From Universal Pictures
Directed by David Miller
Starring
Gregory Peck
Tony Curtis
Angie Dickinson
Bobby Darin
Eddie Albert
Robert Duvall
Bethel Leslie
Larry Storch
James Gregory
Jane Withers
Dick Sargent
Robert F. Simon
I think this is a wonderful film and most people who saw it did, too. For some reason the studio didn't go all out to promote it and the critics were lukewarm. I was startled recently when I read a review that said it was a comedy war film with dashes of drama that didn't fit. While it does take place in 1944, there isn't any war in it. Military, yes... war, I dun thin' so, Loosey. And dashes of drama? This is first and foremost a drama and there is also some humor. Maybe the reviewer was confusing Captain Newman, M.D. with At War with the Army with Martin and Lewis. Did he or she see the same movie I did?
The good captain is played by Gregory Peck, with his usual stoicism, as the head of a neuro-psychiatric unit at the Arizona facility of the Army Medical Corps. He must deal with the ever-increasing load of patients suffering in one way or another with the horrific, psychological effects of fatigue disorder. Today, of course, it's known as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He is concerned about running out of space, beds, time and help. To make the situation even more hectic he must deal with a six-week deadline to either cure his patients, ship them out or put them out.
He employs a tough-love approach... he has much empathy for the men and cares about the kind of job he and his subordinates are doing. But first he must get more help and he does some battle with his superior officer (James Gregory) in this regard.
He elects to resort to some underhanded ways to get more help. When a head nurse (Angie Dickinson) in another area gets a new orderly (Tony Curtis), Newman snatches him away. When Dickinson complains to him, he manages to get her to join his team as well. She becomes his most trusted coworker.
Let's drop back into this comedy notion for a sec. Curtis's role is for the comic relief and it has all the appearances of being essentially the same character he'd done recently in another military comedy, Operation Petticoat opposite Cary Grant. As a take-charge orderly whose real talent lies in obtaining contraband, he nonetheless tries to learn all he can about mental illness. Regardless, his silliness is the antidote to the high drama.
There is a barracks-full of patients in beds all lined up in a row. We learn about some of them and their stories as Peck, Curtis or Dickinson make their rounds. But that high drama is reserved for three who are kept away from the rest of the patients. Two are locked in their own rooms and one is seen in Newman's private office. They are played by Bobby Darin, Eddie Albert and Robert Duvall.
Darin, the only one in the cast to be Oscar-nominated (supporting actor), is a corporal who drinks to hide the pain of feeling responsible for not being able to save a friend from a burning plane. But he's bottled it up to the point of making him lose touch with reality. That Oscar nomination is the result of a single scene in which Peck administers sodium pentothal to Darin. Observing his searing, uncomfortable unmasking of the truth is truly painful to watch and I feared for him and agonized with him, frequently through wet eyes. Darin dug deep for this one.
Albert never lit a fire under me. No matter what he did I always saw Green Acres and countless other silly, hapless roles, but in this film I sat up and noticed he knocked it out of the park. It's so unlike a role he would play that I am astonished anyone even thought of him. The part is unquestionably the darkest in the film as a highly-decorated colonel who has obviously gone mad. In addition to having a personal vendetta against Newman, the colonel has become suicidal as a result of his war experiences. A scene with Curtis trying to wrest a knife from him is harrowing.
Duvall plays a captain who is catatonic after having spent 18 months in a French cellar hiding from the Germans. In order to break him free from his condition, Newman brings in his wife (Bethel Leslie), reluctant to help, with results other than what were anticipated.
Peck, of course, is wonderful. He usually was. His acting misfires were few. Of course this is no To Kill a Mockingbird but then what is?
All the acting attention is given to Peck, Darin, Albert and Duvall. One almost wonders why Curtis is in the film. His part is one of several supporting roles and it could have been played by any number of less expensive actors. While he has some funny stuff, it often feels more like mugging. He has always disparaged the film, Peck and especially Darin. It was a bit of a poor career choice for him and he was likely consumed by the professional jealousy that he always carried with him.
Dickinson has a rare role where she's not pushing her sexuality on the audience and acquits herself well as a woman who would rather be at home having babies (hopefully, it's presumed, with Peck) but is a stand-up nurse who lends him all the support he needs.
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| Darin, Dickinson and Peck |
It must have felt a little like old home week for Peck since he was reunited with Albert from their 1953 pairing in Roman Holiday and with Duvall from Mockingbird. Duvall's tormented soldier here could be Boo Radley's first cousin.
Peck's company co-produced and as such he was one of those who had some say-so in who else worked on the film. It was likely he wanted Curtis, Albert and Duvall but was David Miller his choice of director or did Universal insist on Miller because he was under contract? Regardless, the director of Sudden Fear, Back Street and Lonely Are the Brave was his best in character-driven stories, of which this is certainly one.
One of the film's highlights is the writing... incisively handled by Richard Breen and Henry and Phoebe Ephron. The four actors who command this film owe a great of gratitude to these three who were also Oscar-nominated.
Captain Newman, M.D. is taken from Leo Rosten's novel of the same name. He said he based the title role on his good friend, Dr. Ralph Greenson, who essentially had the Newman position at the same Arizona facility. Greenson would later become known, partially from notoriety, as Marilyn Monroe's psychiatrist at the time of her death. In the small world department, Curtis was another patient.
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Another child star who stuck around
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