Commentary
Medical dramas have been popular subject matter for television series for years now. “General Hospital,” “Scrubs,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” and many more have capitalized on the public’s fascination with the drama behind closed hospital doors. Before these popular series captured people’s morbid imaginations, however, America’s favorite medical drama was “Dr. Kildare.”
The name is doubtless familiar to you. However, the “Dr. Kildare” series to which I’m referring is not the 1960s television series starring Richard Chamberlain. I’m talking about the earlier version of this successful story, the “Dr. Kildare” film series from 1938 to 1942. Starring Lew Ayres as the titular intern with Lionel Barrymore as his curmudgeonly mentor, Dr. Gillespie, this highly popular series included nine films. It was one of MGM’s most successful series in those prewar years, second only to the Andy Hardy films. The story of Dr. Kildare, a young intern at a New York hospital who isn’t afraid to break the rules to help his patients, came from magazine stories by Max Brand, most of which were published in “Cosmopolitan.”…