MAJESTIC THEATRE,

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 43, 21 February 1939, Page 6

MAJESTIC THEATRE,

"Young Doctor Kildare."

Drama and romance in the life of a struggling junior physician are entertainingly blended in "Young Doctor Kildare," which opens on Friday at the Majestic Theatre. The characters in all such stories are ready-made for the theatre because there is always the pulse-beat of human emotions in the atmosphere. The atmosphere of life in the walls of a great general hospital is brought to the screen with effective power. This is the inside that is known only to the staff surgeons, the nurses, internes, and the police re* porters. It is a side with which even the patients never become familiar. Lew Ayres as the eager young Doctor Kildare is human and natural in a role which he plays with artistic restraint. Lynne Carver handles the romantic lead with technique that indicates beyond question her early rise to stardom. Lionel Barrymore as the grizzled surgeon who knows that his days are numbered gives a perform* ance that is entirely in accprd with the Barrymore tradition. Jo Ann Sayers, who enacts the tragic role of a rich man's daughter, weary of life and all that it means, reveals a rare talent with remarkable depth of understanding. The supporting cast is uniformly excellent, with first-rate performances by Nat Pendleton, Samuel S, Hinds, Emma Dunn, Walter- Kingsford, and Truman Bradley. The story of "Young Doctor Kildare" presents an ambitious interne in a metropolitan hospital in love with his boyhood sweetheart back home. He wins the interest and friendship of a veteran surgeon, portrayed brilliantly by Barrymore. However, the young doctor encounters difficulty in his profession, first when he protects a fellow-interne who fails to save the life of a prominent politician and again when he disagrees with a superior in the matter of a diagnosis. The grim drama that exists in the emergency ward of a great hospital, the tense lives of those who work I there, and the tender romance of the I struggling young interne, mingle I effectively in this novel story of ! modern lifr