The MGM Dr. Kildare movies were, I believe, second features, or Bs when released, but because it's MGM, they were more like B+. The series was used as a training ground for their young talent, such as Ava Gardner, Van Johnson, Red Skelton, and a host of others.

Watching the beginning of this particular episode, "Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day," we know something. 1) It's before the U.S. entered WW II because the orchestra is playing Wagner (verboten during the war, even German arias were taken out of the various aria compilations). We also know it because Lew Ayres (Dr. Kildare) is still in the series. 2) If you're a baby boomer and watched the TV show with Richard Chamberlain (and I owned an intern shirt),you know this: Mary (Laraine Day),Kildare's fiancée, is doomed.

The main plot concerns preparations for Mary and Jim's wedding, and there are two subplots. Dr. Gillespie is ill and Kildare is trying to get him to go to a sanitarium and be treated; and a conductor (Nils Asther) can't accept a lucrative radio contract because he's afraid that he's losing his hearing.

I read one review that complained bitterly about Dr. Gillespie being a curmudgeon. I don't think he overdid it. He was kind and gentle as well as tough, and the toughness was in character. I've always loved his relationship with the head nurse (Alma Kruger). There's such an affection there, and all they do is insult one another.

Barrymore, because of arthritis, was wheelchair-bound -- here he's actually credited with the music that's played, I believe at the end.

There is some lightness to this episode, though I could have done without the telephone booth scene. It's also sad, and I admit to shedding a few tears.

Lew Ayres, despite MGM getting rid of him when he became a conscientious objector, had a long and successful career, winning an Oscar for "Johnny Belinda" in the late '40s, and his career spanned from 1929-1996.

Entertaining and sad.

The previous episode of the Dr. Kildare series was the worst. "Dr. Kildare's Crisis" was a truly terrible film. Will "Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day" be yet another dreadful movie or will it mark the return of the series to its usual high quality standards?

Well, it IS a major improvement but also might shock you. On one hand, it has some wonderfully funny portions. The elevator bit is great and dialog such as the following are wonderful:

'....I'm not going to your place (even) if it's next to a nudist camp'.

'Six is too young to get married' 'The hillbillies DO'

On the other hand, midway through the film it becomes the darkest Kildare movie of them all....REAL dark. Have some Kleenex handy sort of dark! So, I do recommend you see it but also advise you to hold on--it's going to be a VERY bumpy ride. Overall, quite good and an odd combination of humor and depression!

By the way, Lionel Barrymore appears to really be playing piano at times in the film and he's also credited with a musical score in the credits. That's interesting.

Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day marked the exit of Laraine Day from the series and out of James Kildare's love life. She felt she had enough of being the all American good girl nurse Mary Lamont and wanted some meatier parts. She got MGM to write her out of the Kildare series very permanently.

The usual medical problems are taking a backstage to the wedding preparations for Lew Ayres and Laraine Day. The lovebirds are finally going to tie the knot. Lionel Barrymore can barely keep Ayres's attention to business as he seeks a cure for the growing deafness of orchestra leader Nils Asther.

However when MGM wrote Day out of the series they gave her a dramatic ending, being hit by a truck the day before the nuptials. In doing so they gave the cast the finest dramatic moments in the entire series. I rate Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day right at the top.