Alias the Doctor

Films In Focus

By Ed Garea

Alias the Doctor (WB, 1932) – Directors: Michael Curtiz, Lloyd Bacon (uncredited). Writers: Houston Branch (s/p), Charles Kenyon (dialogue), Imre Foldes (play). Stars: Richard Barthelmess, Marian Marsh, Norman Foster, Adrienne Dore, Lucille La Verne, Oscar Apfel, John St. Polis & George Rosener. B&W, 61 minutes.

The implausible melodramatic plot of Alias the Doctor would have perfect for Douglas Sirk, the master of implausibility in the ‘50s. We could easily see Rock Hudson as Karl, Robert Stack as Stephan, and Jane Wyman as Lotti, with Agnes Moorhead as Mrs. Brenner.

Karl Brenner (Barthelmess) and his foster brother, Stephan Brenner (Foster), leave their farm in the Austrian countryside and travel to Munich to study medicine. Karl, in love with foster sister, Lotti (Marsh), would rather work as a farmer, but he bends to the wishes of foster mother, Mrs. Brenner (La Verne) and joins Stephan in medical school. Karl is a brilliant student, earning his rent money by tutoring rich kids and studying hard, with the result that he is named class valedictorian.

Stephan, on the other hand, would rather drink and chase women. One night, loaded to the gills, he argues with his girlfriend Anna (Dore) and hits her hard, causing her to fall down the stairs and rupture her abdomen. To compound matters Stephan operates on Anna, even though he does not yet have his medical license. The operation goes badly and she becomes very ill. Panicked, he confesses everything to Karl, who agrees to try to help her, even though he does not yet have his license, either. However, before he has a chance to operate he’s discovered by the landlord. Karl gallantly takes the blame and gets a three-year prison sentence for his trouble while Stephan returns home racked with guilt and operates a small medical practice in between bouts of drinking.  

On the day Karl is released Stephan conveniently dies of tuberculosis. Even more conveniently, one his first day home, a small boy is badly injured in an accident right in front of the family home. Karl decides to operate, even though knowing that if he was caught, it’s back to prison. But all comes out well and when Dr. Niergardt (St. Polis) arrives from Vienna, he examines the boy, and congratulates Karl on his life-saving work, believing him to be Stephan. Niergardt takes Karl with him back to Vienna, where the young doctor becomes a big success. But his new double life hangs over him and he knows it could end any minute once someone who knew Stephan gets a look at him. 

Karl calls Lotti, telling her that he wants to quit. He tells her to pack and meet him in Vienna. From there they will go to Paris and be married. However, now that he is supposed to be Lottie's brother, they are forbidden to marry. Mrs. Brenner forces Lottie to announce her engagement to another man, which drives Karl crazy. Then, to compound matters, she writes a letter exposing Karl to Franz von Bergman, head of the medical board. But why? She had just made a big deal out of convincing Karl to accompany Niergardt to Vienna, giving him Stephan’s diploma and telling him that if his operation on the little boy was a crime, then go to Vienna and commit a thousand more crimes. Her actions here make absolutely no sense, other than to move the plot along.

Later though, Frau Brenner has had second thoughts about the letter because she waits in the rain to intercept it. Failing that, she collapses in the street with no one there able to save her but . . . Guess Who? As Karl prepares to operate the board of directors call him up to let him know that the game is up and it looks as though Frau Brenner is about to buy the farm, as it were. Yet, Karl delivers a speech so passionate and convincing that the board relents and he gets to save his foster mother. After the operation the film cuts away from the humbly thankful look on Karl’s face to a brief distant shot of his back plowing the fields as ‘The End’ pops up on the screen.

Afterwords

That this movie is watchable despite the plot machinations is due to the directorial skill of Michael Curtiz, who keeps the film moving at a fast pace and wrings every drop of melodrama from this that he can without allowing it to become too lachrymose, lest the audience sit back and reflect on the implausibilities on the screen.

Curtiz’s use of shadow to show lovers embracing, patients being treated, or family members waiting for news is masterful, as is the appearance of a skull paperweight used to foreshadow Foster’s death and which pops into Barthelmess’ memory years later when he learns Foster has died. The coroner’s inquest, shot through bars just before Barthelmess is locked up, is also eerily effective with the autopsy doctor (an uncredited Nigel De Brulier) waiting eagerly by the operating rooms, the light focused on his eyes to give him a ghoulish look.

Art director Anton Grot also lends his capable hand to the production, contributing sets that are massive, angled, sparsely furnished spaces which look impressive, as in the hospital and the student dormitory.

As to the acting, Barthelmess is earnest, but the techniques that made him so effective in silent movies come to hurt him here, such as too many long unnatural pauses and other instances of exaggerated gesticulation. This inability to conform to the new paradigm of sound would force his semi-retirement from the screen in 1936.

Still, he fares better than his co-stars. As Lotti, Marian Marsh isn’t given a whole lot to do.  Her character seems to have been invented merely to add more conflict to Karl’s double life. Norman Foster’s role as Stephan Brenner is more of an afterthought, but Lucille La Verne as Frau Brenner contributes real drama to the proceedings as we are constantly questioning her motives. Karl’s mother Martha is a real treat. In a vexing performance we are left wondering as to her true motives. Was she really out to help both sons, or just Stephan, the natural born one by sending the studious Karl to help carry him through medical school?

Alias the Doctor is by no means a great movie, but its Pre-Code pedigree makes it watchable.