Judge — August 22, 1931 — page 26: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JUDGE JUVGWG TH MOV" L$ ue director who tuened out “The Public Enemy” has turned his hand to hospitals and nurses, and while the turn is not as expert as it might be, Mr. manifests his Wellman again aptitude for tough, and I think you'll find robust. easy to write superficial melodrama about doctors. I can dash off two or three for you. The villain seduces the doctor's wife and the next day comes down with spinal menin- gitis—the doctor has to face the prob- lem. Will he be a man and kill his rival or will he be the sure-fingered surgeon and cure the man? Another. A nurse is in love with a doctor. She knows his wife is untrue to him, but she is a noble gal and won't tell. (This is a movie, mind you.) Suddenly the doctor's wife comes down with jump- ing gastritis. The nurse the emer; y room alone. Will the nurse remember her oath of allegiance and take out the wife's thy- roid glands or will she give her nitro- gen and let her laugh herself to death? It is of such stuff that the ordinary senior in insular dr: ic schools with when he comes to medi There have been exceptions. “Dr. Krazinski’s Secret,” a novel by the most-neglected man in English letters, M. P. Shiel, is an exciting, erudite mystery based on a little-men- tioned phenomenon of medical prac- ier. “The Sacred Somerset Maugham, while alt with death more than med. ved a doctor of sense and hen there is “Ari owsmnith, " the only good book our N winne r ever wrote or ever will write. ht Nurse,” which I almost for- got, deals with a young nurse who dis- covers malpractice and finds the un- written medical code prevents her from going to the police or doing any- thing else about the two children who are being starved to death. The plot, as you may judge, is fantastic, but, on the other hand, the dialogue is rough is runni Problem: By PARE LORENTZ and ready and the picture of an op- eration, the pace and the general spirit of the movie is energetic and entertaining. As usual, Mr. Wellman has a villain who socks women in the jaw and beats old ladies, and I must confess I rather enjoy this character- istic of Director Wellman — there's something so whole-hearted about it. Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Blondell do very well as the nurses in the case, and Ben Lyon, as a musical comedy -r, is surprisingly amusing. Nurse,” before I get off the subject, is honest entertainment, even if it does not live up to the lurid and livid advertisements put out by the producers. avine read my foregoing medical plots, I have thought up a realis- tic, modern and convincing melodrama which I offer instead to the movie in- dustry. I am convinced there is a world of material to be dramatized in and about hospitals and Think of the mystery plays you could write about doctors—the chief mys- tery being how and where to find a doctor. nitariums. For instance, my play, conceived this moment, deals with a man who wakes up at six o'clock in a hotel bed- Recommended “The Front. Page"—The best directed picture of the season “Night Nurse”—Careless but : tough picture of nurse-life, “The Public Enemy” A tough, real- istic gang picture. ‘The best of them all, “Smart Money” “The Public Enemy. well acted. Ry the authors of Amusing and “The Smiling Lieutenant"— of good-looking girls and M lier, all put to good use by Lubitsch. “The Viking”. seal hunting off the coast o! An exciting story of 1 -abrador. room and believes he has mastoid, in that his glands are swollen, his head aches, and a specialist once told him he was liable to hay He calls the hotel doctor and a nurse tells him the doctor's hours have not yet started. The speakeasies are not open, so my hero smokes and develops a hypochondriacal sweat until nine. At this time he calls his ear specialist. He is in Europe. His assistant will do the work at noon. Three hours more of nervous sweating, the assistant finally looks at the anthrums and say: You have neuritis from bad te Hero smiles dizzily, throws a bi the assistant and scurries to the den- he dental surgeon, highly recom- mended by the ear spec . discusses dict, mental characteristics and finally at_ three o'clock consents to actually look at the patient's teeth. He mumbles incanta- tions to a beautiful assistant, who writes them down on a mysterious chart, At four o’clock the dentist says it will ¢ five weeks and three hun- dred dollars to fix the teeth. The hero then explains that he has neuritis from infected tecth and that he is sailing and two days to spend with the dentist. The dentist says, in great surprise, that none of the teeth is infected and that the hero has a congested anthrum, which. is causing the trouble. At this point the scenario writer may do several things. He may have the hero go insane. He may have him shoot the dentist, marry the assistant and live happily ever afterward. Or he may have him shoot the dentist and the doctor and the assistant. I didn’t do any of those things. I just went over to Jack’s, had a glass of beer and then went down Eighth Avenue and bought a bottle of snake oil, and I am a well man today, a happy husband and a proud father, able to work ten hours a day on the scaffold without a single spot before my eyes. comicbooks.com