AMUSEMENTS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19887, 15 March 1939, Page 3

AMUSEMENTS

REGENT THEATRE RETURN SEASON: “YOUNG Dr. KILDARE" In his novel, “The Citadel,” Bernard Cronin made a bitter attack on the medical profession —or, rather, on the evasions and the self-seeking into which a section of that profession is driven by the attitude of the public. Tlie author of "Young Dr. Kildare," on tlie other hand, sets out to show what an idealist can accomplish, if he happens to be a doctor. Kildare, it must be said at once, has remarkable luck. For the hospital where he becomes an interne houses an extraordinary old character —a diagnostician with all the brilliance and all the eccentricity of genius. So when Kiliare, having laid down the law and broken all discipline in a way that would chill any member of the B.M.A. with horror, is finally expelled from lie hospital, the old doctor comes to his aid. Lionel Barrymore has seldom done a more striking piece of acting than he accomplishes as the crazy-mannered dcus ex machine. To i lay spectator, the medical procedure in the film docs not seem at all (nature, or calculated to inspire confid■ncc in the profession. When an ambulance attendant turns pig-headed for example, and kills a patient by neglecting to administer oxygen, a schoolboy sense of humour compels xildare to take the blame. He gave he order for oxygen. It was disobeyed. One would have imagined his •first thought would be to have the attendant arraigned, so that tlie man :ou!d lie prevented from massacring nore patients through the same crimnal carelessness. But personal loyally ionics first, and Kildare allows himself to be unjustly punished. Neither ■an tlie screen doctors’ approach to psychopathology be regarded with nucli optimism. Everything is done by rule of thumb, and a patient just nisses being sent to an insane lsylum because a specialist fails to investigate the case thoroughly. For ill this, “Young Dr.' Kildare” is a :trong and absorbing film. Lew Ayres mikes Kildare a virile, appealing zoung interne; and the other ers are splendidly played —Friday: Bette Davis in “Jezebel”—

A brilliant dramatic portrayal is ;iven by Bette Davis in the film ‘Jezebel," which will be shown at he Regent Theatre on Friday. Miss Davis lias given many fine performuices, but rarely one so outstanding

is in the part of Julie, a beautiful nit heartless girl living in New Groans some years before the civil war. Julie delights in defying southern tradition. She smokes, drinks and mjoys having men tight duels over icr. But her heartless nature leads o a quarrel with a young man whom lie really loves and when she meets urn again he is married to another »irl. An epidemic of fever breaks out md it is then that Julie redeems lierself by coming to the aid of her ormer fiance when lie is stricken by vellow fever. Henry Fonda, Margaret jindsay. George Brent and Donald Crisp are also prominently cast in he picture.