Dr. Kildare's Victory (1942) User Reviews (10)

Hospital Turf War

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 28 December 2011]

Dr. Kildare's Victory marked the last of the films Lew Ayres did as the idealistic young doctor James Kildare, handpicked protégé of Lionel Barrymore as Dr. Gillespie. The series was so popular though that MGM had Barrymore continue in the Gillespie role in several more films with new young assistants in his diagnostic office.

This time Ayres gets himself involved in a hospital turf war as another young doctor and the nurse he was with had the temerity to pick up and treat an injured victim outside the territory of Blair General Hospital. Emerson Hospital whose territory it was just doesn't like other hospitals poaching patients from their turf. So the lawyers get into the act and Dr. Robert Sterling and nurse Jean Rogers get the ax.

That doesn't sit well with Ayres who did the surgery on the victim and saved her life. The victim was débutante Ann Ayars who is in a Paris Hilton type role. Like Paris, Ann has a great knack for working the media which comes in handy later on.

Ayres and Ayars also may be getting something going. As fans of the series know, Dr. Kildare lost his true love nurse Mary Lamont a day before their wedding. They were a great screen team and perfectly matched in this series as Laraine Day who played Lamont shared Ayres's personal and professional vision. That would be hard to recapture.

The Kildare series were B pictures from MGM although from the look of them they would be A products in most other studios. Dr. Kildare's Victory took them out on a relatively high note.

Ann Ayers lost a star from my rating...

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 29 January 2014]

...for her tiresome portrayal of débutante Cynthia 'Cookie' Charles, a patient who has a beer sign fall on her and a piece of the sign embedded in her heart. Once Cookie begins recovering she has the hots for the recent victim of tragedy, Dr. James Kildare, the surgeon who saved her life. However, her moves are so obvious she might as well be sending up flares. It's too bad she didn't buy some popcorn and see the earlier Kildare movies or she would know that slow, steady, and sweet are how you win the heart of James Kildare, not with overt come-ons.

The rest of the film is great. The series has mercifully removed Red Skelton from the role of orderly - Red's a great comic, but this just was not his style. Unfortunately, Nat Pendleton is still absent in the same role. On the light side there's a DT patient that runs through the hospital looking for his pink elephants, some great cigarette rolling by head nurse Molly Byrd, and a comic bit involving Doctor Carew who is mistaken for - both a maniac and a ghost??? The serious side involves an agreement between Blair and another hospital involving a dividing line between their territories as to where emergency cases go. A young couple in love - an intern and a nurse- have their jobs become casualties of the technicalities of this agreement. Dr. Kildare decides to help them out, first because their cause is just, and second because the two of them probably remind him of himself and Mary Lamont in happier times.

Highly recommended as a good entry in the series and unfortunately, the last with Lew Ayres as the suave Dr. K.

Answering to a Higher Power

[sol-kay · 7/10 · 9 December 2007]

***SPOILERS*** The bereaved Dr.James Kildare, Lew Ayres, not only overcomes the grief of the tragic death of his soon to be wife or "Bride of the Doctor" Nurse Mary Lamont but also is victorious, thus the movies title, over the "System". The "System" was created by a mindless and unfeeling bureaucracy that feels that following it's rules is far more important then saving lives.

After well known débutante Cynthia "Cookie" Charles, Anne Ayars, is hit by a falling five cent beer marquee sign while attending a swanky nightclub, with a lucky GI who won a date with Cookie in a raffle, Dr.Don Winthrop, Robert Searling, is on the scene and has the seriously injured Cookie sent to Blair Gneral Hospital for emergency surgery. Dr. Kildare operates on Cookie and miraculously saves her life after everyone in the operating room except the doctor's good friend and teacher, as well as boss, Dr. Leonard Gillespie, Lionel Barrymore, gave up on her.

You would think that Dr. Winthrop would be commended for his actions in having Cookie sent to Blair General where she ended up being brought back from the dead but Noooooo! He's kicked out and sent packing for not having Cookie sent to Emerson Hospital in who's jurisdiction the stricken Cookie was at the time of her accident! These restrictive bureaucratic edicts by the Board of Hospitals later has Dr. Winthrop's girlfriend Nurse Annobelle Kirke, Jean Rogers, send a very sick patient away from being treated at Blair to Emerson, since he was stricken in the jurisdiction of Emerson hospital,where he died on arrival!

To make things even more insane then they already are Nurse Kirke is later also given the pink slip for not reporting where Cookie was picked up, in the vicinity of Emerson, in that she was saved, by the handsome and dashing young Doctor Kildare,in Blair General. According to the rules obsessed Board of Hospials Cookie should have been sent to die, since Doctor Kildare doesn't work there and wouldn't be around to save her, in Emerson Hospital! No matter what Nurse Kirke and Dr. Winthdrop do, save or let a patient die, they end up behind the eight ball no matter who's shooting pool!

Even though it's not his problem Dr. Kildare takes it upon himself to take on the hospital bureaucracy almost single-handed which brings Cookie,and her powerful and influential friends, to see that the story of Dr. Kildare saving her life makes the front pages. Embarrassed and looking ridicules the Board of Hospitals rescinds it's edicts about who can send who, as long as it's within the others jurisdiction, to the hospital of what turns out to be of not, in the two cases that we see in the movie, the patients choice.

In the end Dr. Kildare's brave and unselfish actions, that could very well have cost him his job at Blair General,not only saved Dr. Winthrop and Nurse Kirks jobs but lifts the brainless restrictions imposed on all the public hospitals in the city by the equally brainless Board of Hospitals. Dr. Kildare is also able to overcome the grief of his loss of Nurse Mary Lamont in finally realizing that he can't live in the past for the rest of his life. Going on and doing his job as best as he can in saving lives is the best thing that he could do in Mary's memory.

Dr. Kildare goes on

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 1 December 2007]

In "Dr. Kildare's Victory," the young doc (Lew Ayres) is still mourning the loss of Mary as he fights some battles at Blair General. When a doctor and his fiancée, a nurse, are fired because of protocol violations that breached an agreement with another hospital, Kildare steps in to help them regain their positions. Meanwhile, an attractive patient (Anne Ayars) flirts with him.

Have to say the relationship between Dr. Gillespie and nurse Molly Bird (Alma Kruger) is what gives many of the films in the series extra pizazz. The fight in this one is particularly amusing, as Molly finds all of Gillespie's hiding places for cigarettes and removes them. When he tries to roll his own, she laughs in his face. All quite funny in the hands of the two pros.

Lew Ayres made a very gentle, kind and professional Dr. Kildare, and he played off of Barrymore very well. Of course MGM got rid of Dr. K as soon as Ayres became a conscientious objector in World War II and turned the series over to Gillespie. Ayres returned from service as a medic and his career took off, better than ever. In 1950-51 he reprised Dr. Kildare on the radio with great success.

The last of the Kildare films is pretty good--but it's not the last in the series.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 29 December 2011]

This is an enjoyable entry into the Dr. Kildare series--the last one which featured Kildare. However, it is NOT the final film of the series--as there would be six more Kildare-less films in the series. Why? Well, Kildare (Lew Ayres) was a conscientious objector during WWII and served as an orderly in the war--and this didn't sit well with the American public. So, his part was written out and various young doctors took his place--including Philip Dorn, Van Johnson and Keye Luke. These later films are still worth seeing--as the grouchy old Dr. Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore) and Nurse Byrd (Alma Kruger) continued offering excellent support to the new cast members.

The film begins with a super-morbid opening scene. There's a dead body in the emergency room--and the staff reacts to it very matter-of-factly--joking and treating it all very lightly. My favorite of these tacky lines was the receptionist (Blossom Rock) referring to there being 'another one for the ice box'! I actually appreciated this, as too often hospital shows and films portray staff as being annoyingly noble.

The main two plots of this film involve Dr. Kildare working through the recent death of his fiancé (from the last film) as well as the hospital working through a policy which actually might cost lives. As for Kildare, he seemed like a big dummy, as he saved the life of a nice débutante who was MORE than willing to marry him or do anything else to help perk him up (double-entendre DEFINITELY intended) and Kildare repeatedly rebuffed her. All in all, the film had everything you like about the films--great dialog, enjoyable characters and nice pacing--a typical sort of MGM entry into the series. However, it is odd that after this film, Kildare is never mentioned again in the films.

"They're going to cut up Cookie."

[utgard14 · 7/10 · 13 December 2014]

Still affected by the events of the last movie, Dr. Kildare (Lew Ayres) tries to move on with his career, if not his life. He spends most of this movie trying to help out a young intern (Robert Sterling) and his nurse girlfriend (Jean Rogers) who violate hospital policy to save lives. Meanwhile, Kildare attracts the romantic interest of flirty socialite Cookie Charles (Ann Ayars) after he removes a shard of glass from her heart.

The ninth and final Dr. Kildare movie from MGM. The reason for Lew Ayres' departure, as probably everyone reading this knows, was that pacifist Ayres was a conscientious objector during WW2. This didn't sit well with the public so the studio removed him from the series. Ayres did later serve as a medic and chaplain's assistant under combat conditions in the Pacific. He would return to acting after the war and was nominated for an Oscar for Johnny Belinda. The series would continue on with Lionel Barrymore's Dr. Gillespie as the star. Most of those movies wouldn't be quite up to the standard of the Kildare ones but they were, for the most part, very enjoyable medical dramas.

All of the returning players are good. Nurse Parker (Nell Craig) gets a couple of really funny moments. She's one of the more under-appreciated talents in the fine cast this series had. The new faces are a mixed bag. There was undoubtedly some hope by MGM that Sterling might be able to take over for Kildare at some point but he's just so bland and forgettable that was never going to work. There would be more like him in the Gillespie series. Jean Rogers does much better but this is also her only entry in the series. She's very beautiful. Barry Nelson overacts as a drunk who's proud of being from Philadelphia. Ann Ayars is no Laraine Day and her character is annoying and that's all I'll say about that. It's not the best of the series or even in the top five but it is entertaining.

Somebody Lost Their Way And Their Orderlies

[DKosty123 · 6/10 · 18 October 2016]

This installment of the series is after Dr. Kildare loses his bride to be prior to their wedding in a car accident. An ambulance is in the wrong part of town, picks up a patient in another hospitals district, and brings her to Kildare's hospital and saves her life. Then all the fur flies as there was no reason other than saving her life the patient could not have gone to the other hospital.

By coincidence, the woman who is saved is a famous media person who sets her sights and claws on Kildare when she meets him. Meanwhile, Dr. Gillispie has to rein in Kildare who is being threatened with dismissal and outsmart the hospital board who does not know their own good.

This installment is missing Red Skelton who comic relief is often welcomed in one of these tales. The film doe not suffer much except no one really can figure out why the orderlies without the wild Red clown seem to be getting lost, or stolen. Overall the film is pretty good and it appears maybe that the woman reporter might return for another film in order to try and hook Dr. Kildare. She does plant lipstick on Lionel Barrymore (Gillispie) here.

Dr. Kildare's Victory

[yessdanc · 6/10 · 11 March 2009]

This played on TCM earlier this week, and since I had never seen this one, was looking forward to it. I love the DK series, and this one (I think) follows DK's wedding day. I found this one overlong and a bit too fragmented. I miss Nat Pendleton's goofy role, and the Frank Orth restaurant character is very briefly seen. "Cookie" doesn't seem like the kind of girl DK would go for, but she at least gets him interested in women again(ha). Marie Blake (Later 'Grandmama on the Addams family), also known as Blossom Rock and Jeanette McDonald's sister, is in unusual fine form, but her character comes across as annoying instead of funny this time.

Mr. Bucket rides again!

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 27 February 2018]

SYNOPSIS: Kildare falls for one of his patients, a brash "Cookie" society girl.

NOTES: This is the 10th entry in the series and the last with Lew Ayres. COMMENT: Immensely popular in America, the "Kildare" series didn't find its overseas public until aired on television in the mid-1960s. This entry is undoubtedly the best of the lot. It happened that Harold S. Bucquet, who had guided all M-G-M's previous episodes, made such a mess of this one that studio head Louis B. Mayer asked his favorite trouble-shooter, class "A" director Woody Van Dyke, to fix it up.

"Doctor" Van Dyke and his cameraman, M-G-M's ace cinematographer William Daniels, completed the film and re-shot many scenes. Van Dyke's eye for a good visual image is as alert as ever. He has also drawn marvelous performances from the players. It's hard to believe that Ayres, Barrymore and Kruger are playing the same characters they portrayed in earlier Kildares, their acting is so much more worthy of the word. The support players too are far more effective.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, Woody was unable to re-shoot the whole picture. He was forced to include some of Bucquet's scenes. The joins are obvious, and the total result, alas, is still something of a mess. Even so, this Kildare is as good as the Metro series ever got. Incidentally, Bucquet actually pronounced his name, "Bew-Kay" ("bew" to rhyme with "new"), but I (and a lot of other people) always called him, "Mr. Bucket".

Another fine entry into the Dr. Kildare series...

[akvintage · 10/10 · 15 January 2006]

An ambulance picks up a debutante lying on the sidewalk in front of a nightclub with a shard of glass in her heart. Unfortunately... the territory the nightclub is in is outside the jurisdiction of Blair General Hospital, and lawsuits soon arrive...

As with the other films in the Kildare series, this excellent entry has several sub-plots that initially seem unconnected, but still seem to play off each other through out the course of the film.

Watch early in the film for the cigarette rolling contest between Dr. gillespie (Lionel Barrymore), and his always adversarial.. but loving watchdog... head nurse.

Overall, this, as with all films in in the series, are well done, and make enjoyable viewing for all.