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Pretty Good

I wanted to but couldn't!

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Other reviewers of The Doctor and the Girl have rightfully praised its excellent treatment of a plot-line that at first glance seems familiar, even hackneyed. Of course, the sterling performances of everybody on screen are a huge asset to the picture. But for me, the gold medal has to be given to Curtis Bernhardt's expert handling of Theodore Reeves' adroit screenplay.It's a tightly-paced film, with very few exteriors. But Bernhardt's brilliant interiors give superb depth to each scene and each character, from stern Charles Coburn to sylphlike Janet Leigh to earnest Bruce Bennett (in a great supporting role as an unassuming ENT specialist). The director keeps everybody's performance low-key and believable. In her first scenes, sickly Janet Leigh seems to be wearing no makeup at all. And even Charles Coburn isn't allowed to milk his scenes to the limit.A master of lighting and camera angles, Bernhardt was one of the numerous excellent filmmakers in exile from Nazi Germany. His filmography is a strong one, studded with many entertaining films of the forties and fifties. Conflict, starring a quintessential Humphrey Bogart, and My Reputation with Barbara Stanwyck at her best, are two goodies that come to mind. And let's not forget Possessed, highlighted by Joan Crawford's hallucinatory performance.But unlike some other exiled directors - such as Wilder, Lubitsch, Lang and Sirk - Curtis Bernhardt hasn't got any universally acclaimed masterpieces on his résumé, so he is often neglected by movie historians. But he was certainly a talent to reckon with, and any of his pictures deserve a careful look.P.S. I totally concur with EliotTempleton's comments about Hollywood having a very long history of movies with medical themes. In fact Theodore Reeves, the main writer for this film, was the author of many medical screenplays dating back to the 1930s.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!! This is a top notch film with a good script and excellent acting.First off, the script. Basically you have a dysfunctional family headed by somewhat of a tyrant of a father (Charles Coburn). The main character of the story -- Glenn Ford -- is a young doctor and the son of Coburn. Coburn has his son's medical career all plotted out for him, and at first Ford follows his father's script in being a very efficient doctor with no bedside manner. He falls in love with a hospital patient (Janet Leigh) who is from the other side of the tracks (or in this case, the other side of the avenue). The father basically disowns the son, Meanwhile, another daughter (Gloria DeHaven) is a bit too wild, also rebels against her father, and does a self-given abortion. Another daughter -- Nancy Davis (Reagan) stays with the father, but is sympathetic toward her siblings and their situations. Is it a bit soapy? Well, a bit. But it's a good story, and I was particularly interested in the home medical practice depicted, which was very much like my childhood doctor's practice (although he lived in a decent home, rather than an extended apartment (and incidentally, this film was made the year I was born, and I think it's a fairly decent representation of the practice of medicine at the time).While Glenn Ford isn't one of my favorite actors, I usually enjoy his work, and I would have to say that this was among his best roles. By the time this film was made, he was really coming into his own.Charles Coburn is such an interesting character actor. He was as comfortable playing the kindly, humorous character, or in this case, the curmudgeon. And in playing this type of role, he never seemed to go overboard. Always played it just right to make it believable.Gloria DeHaven was a "satisfactory" actress, but never in the "A" range. Here she does very nicely. Bruce Bennett, as another doctor, is very good here, as in Warner Anderson. Janet Leigh turns in a very effective performance as the seriously ill girl who becomes Ford's wife; one of her better roles! Basil Ruysdael -- one of those character actors you immediately recognize but whose name you don't know -- is superb here as the wise old doctor and family confidant...top notch! Nancy Davis, wife of Ronald Reagan, was another "satisfactory" actress; she does nicely here.I'll tell you how good this film is: after watching it, I immediately ordered if from Amazon! A very good story, excellent acting, and more realism than you often see from Hollywood.

I just wanted to say that the above reviewer is a bit misinformed regarding the history of films about physicians, particularly in the '30s. There was no shortage of movies with doctors as the central character in the early sound era, and some of them are "Men in White," "Internes Can't Take Money," "The Citadel," "Strange Interlude," "Symphony of Six Million," "Arrowsmith," "Yellow Jack," "Doctor X" "The Story of Louis Pasteur," just to name a few off the top of my head, without doing any research. Paramount's "Internes Can't Take Money," starring Barbara Stanwyck and Joel McCrea, was the first movie to feature the character of Dr. James Kildare, created by author Max Brand. I'm sure that the studio's executives rued the fact that they didn't have the foresight to feature the sympathetic young doctor in a series, which is what M-G-M did, starring Lew Ayres as the compassionate and crusading Dr. Jimmy Kildare. That series, by the way, started in the '30s with "Young Dr. Kildare" in 1938, followed by "Calling Dr. Kildare" and "The Secret of Dr. Kildare" in 1939. So, you see, there were quite a few doctors gracing movie screens throughout the 1930s.

Very few films were made before the 1970s with doctors and medicine as the main subjects. Hollywood had made the jump to sound movies in 1929, but the medical profession wasn't much in the public's eye – at least not in the realm of entertainment. Two films in the 1930s were mainly about doctors and medicine – "One Man's Journey," in 1933, and "Magnificent Obsession," in 1935. Both films had major stars of the time and were successes, but their plots were very serious. Film historians have said that Hollywood thought the public was too wary of somber subjects. People living through the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl and World War II needed more light-hearted entertainment. Having fun helped take their minds off their troubles for a while. So, comedy, romance, mystery and musicals best fit the bill for the film industry at the time. But, with the end of WW II, movie interests began to expand.One of the very first films focused on doctors and medicine was this 1949 MGM movie, "The Doctor and the Girl." It may have piqued the interest in other quarters for more such stories. A British film, "White Corridors," came out in 1951, and in 1954, a remake of "Magnificent Obsession" scored another box office hit. Interest in medical heroes and plots continued to grow. A 1961 movie, "The Young Doctors," had a huge cast. That same year, the first popular daytime TV medical drama (aka, soap opera) aired. "Dr. Kildare" ran through 1966. In 1962, "General Hospital" premiered. In 2013, the Guinness Book of World Records lists it as the longest-running American soap, and it's still going strong. Only two other TV series have gone longer, but both are now off the air. By the 1970s, the medical field began to emerge as a major sub-genre for films and TV programs. Shows ranged from drama to comedy, romance to crime and mystery, war to sci-fi, and even horror scripts. With new TV programs and films about doctors and medicine today, the very earliest movies still stand out for their excellent stories and performances by top casts. "The Doctor and the Girl" is such a film. The plot may seem to be so familiar today, but it wasn't at the time. Indeed, it was a leader in showing conflict between "high brow" medicine and that practiced for common folks. The performances by the stars are outstanding – Glenn Ford, Janet Leigh, Charles Coburn, Gloria De Haven, Bruce Bennett, and Basil Ruysdael. This is a movie worthy of any film library.