range wasted in a part better suited to Chester Morris or Ricardo Cortez. Barton MacLane and Mayo Methot, on the other hand, are perfect playing parts similar to what they played throughout their entire careers. It's watchable, but not special.