Dr. Broadway     3 ½ stars

Over the weekend I viewed some of a collection of B film noir movies from the forties at a local Chicago theater and enjoyed Dr. Broadway the most. This film was made in 1942 and is rarely seen by audiences. It was written by Borden Chase (known mainly for spaghetti westerns of the fifties, but here he ventured into the crime drama world). The director was Anthony Mann known for El Cid and Winchester ’73 (starring Jimmy Stewart). The movie starred a young MacDonald Carey as Timothy Cane or Dr. Broadway, a medical doctor in New York who makes use of his many contacts among the police and the criminal underworld in his thriving practice. This is one of Carey’s earliest roles who went on to star in Days of Our Lives for three decades. I enjoyed this short movie (1 hour, 6 minutes) mainly for the charming lead character and the classic style of the film. It was intended that this would be the first of a series of films for this character, but no others were ultimately made. In the story Cane is approached by a man who he had put in prison earlier. Cane is asked to give the man’s fortune to his estranged daughter, as the man has a short time to live. Unfortunately, there are others who believe they should get the money instead. Film Noir is regarded as black and white darker stories of crime dramas where the lead individual is tasked with solving the crime. The films were generally made in the forties and fifties by American studios. They are not necessarily dark in tone as the B movies generally had many comic moments which is true of Dr. Broadway. The term film noir literally means dark film and it did not become a widely used term until the nineteen seventies.