Captain Newman, MD *** (1963, Gregory Peck, Tony Curtis, Angie Dickinson, Eddie Albert, Robert Duvall, Bobby Darin) – Classic Movie Review 10,823

Angie Dickinson in Captain Newman, MD (1963).

Director David Miller’s 1963 film Captain Newman, MD is a hit pre-M*A*S*H war comedy-drama for Gregory Peck, who is stiff as a board as Captain Josiah Newman, MD, a World War Two US Army psychiatrist, and Tony Curtis, who is on amusing form as Corporal Jackson ‘Jake’ Leibowitz, a disorderly orderly.

Captain Josiah Newman, MD is the Army doctor in charge of Ward 7, the neuropsychiatric ward at the US Army Air Corps hospital in Arizona in 1944. He has a tough task – just six weeks to cure his many patients, such as dissociated Colonel Norval Bliss (Eddie Albert), catatonic Captain Paul Winston (Robert Duvall) and traumatised Corporal Jim Tompkins (Bobby Darin).

Based on the novel by Leo Rosten, this is an intertwined multi-drama of three of Captain Newman, MD (Peck)’s clients. Plus, in the unusual, distinguished cast, there are Angie Dickinson as a nurse Lt. Francie Corum, Bobby Darin as a guilt-wracked corporal Cpl. Jim Tompkins, Eddie Albert as a guilt-wracked colonel Col. Norval Algate Bliss, James Gregory as Col. Edgar Pyser, Jane Withers as Lt. Grace Blodgett and Robert Duvall as a guilt-wracked captain Capt. Paul Cabot Winston.

The screenplay by Richard L Breen, Phoebe Ephron and Henry Ephron is quite witty and sophisticated, light-hearted in places and sugary in others, but with a welcome hint of a dark side, and it is extremely well played all round by the sprightly cast. It is billed a film that ‘swings from hilarity to heartbreak and back again’ and that’s exactly what it does.

Also in the cast are Bethel Leslie, Dick Sargent, Larry Storch, Robert F Simon, Syl Lamont, Paul Carr, Vito Scotti, Gregory Walcott, Crahan Denton, Charles Briggs, Mike Farrell and Ann Doran.

It was nominated for three Oscars: Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Bobby Darin), Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium and Best Sound.

Gregory Peck, at the height of his popularity after his Oscar for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), (which also features Robert Duvall), also produces (uncredited), with Robert Arthur.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,823

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