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Dr. Kildare Movie
Collection
Dr. James Kildare First appearance "Internes Can't Take Money,"
short story by Max Brand published in Cosmopolitan magazine, Mar.
1936
Created by Frederick Schiller Faust (as Max Brand)
Portrayed by (1) Joel McCrea - (Internes Can't Take Money, 1937
Paramount film)
(2) Lew Ayres (1930s-40s MGM film series and 1950s radio series)
(3) Richard Chamberlain (Dr. Kildare, 1961-66 NBC TV series)
Dr. James Kildare is a fictional American medical doctor character,
originally created in the 1930s
by the author Frederick Schiller Faust under the pen name Max Brand.
Shortly after the character's
first appearance in a magazine story, Paramount Pictures used the
story and character as the basis
for the 1937 film Internes Can't Take Money. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
(MGM) subsequently acquired
the rights and featured Kildare as the primary character in a series
of American theatrical films in
the late 1930s and early 1940s, several of which were co-written by
Faust (as Max Brand), who also
continued to write magazine stories and novels about the character
until the early 1940s.
Internes Can't Take Money (1937 Paramount film)
The character of "Dr. Kildare" first appeared on film in the 1937
Paramount film, Internes Can't Take Money,
based on Max Brand's previously published short story of the same
name and starring Joel McCrea as Dr. Kildare.
The plot focused on Dr. Kildare's attempt to help a young female
ex-convict (played by Barbara Stanwyck)
locate her child. Paramount did not plan any further Kildare films,
probably because box office returns did
not meet expectations.
MGM film series (1930s–1940s)
Lionel Barrymore as "Dr. Gillespie" and Lew Ayres as "Dr. Kildare"
in Young Dr. Kildare (1938), the first of
nine MGM "Dr. Kildare" series films in which the duo appeared. MGM
had noted the popularity of the Kildare
character in pulp magazines and, following the release of Internes
Can't Take Money, saw an opportunity to
obtain an undervalued property and develop a successful film series.
In 1938, MGM entered into a deal
with author Frederick Schiller Faust (as Max Brand) to acquire the
rights to "Dr. Kildare" and have Faust work
with MGM on developing stories for a film series. Seven "Dr.
Kildare" films were subsequently made by MGM
based on stories originally written by Faust. After The People vs.
Dr. Kildare (1941), Faust and MGM
ended their collaboration and MGM continued the series using stories
by other writers, though Faust (as Max Brand)
still received a credit for creating the characters.
In the MGM series, the "Dr. Kildare" character (played by Lew Ayres)
first appears as a medical intern newly
arrived at a New York City hospital, where he attracts the attention
of a respected older physician and skilled
diagnostician, Dr. Leonard Gillespie (played by Lionel Barrymore).
After becoming a doctor, Kildare faces a
number of professional and personal challenges in the course of his
work, while being mentored by Gillespie.
In 1942, during the making of the tenth film in the MGM series,
originally titled Born to Be Bad, Ayres was
drafted to serve in WWII and declared himself a conscientious
objector. The resulting negative publicity
caused MGM to cut Ayres from the film, eliminate the character of
Kildare, and change the film's focus to
Barrymore's character Gillespie, eventually releasing the revamped
film as Calling Dr. Gillespie (1942).
The character of a young doctor mentored by the experienced Dr.
Gillespie was played by Philip Dorn
(as "Dr. John Hunter Gerniede"). MGM made several more films
featuring the Dr. Gillespie character mentoring
various young doctors played by Van Johnson (as "Dr. Randall 'Red'
Adams"), Keye Luke (as "Dr. Lee Wong How"),
and James Craig (as "Dr. Tommy Coalt"
The Kildare character was later featured in an early 1950s radio
series, a 1960s television series.
Dr Kildare Movies
DVD 1
Interns Can't Take Money 1937
Young Dr Kildare 1938
DVD 2
Calling Dr Kildare 1940
Dr Kildare Goes Home 1940
DVD 3
The Secret of Dr Kildare 1939
Dr Kildare's Strange Case 1940
DVD 4
Dr Dr Kildare's Crisis 1940
People VS Dr Kildare 1941
Dr Kildare's Wedding Day 1941
DR. KILDARE Old Time Radio Shows in MP3 1949-52
Dr. Kildare Radio Shows were produced for syndication in 1949 at
WMGM, New York. It was based on the popular
Dr. Kildare movies of the late 1930's and early 1940's, and brought
to the microphone the stars of
that series, Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore. Ayres played the young,
idealistic Dr. James Kildare;
Barrymore, ever in character, was the crusty, loveable
diagnostician, Dr. Leonard Gillespie. The men
worked at Blair General Hospital, "one of the great citadels of
American medicine -- a clump
of gray-white buildings planted deep in the heart of New York --
where life begins, where life ends,
where life goes on."
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - www.en.wikipedia.org
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