(There are Spoilers) Just graduating from medical school young Doctor James or Jimmy Kildare, Lew Ayres, comes back to his roots in the little sleepy town of Dartford Connecticut to open up a practice with his old man Dr. Stephen Kildare, Samuel H. Hinds.
It doesn't take long for Jimmy to leave Dartford and his parents Mr. & Mrs. Kildare, played by Emma Dunn, as well as his long suffering girlfriend Alice (Lynn Carver), who's been waiting for him all this time, for the big city's, NYC, Balir General Hospital. Dr. Kildare want's to make his mark as a diagnostician and the best place is Blair where the world renowned Dr. Leonard , or Lenny, Gillespie, Lionel Barymore, is in charge not only of the diagnosis but the surgery department as well.
Things don't go as well as Jimmy expected in him being chewed out by Dr. Gillespie the first day he started his residency at Blair in front of all his fellow interns. In no time at all Dr. Kildare makes a name for himself in being able to diagnose on the spot illnesses and cure them with almost miraculous medical powers. This makes the grumpy Dr. Gillespie take notice of the young Doctor Jimmy Kildare even though he acts like he's not at all that impressed with Jimmy's almost unearthly healing skills.
Dr. Kildare being the morally-minded person that he is get's himself in hot water later in the movie by after first rescuing heiress Barbara Chanler, Jo Ann Sayers, he refuses to reveal the reason for her attempted suicide. Barbara breaking up with her fiancée Jack Hamilton, Truman Bradley,over him not taking her to the Blue Sawn nightclub ended up with horse owner Albert Foster, Leonard Penn, who got her juiced, inebriated, and left her almost dead drunk in one of the clubs private gambling rooms. Staggering out semi conscious into the street Barbara ended up in this Bowery flophouse where she tried to kill herself by turning on the gas oven in her room without lighting it.
It seems that Barbara even though the movie doesn't spell it out, it leaves it to the viewers imagination, felt that Foster took advantage of her while she was drunk. The shock of her fiancée Jack finding out that she's isn't a virgin on their wedding night was just too much for Barbara to take and thus decided, in what later turned out to be for the wrong reason, to take her own life.
Being a doctor Jimmy Kildare knew that Barbara, after examining her, was not at all the "damaged goods" that she thought she was. It was Dr. Jimmy Kildare's sweet and caring, as well as private, doctor patient relationship that put Barbara off from killing herself again. This in the end cured Barbara of the fears she had in what Foster did, which in fact he didn't, to her. In keeping the truth about Barbara from his superior the administrator of Blair General Dr. P Walter Carew, Walter Kingsford, almost got Jimmy kicked out of the place.
It turned that Dr. Lenny Gillespie came to the young and besieged, on all sides, Dr. Kildare's rescue by offering the startled young man a chance to be his assistant which he, at first thinking that the old guy was going to chew him out, snapped up without a moments hesitation. The future now looked bright for Young Doctor Kildare but at the same time looked very ominous for old man Gillespie in that he's suffering for a bad case of melanoma, skin cancer, and he knew his days were numbered. It's in the short time that he had left Dr. Gillespie planned to teach his young potage, Jimmy Kildare, all he knows about medicine before the final curtain comes down on him.
P.S Amazingly the movie had Dr. Kildare examine Dr. Gillespie on his condition, melanoma, and he predicted that Ol'Lenny still had some ten years of life left in his gas-tank. Gillespie putting Dr. Kildare down on how ridicules his prognosis is it in fact turned out to be right on target! Old and feisty Dr.Gillespie would out last young Doctor Kildare, or actor Lew Ayres who played him, in the Doctor Kildare series by some five years! That's exactly tens years since Dr. Kildare diagnosed the old man telling him that he'll overcome his cancerous condition. In fact after the Doctor Kildare movies came to an end in 1947 Dr. Gillespie, with his portage Dr. Kildare no longer around, was still very much alive and as healthy as he was when the series first started back in 1938!
It doesn't take long for Jimmy to leave Dartford and his parents Mr. & Mrs. Kildare, played by Emma Dunn, as well as his long suffering girlfriend Alice (Lynn Carver), who's been waiting for him all this time, for the big city's, NYC, Balir General Hospital. Dr. Kildare want's to make his mark as a diagnostician and the best place is Blair where the world renowned Dr. Leonard , or Lenny, Gillespie, Lionel Barymore, is in charge not only of the diagnosis but the surgery department as well.
Things don't go as well as Jimmy expected in him being chewed out by Dr. Gillespie the first day he started his residency at Blair in front of all his fellow interns. In no time at all Dr. Kildare makes a name for himself in being able to diagnose on the spot illnesses and cure them with almost miraculous medical powers. This makes the grumpy Dr. Gillespie take notice of the young Doctor Jimmy Kildare even though he acts like he's not at all that impressed with Jimmy's almost unearthly healing skills.
Dr. Kildare being the morally-minded person that he is get's himself in hot water later in the movie by after first rescuing heiress Barbara Chanler, Jo Ann Sayers, he refuses to reveal the reason for her attempted suicide. Barbara breaking up with her fiancée Jack Hamilton, Truman Bradley,over him not taking her to the Blue Sawn nightclub ended up with horse owner Albert Foster, Leonard Penn, who got her juiced, inebriated, and left her almost dead drunk in one of the clubs private gambling rooms. Staggering out semi conscious into the street Barbara ended up in this Bowery flophouse where she tried to kill herself by turning on the gas oven in her room without lighting it.
It seems that Barbara even though the movie doesn't spell it out, it leaves it to the viewers imagination, felt that Foster took advantage of her while she was drunk. The shock of her fiancée Jack finding out that she's isn't a virgin on their wedding night was just too much for Barbara to take and thus decided, in what later turned out to be for the wrong reason, to take her own life.
Being a doctor Jimmy Kildare knew that Barbara, after examining her, was not at all the "damaged goods" that she thought she was. It was Dr. Jimmy Kildare's sweet and caring, as well as private, doctor patient relationship that put Barbara off from killing herself again. This in the end cured Barbara of the fears she had in what Foster did, which in fact he didn't, to her. In keeping the truth about Barbara from his superior the administrator of Blair General Dr. P Walter Carew, Walter Kingsford, almost got Jimmy kicked out of the place.
It turned that Dr. Lenny Gillespie came to the young and besieged, on all sides, Dr. Kildare's rescue by offering the startled young man a chance to be his assistant which he, at first thinking that the old guy was going to chew him out, snapped up without a moments hesitation. The future now looked bright for Young Doctor Kildare but at the same time looked very ominous for old man Gillespie in that he's suffering for a bad case of melanoma, skin cancer, and he knew his days were numbered. It's in the short time that he had left Dr. Gillespie planned to teach his young potage, Jimmy Kildare, all he knows about medicine before the final curtain comes down on him.
P.S Amazingly the movie had Dr. Kildare examine Dr. Gillespie on his condition, melanoma, and he predicted that Ol'Lenny still had some ten years of life left in his gas-tank. Gillespie putting Dr. Kildare down on how ridicules his prognosis is it in fact turned out to be right on target! Old and feisty Dr.Gillespie would out last young Doctor Kildare, or actor Lew Ayres who played him, in the Doctor Kildare series by some five years! That's exactly tens years since Dr. Kildare diagnosed the old man telling him that he'll overcome his cancerous condition. In fact after the Doctor Kildare movies came to an end in 1947 Dr. Gillespie, with his portage Dr. Kildare no longer around, was still very much alive and as healthy as he was when the series first started back in 1938!