Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case (1943)

Director:

Willis Goldbeck

Writers:

Lawrence P. Bachmann (writer)
Martin Berkeley (writer)

Release Date:

May 1943 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Mystery

Plot:

When Roy, a homicidal maniac was put away for murder, Gillespie tried to get him committed to an insane asylum instead...

Plot Keywords:

Sequel | Prison Break | Birthday Party | Hospital | Doctor

Cast

Lionel Barrymore	...	Dr. Leonard B. Gillespie
Van Johnson	...	Dr. Randall 'Red' Adams
Keye Luke	...	Dr. Lee Wong How
Alma Kruger	...	Molly Byrd
John Craven	...	Roy Todwell
Nat Pendleton	...	Joe Wayman
Margaret O'Brien	...	Margaret
Donna Reed	...	Marcia Bradburn
Michael Duane	...	Sergeant Pat rick J. Orisin
William Lundigan	...	Alvin F. Peterson
Walter Kingsford	...	Dr. Walter Carew
Marilyn Maxwell	...	Ruth Edly
Henry O'Neill	...	Warden Kenneson
Marie Blake	...	Sally
Frances Rafferty	...	Irene

Also Known As:

Crazy to Kill (UK)

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): In the scene with the little girl in a febrile coma and the interns working hard to get it down; Dr. Gillespie is seen looking at an oral thermometer that was supposedly used to check her temp. In this sort of situation that is highly unlikely. Even in this era oral and rectal thermometers were different shapes so no mistakes could be made.

Quotes:

Dr. Lee Wong How: I'm small, but I'm from Brooklyn!

Movie Connections:

Follows Calling Dr. Gillespie (1942)

I enjoyed it

I found it pretty entertaining since I had never even heard of these series, and found it sort of fun to watch them, I was able to see this one right after "Calling Dr. Gillespie" so it tied in with the prior movie. I found the two movies to at least have most of the same characters, and from what I saw from investigating some of the other movies in the series, many of them appear in those movies as well. At least there are constants in the series, I don't particularly like the same characters with different actors passing through to play them.

I didn't expect brain surgery here, just a little entertainment from long ago, little did I know there was so much film history to the Dr. Kildare shows before we turned on our TV sets to watch him every week. While starting to read about the Dr. Gillespie series I was a bit confused at first, not remembering Dr. Kildare in "Calling Dr. Gillespie" so it was also an education to find in the notes that after filming, the actor who had played that part for so long was a conscientious objector to WWII, therefore his part was eliminated and in walked Dr. John Hunter Gerniede and a change in the movie title. You just never know what kind of story lines there are behind the stories.