Emergency Call (1933) User Reviews

An Ambulance Driver Gets Forty Bucks Forever

[boblipton · 6/10 · 29 October 2016]

Doctor Bill Boyd takes his turn as an ambulance driver for the hospital run by his future father-in-law. All too soon, he comes to realize the hospital is under the control of corrupt local politician Edwin Maxwell.

With a script by Joe Mankiewicz, this looks like a precursor of the Doctor Kildare series at MGM. It has plenty of interesting supporting actors and lots of snappy patter (mostly supplied by Wynne Gibson and William Gargan). Boyd, as usual, is his usual capable but bland self, at best in the fight scene shot wild. Director Edward Cahn, as usual, doesn't seem to add much to the proceedings; his strengths always seem to lay in letting his cameraman do his job, and here it's the undeservedly forgotten Roy Hunt, offering lighting that darkens with the mood.

Cahn would go on to MGM, where he would have a long and fairly undistinguished career in shorts and cheaper features. He seems to have been one of those directors who came in on budget and used his staff. We may scoff at some one who seems so non-auteur-like, but he turned out pleasant if undistinguished movies like this one. More than good enough for me.

It's a win for Wynne.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 6 January 2019]

Nicknames "the weenie" because of her last name. Gold digging nurse Wynne Gibson, determined to catch a rich older man among her patients as her next husband spends the first quarter of this film turning down the advances of ambulance driver William Gargan. In fact, they both nearly get fired for an incident concerning a patient who faked an injury and made a pass at Gibson that Gargan protecting her from. But after realizing that the likelihood of finding a wealthy husband is nil, Gibson agrees to go out with Gargan and falls in love with him. Along with fellow ambulance driver William Boyd, Gargan discovers that there's something shady goings on at the hospital and risks his life to expose tainted ether being used in operations.

What starts off as your ordinary second feature turns into an exciting social drama that is actually quite contemporary and it seems today. Gibson's character initially does not start off as sympathetic, but gradually, you come to see her for who she really is, and at the end you will be cheering her on. When Gibson and Gargan are sparring, the dialogue is crisp and funny, but when the serious elements take over, it comes touching and intense. Edwin Maxwell, a character actor who resembles Edward Arnold, gets the surprise of his life as the main villain. The film has a bit of a spiritual conclusion with Gibson giving a speech that will have you cheering her. Tight and compact at just an hour, this is one of those programmers that is surprising and delightful.

The hospital as racket

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 21 July 2020]

In his pre-Hopalong Cassidy days William Boyd starred with William Gargan as an idealistic doctor who goes towork in a new Hospital. Gargan is an ambulance driver who shows him the ropes.

The possibilities of using the hospital as a place for rackets is utilized by racketeer Edwin Maxwell who has head doctor Reginald Mason under his thumb. Boyd gets disillusioned very fast.

Boyd's final confrontation scene with Mason is something I guarantee you won't find in a Hoppy movie. Special mention has to be made of Wynne Gibson as one of the nurses who is on the climax.

Nicely done medical drama.

A Rare Film That Should Have Been Longer

[joe-pearce-1 · 7/10 · 4 November 2016]

This is a solid RKO B film that could have been much better if given an additional 30 minutes or so to develop its various relationships and story lines. We have here a new doctor who is also engaged to the daughter of the head of the hospital, and is suspect among some of the other doctors and workers for just that reason. However, there is one short scene between him (Bill Boyd) and her (Betty Furness), and we never see her again or even hear of her, even when Boyd has to come up against her father (who is involved with the Underworld and pretty much taking orders from a mob leader - played excellently, as always, by Edwin Maxwell). The relationship is never mentioned or given consequence again. Meanwhile, the secondary lead, played by William Gargan, is only an ambulance driver but seemingly knows everything about what's going on between the hospital and the Underworld (free access to ambulance chasers and dishonest insurance agents, purchase of condemned contraband, etc.) and he develops a real relationship with a hard-bitten nurse played by Wynne Gibson (maybe in her best-ever performance) and that relationship turns out to be the heart and soul of the film. Problem is, we bounce from scene to scene, sometimes months apart, with nothing much to connect them, as if continuity was an extraneous consideration at best. Boyd, who became an icon as Hopalong Cassidy before the decade was out, doesn't seem to have enough personality here to carry the lead (although he does get in one very good piece of rage-venting at his father-in-law to be), and the film is really Gargan's and Gibson's. The fact that Joseph Mankiewicz co-wrote the screenplay probably accounts for the surfeit of good lines ("I've never seen Rourke, but if I do, I'll be the last thing he ever sees"), but everything about the film indicates that it was something of a rush job where motivation, story line and just plain pride in one's product were concerned, and it is up to the actors (most especially Gargan, Gibson and Maxwell) to carry everything through. Gargan was always a mystery to me, in that he was a very good and natural actor who projected a maturity at this time far beyond his actual 28 years (he would have made a great member of the Irish Mafia stock company ensconced at Warner Brothers), but lacked the needed charisma to develop into a top leading man even in B films (he appeared in support in loads of terrific A films - think RAIN); here, he is a really rough jewel in a role that could almost have been written for his brother Ed, another really rough jewel who never got the girl, either. Except here, Gargan does get the girl, kinda, but Gibson's girl looks almost superannuated for the role she is playing - not to be mean about it, but it doth appear that God shorted her one neck! - (which is surely why she got to play so many molls, prostitutes and the like). But she is very affecting and, in the end, it is her film more than anyone else's, and she makes the most of it. Oh yes, there is one particularly well-filmed operating room scene of Boyd and his assistants performing an emergency operation, perhaps not visually equaled until Eddie Albert's similar turn in THE YOUNG DOCTORS almost thirty years later. God, how this film could have used another 30 minutes for character development, motivations, continuity and the like. It's almost as if RKO's slogan should have been, "Product is our most important product!" Too bad. But it's still worth a viewing for the actors (not forgetting a really vicious little turn by the usually semi-lovable and almost always affable-if-dishonest George E. Stone).

hospital story or training film?

[ksf-2 · 6/10 · 7 February 2019]

Well, after seeing this, now we know why there are auditing groups for hospitals, like the Joint Commiss ion, CMS, and General Accounting Office. This film illustrates some of the different ways people can cheat other people during hospital care... ya got someone selling bad "ether" as anesthetic; ya got the "ambulance chasing lawyers" mis-representing the truth and quality of care being provided at the hospital; ya got one big mobster running the show, and looking for kickbacks from everyone. ya got people throwing themselves under cars to take advantage. It's pretty un-even. not sure what it wants to be... there's a love story, there's death, there's crime-fighting. Stars Bill Boyd, who had played Hopalong Cassidy in so many films and tv shows. Edwin Maxwell is the hospital administrator. Betty Furness is "Alice", but some of us remember her as a guest on so many game shows and the "Today" show on NBC. This film is more of a training film for new employees, on what scams to watch out for as you work in a hospital, rather than entertainment. It's okay. no big deal, but does have some familiar names. It's a B shortie from RKO... directed by Ed Cahn, who had started in short films and moved into full length.

This is a great little precode with an unlikely setting...

[AlsExGal · 8/10 · 29 October 2016]

that being a county hospital and the ambulances that bring in the patients. It starts out ordinarily enough, with Joe (Bill Boyd), a new doctor, telling Dr. Averill,his future father-in-law and director of the hospital, that he wants to start out as an ambulance doctor, that he doesn't want to miss anything, that he wants no special favors. At first the other doctors are cool to him, and his ambulance driver (William Gargan as Steve Brennan) practically hazes him with fast and reckless driving on their first call. But when that first call turns out to be a crazy man with a knife who doesn't seem fazed by having furniture broken over his head, Joe and Steve become good friends with Joe earning Steve's respect.

The hospital has problems though. They have ambulance chasers that seem to know which patients have good cases and get them to sign papers making them their legal representative and giving them all cash verdicts but a pittance, they have people stepping off of curbs and into the paths of wealthy people, taking up bed space in the hospital while they settle their phoney cases, and worst of all the hospital is buying substandard equipment, and more than they need of it. It turns out that Dr. Averill is the reluctant partner of racketeer and grafter Tom O'Rourke, and he'd like to get out from under his thumb but can't figure out how.

When Steve tells Joe his future father-in-law is in bed with these grafters, it at first almost ends their friendship. But then Joe learns the truth and decides to stay and fight the graft. Joe's interference begins to get in the way of O'Rourke's hospital rackets- and you know how racketeers usually like to deal with inconvenient people. Also, the hospital has just bought a bunch of ether from O'Rourke - ether that was condemned by the army as unfit for humans. As a side plot, Steve only has eyes for a certain nurse (Wynne Gibson), but she only has eyes for millionaire patients, trying to get them to propose when they are sick and dependent, she says.

All of these strands of the plot - the graft, O'Rourke vs. Joe, the materialistic nurse, and Averill summoning the last bit of courage he has - and it's not much - lead to an exciting conclusion. It also leads to a precode ending in which a (technical) wrong doer is allowed to get away with murder. I'm being purposefully cryptic here in hopes you'll watch it if it ever comes you way. It starts out slow and humorously but the ending will have you on the edge of your seat. Highly recommended.

A most unusual film....with an amazing ending!

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 20 January 2019]

"Emergency Call" is well worth seeing just because the subject matter of this Pre-Code film is so unusual. Imagine...a film about a hospital working hand in hand with organized crime!!

William Boyd (who later remade himself as the screen cowboy 'Hopalong Cassidy') stars as a young doctor, Joe Bradley, who works at a most uusual hospital. It seems that SOMEONE working there is helping organized crime! How? First, lots of fake injury cases arrive and the doctors treat the 'victims'....even though they know the folks are faking they aren't allowed to discharge them. Second, ambulance chasing shyster lawyers are being alerted when real accident cases arrive and they sneak in and get the patients to unknowingly sign away all their rights to them! But Joe and his friend, the ambulance driver, are making it hard for these crooks...and the crooks decide to fight back with a vengeance! Additionally, no one knows who at the hospital is helping these folks...but they must be identified as soon as possible.

I loved this film...particularly the second portion. This is because Post-Code they simply couldn't have made the very gritty ending...one that was very satisfying and violent! Wonderful acting, wonderful writing...and a pretty amazing picture.

Cute RKO gem

[searchanddestroy-1 · 6 March 2023]

And what an unusual topic, some kind of surprising racket, but unfortunatey real. But Pre Code movies used us to find out surprises, schemes never told later in the movie history. And don't forget that Edward L Cahn directed this little cute B picture. This is short, fast, tense, a bit funny, at least light hearted without being a comedy either. Not a true crime film, just a bit drama tat deserves to be seen if you have the opportunity to watch it. You can watch it a s a fiction documentary, disguised as a film. This could have been a perfect CRIME DOESN'T PAY feature for MGM. I guess there are plenty of those lost gems somewhere in old Hollywood catalogs.