GANGSTERSAND DOCTORS GOING

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30724, 13 April 1965, Page 7

GANGSTERSAND DOCTORS GOING

Life won’t seem the same on Wednesday and Saturday nights without Dr. Kildare and Eliot Ness. The departure of “The Untouchables” will allow me to get to bed earlier and I won’t have to defend the antiseptic doctor against critics who have never seen him.

We had to wait for “The Untouchables” until viewing hours were extended. The naked violence of the series was deemed unsuitable for the younger generation. But I don’t think the sight of men being mown down by tommy-gun fire from passing cars upset the young folk of my acquaintance who were allowed to stay up late and watch crime in Chicago or New York. And I am not sure whether the lesson that crime does not pay really had any effect on them. Most of them seemed more interested in the cars of 30 years ago than the crime. To them the ceaseless battle of the Feds against the crime syndicates was just ancient history. But unlike the younger generation I was tremendously impressed by “The Untouchables” when they

first appeared on my screen. I belong to a generation that was brought up on gangsters and their dark doings. Torpedoes, hoods, and punks were almost household words, and the names of Capone, Dillinger, and Pretty Boy Floyd really meant something to me. I must admit, however, that in recent months my original

enthusiasm . for “The Untouchables” has waned slightly. The gradual change from fact to fiction in the episodes has reduced their impact on me. I have felt that 1 was not watching chapters of Chicago’s criminal history in the making but just run of the mill gangster stories. For some time Robert Stack has been going through the motions in the role of Eliot Ness. He and his chief adversary, the stripe-suited Frank Nitti, have become stereotyped. Only the fine performances of some of the guest stars have kept the series out of the ruck and forced me to prop my eyelids open until midnight.

Nevertheless I rank “The Untouchables” high in my list of good TV programmes. I have admired the producers’ tough and uncompromising treatment of their subject, and I have been grateful for the opportunity to look back at a faithful recreation of a significant period in American history.

I know the corridors of Blair General Hospital almost as well as the back streets of Chicago, and I am sorry to see the last of Dr. Kildare, Dr. Gillespie and all. “Dr. Kildare” has been one of the most popular programmes of all on TV, and because it is popular it has had more critics. I have been amongst them although I have enjoyed every episode. It is easy to criticise the programme. There have been times when the sober, responsible, high-minded immaculate Dr. Kildare and the stern but sympathetic father figure of Dr. Gillespie have been almost too much to endure. But I think “Dr. Kildare” has suffered because it has been running so long. There has been a crisis every week, and I have found it hard to accept the way in which Kildare and Gillespie plus the devoted staff of Blair General always come up smiling. At times the content of the plots has verged on the preposterous, and the dialogue has been culled from the cornfield. And it has been difficult to believe that one character can be faced with crisis after crisis and never fail.

With all its faults, however, the “Dr. Kildare” series has achieved something. It has tried to overcome fear of hospitals, it has given us an understanding of mental illness, and some understanding of the noble profession of medicine. When the sentimentality, the corniness, and the conventional plots, are removed, something good remains. “Dr. Kildare” has been a popular programme,and in its case popular does not mean good. But I will remember Blair General Hospital and its men in white with affection.