Starring: Will Rogers, Rochelle Hudson, Louise Dresser, Vera Allen, Ralph Morgan, Marian Nixon, Howard Lally, Andy Devine, Berton Churchill
Writer: Paul Green (based on the book "The Last Adam" by James Gould Cozzens
Cinematography: George Schneiderman
Editor: Louis R. Loeffler
Music: Samuel Kaylin
B&W, 1h 17m. 1.37:1 presentation.
Released on: September 1, 1933 by Fox Film Corporation.
My experience: Ford at Fox DVD box set.
Doctor Bull is very representative of John Ford himself, in that it revels in the simplicity of small town American values, while at the same time mocking its faults fairly mercilessly. He is aided in this approach by Will Rogers, an old hand at acting (having been in the theatah since the vaudeville days) turned political and social pundit. While less remembered today, he was famous throughout the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, lovingly referred to as "Ambassador at Large of the United States." He had a folksy yet subtly intellectual charm, with humor that could "bridge the gap" as they say in today's parlance. He died in a plane crash in 1935 at the top of his game, and Doctor Bull marks the first of three films he made with John Ford before he died.
Here he plays George Bull, a former animal doctor turned small town physician in the fictional town of New Winton, Connecticut. George looks after the health of all the town's adults and children, but his pet case seems to be that of Joe Tupping (Howard Lally), a young man who broke his leg falling of the top of a house. Both the townspeople and George's colleagues insist that Joe is a hopeless case and will be paralyzed for life, but George and Joe's wife May (Marian Nixon) have hope that he will pull through and regain his mobility. George has a romantic interest in one Janet Cardmaker (Vera Allen), a widow who lives on a hillside farm just outside of town.
Janet is what some might call "well off," especially in the parlance of 1930s Depression-era America. While she is a paragon of goodness (no matter what the town gossips, played by Louise Carter, Tempe Pigott, Nora Cecil and Elizabeth Patterson, say), her powerful family is, for the most part, quite the opposite. Her brother, Herbert Banning (Berton Churchill), is a businessman and real estate mogul whose wife (Louise Dresser) is far more concerned with optics and social niceties than her own daughter Virginia (Rochelle Hudson)'s well-being. Over Virginia's objections, her parents are trying to marry her off in a social matchup, and Doctor Bull seems to be the only one Virginia can count on to be her friend.
In fact Bull is there to support everybody in the town, existing on hardly any sleep while getting midnight phone calls from hypochondriacs like town soda jerk Larry Ward (Andy Devine, doing his patented Andy Devine schtick). When he realizes that an outbreak of typhoid has been brought on by Herbert's water works project not following codes, he gets confirmation from his big city colleague Dr. Verney (Ralph Morgan), while getting backlash from his own community. Soon he's brought in front of a local mob and castigated by people who should know better. Ah, but Doctor Bull is a better man than me; instead of washing his hands of the judgemental own hypocrites, he doubles down on trying to get the town children vaccinated (it doesn't seem as if things have changed much in the past 90 years). Being a classic Hollywood studio film, all's well that ends well.
Doctor Bull is a decently entertaining piece of small town Americana. At an hour and seventeen minutes, it doesn't overstay its welcome, and the pace is brisk. It packs a lot of plot into its short runtime. Ford always has an eye for detail, and the townspeople, as in so many of his films, are scene stealers. Louise Carter, who plays Mrs. Ely, veers close to caricature but never reaches it; rather, her obvious joy in being the town gossip hits home; we all know somebody like that!
This is the first film I've seen with Will Rogers. For someone who considers himself a student of classic cinema, it's surprising that I hadn't come across him sooner. However, it took me until my late 20s to discover the genius of Harold Lloyd, so I guess some things you just have to discover on your own time. Rogers' humour, while served up in a nearly-obsolete folksy manner, packs a bit of a punch for all its understated delivery. His acting as well impressed me; for some reason I think I was expecting a "local yokel" type performance, but his subtlety of style wouldn't look out of place in today's world.
While not John Ford's best movie, Doctor Bull is a decently entertaining film with a short running time that will easily kill 80 minutes. It praises small town pleasures while pointedly taking on the pitfalls of some of its people; it salutes scientific achievement while saving a soft spot for community-oriented servitude. It's balanced without being frustrating. Beware, however, if you have high blood pressure; the behaviour of the pick-a-little, talk-a-little townspeople might get you a little riled up! Worth a watch on a rainy day.
Six pragmatic physicians out of ten.
No comments:
Post a Comment