1937’s Internes Can’t Take Money is an odd title and the film bearing it takes place in a strange world where that rule seems to be the primary law of the land.  This is the stated reason Joel McCrea’s Dr. Kildare refuses to take gangster Lloyd Nolan’s money as thanks for saving his life.  Nolan had turned threatening, asking why his money wasn’t good enough, when he totally caves upon hearing McCrea’s explanation that the hospital which employs him refuses to let interns take money.  The gangster looks downright scared, as if the most terrifying force in the world is some city hospital’s administration.

McCrea is only one of the interns at a hospital which seems to be entirely staffed by complete asshats.  Among the less-than-helpful suggestions one makes to an overweight woman is to sarcastically suggest she get some exercise by pushing herself away from the table three times a day.  I bet I can correctly guess this guy’s reaction if he was alive today and was asked whether government-subsidized healthcare coverage should cover weight loss medications.

Fortunately, it is McCrea tends to Barbara Stanwyck’s burned wrist.  Still, he is rather brusque with her.  Naturally, they will still develop a relationship, and this happens through her assistance with that emergency surgery he performs on Lloyd in the bar across the street from the hospital.  That this place only seems to have doctors and gangsters as its clientele is odd.

In the course of this procedure, I found the behavior and comments from the bartender to be especially odd.  It would be something if his statement that “he has eyes in his fingers” was literally true.  And I was baffled by him bringing McCrea the “14-year stuff” to use as antiseptic.  Seems to me the cheapest rotgut might be as, or even more, effective.

Stanwyck happened to be in the bar because she was trying to appeal to Stanley Ridges, yet another gangster, for information concerning her missing daughter.  You see, her husband had taken the girl away from Stanwyck and then he died.  Ridges will give her information only if she pays him a thousand dollars or she gives him…something…in trade.

Go figure, one thousand is the same amount Nolan gifted McCrea, and the doctor happens to have the envelope full of cash on him when he stops by Stanwyck’s apartment.  This is a doctor who makes house calls when he hopes it will be a booty call.  Unfortunately for her, he sees her try to lift the envelope and so, complications and misunderstandings and blah blah blah.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this picture is how Stanwyck fares so poorly.  This was before she developed her wry and world-weary persona, and it is disappointing to see her try to perform such lame material with a straight face.  Hers is a thankless role and there is nothing she or anybody else could do to improve upon it.

And yet, it wasn’t until Internes Can’t Take Money was nearly over that I realized it was nothing more than a soap opera.  Go figure, this is the first incarnation of the Dr. Kildare character, who would go on to find popularity predominately on television, which is where he belongs.

Dir: Alfred Santell

Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Lloyd Nolan

Watched on Kino Lorber’s blu-ray box set The Barbara Stanwyck Collection