The New Pictures

The Country Doctor (Twentieth Century-Fox). From the moment that Mrs. Oliva Dionne astounded the world on May 28, 1934 by giving birth to quintuplets, it was apparent that the children, if they lived, were destined for a career in the cinema. Already seasoned performers in shorts and newsreels, they make their debut as feature stars in The Country Doctor, which last week opened simultaneously in 326 U. S. and Canadian theatres. The story, suggested by Reporter Charles Blake of the Chicago American, is built around a character representing a romantic conception of the Quintuplets' Dr. Allan Dafoe. Twentieth Century's Producer Darryl Zanuck is noted for his knack of patching stories out of histories and headlines. The Country Doctor is thus far the most convincing proof of his abilities in this direction. It is a warmhearted, amusing and astonishingly skillful cinema which should reward its manufacturers as handsomely as it will entertain its audiences.

When the picture opens, Dr. John Luke (Jean Hersholt) and his faithful nurse (Dorothy Peterson) are battling a diphtheria epidemic under adverse circumstances. It is the dead of Canadian winter. Wires have broken down. The village of Moosetown is cut off from the world. There is almost no serum left. The doctor's nephew, summoned by one of the doctor's lumberman patients with a homemade radio, arrives by plane with aid.

In the spring, when the first boat goes down the river, the doctor goes with it to visit his brother, who runs the biggest hospital in Montreal. Called on for a speech at a medical banquet, Dr. Luke commits a faux pas by using the opportunity to demand a hospital for Moosetown. When he gets back, he finds that the trading company which runs Moosetown has put the town sheriff on his track for practicing medicine without the license he is too poor to pay for and has installed a resident physician of its own. It appears to Dr. Luke that his life work in the community is over. He is sadly boarding a boat to leave Moosetown for the last time when his most reliable patient, whose first six children Dr. Luke has brought into the world, runs up to the gang plank and requests his services.

The rest of the picture belongs to Marie, Emilie, Cecile, Annette and Yvonne Dionne. Their entrance, while the sheriff helps their amazed father warm blankets, quilts, coats to wrap them in, is at once touching and hilarious. The picture sketches their early career through newsreel shots and ends in a grand climax especially made for the picture. This exhibits the Quintuplets singing, tipping over their chairs, groveling on the floor, beating trays with spoons and shouting until their nursery sounds like a backyard with a fox in it. By this time Dr. Luke has received both his hospital and the Order of the British Empire.

Most of The Country Doctor was made in Hollywood, but, for the final shots, Director Henry King and Jean Hersholt, who almost steals the show from its stars, went to Callander, Ont. (TIME, Dec. 16). Dr. Dafoe allowed the little girls to work one hour a day but refused to permit them to be kept working past their lunch hour. All cinema equipment was sterilized and kept out of sight. The actors and Director King had their throats sprayed between shots. Since it was impossible for Director King to tell the Quintuplets what to do, they really directed the sequences in which they acted, and Actor Hersholt adjusted his behavior to theirs. They liked him and mistook Dorothy Peterson for one of their regular nurses. For working an average of 38 minutes a day for six days each of the Quintuplets had $10,000 added to her trust fund.

Though Twentieth Century-Fox now has exclusive screen rights to the Quintuplets, Newspaper Enterprise Association still controls newspaper photograph rights. Consequently, stills from The Country Doctor which include the Quintuplets (see cut) are only available to newspapers which take NEA service, cost magazines $50 each.

Love on a Bet (RKO). A playboy bets his uncle that, starting from Manhattan penniless and dressed only in underclothes he can reach Los Angeles ten days late with $100, a new suit and a beautiful fiancee. The result herein is a 75-minute exhibit of biceps and boyish charm by Gene Raymond, pleasantly relieved by glimpses of Wendy Barrie as the fiancee and Helen Broderick as her sharp-tongued aunt. Inevitable shot: the young couple arriving at their destination with one minute to spare.

Love Before Breakfast (Universal). Hard on the heels of Wife v. Secretary (TIME, March 9), this is another footling adaptation of a story by Faith Baldwin, the popularity of whose work in, Hollywood may be due to the fact that no visible effort is required to translate it to the screen. A number of noisy and repetitious scenes are adduced in support of the idea that a woman (Carole Lombard) will bitterly pretend not to love a man (Preston Foster) if he is a "bell-pusher," i.e., a wealthy business man accustomed to treating others like puppets. Miss Lombard resents Mr. Foster's methods with such fury that her actions seem less a study in feminine psychology than a problem for psychiatry.

At one point she refuses to be taken from a sailboat to Foster's yacht, although the sailboat is shipping water in a storm, and her escort (Cesar Romero) is helpless from guzzling champagne. Good shot: Cesar Romero painfully recuperating from his drenching and swilling while Betty Lawford consoles him (see cut).

Colleen (Warner Brothers). Cinemaddicts who like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire are likely to disapprove of imitations. So are cinemaddicts who do not like them. Consequently, Colleen may turn out to have a more limited appeal than earlier Warner Brothers musical shows in which much the same cast -- Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Jack Oakie, Hugh Herbert, Joan Blondell -- have performed in more spontaneous fashion.

Miss Keeler's new dancing partner, long, lean Paul Draper, allows his feet to tap a good account of themselves in his cinema debut. As an eccentric playboy whose whimsical purchase of a dress-shop sup plies the nucleus of a story, Hugh Herbert's demented chuckle is as funny as usual.

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