The centenary of the birth of actor Charlton Heston was last October, which is why he was named TCM's Star of the month instead of someone who might have a relationship with horror movies, October being the month of Halloween and all that. In any case, this gave me the chance to record a couple of Heston's movies that I hadn't seen before. I recently watched one of them: Bad for Each Other.
Charlton Heston plays Col. Thomas Owen, MD. He graduated from medical school before World War II, and enlisted with that war and wound up serving both through that war and the Korean War. Having been away from his home town of Coalville, PA, for quite some time, he's decided to return following news of the death of his brother. But when he returns, he finds that the locals blame his brother for what happened, since the death was in a coal mine explosion that killed people besides his brother as well. To make matters worse, the locals are perfectly willing to carry that blame over to Tom, even though he had nothing to do with what happened!
Thomas' mother (Mildred Dunnock) doesn't seem too happy that her son left to join the military all those years ago. Thomas, for his part, wanted to escape a town where, like in How Green Was My Valley, it seemed as if the only real source of work was down in the coal mines. He's only back to try to settle any debts his brother might be responsible for, or at least that's what he claims. With that in mind, he wants to see Mr. Reasonover, who owns the mine, to try to find out exactly what happened.
Before that, however, he has an encounter with the local doctor, Dr. Scobee (Rhys Williams). Scobee wants him to look at some of the X-rays from miners who are developing spots on their lungs from all that time spent down in the mines. I didn't realize it while watching, but apparently the movie was made at the time that what we now know of as black lung disease was first really being investigated; at the time they apparently thought silica dust rather than coal dust was causing the damage. Scobee also suggests that Dr. Owen is welcome to join him in his practice, since Scobee is thinking of retiring soon. The only thing is, it's not very rewarding financially.
Dr. Owen eventually finds Reasonover at a party being held at the house of his wealthy daughter, Helen Curtis (Lizabeth Scott), who is currently unmarried after having been through a series of husbands. Reasonover tells Thomas that his brother was actually embezzling money that was supposed to be used for safety equipment. At this point, however, that plotline largely fizzles out in favor of a different one, involving Thomas and Helen. One of the younger female guests at the party winds up in need of a very discreet doctor, and Dr. Owen is there, since they can't get her regular doctor, Dr. Gleeson. Dr. Gleeson is the sort of doctor who makes a ton of money by ministering to hypocondriac wealthy women who really don't have that much of a medical problem for the most part.
Helen then suggests Dr. Owen meet Dr. Gleeson, and perhaps even go into practice with Gleeson. Owen does eventually join the practice, but he hires an idealistic nurse who discovers what the practice is really about and is horrified by it. She's also horrified by the idea that Dr. Owen is falling in love with Helen. And surprisingly, Helen's father is horrified by it as well. Dr. Owen appears to be selling his soul for money. But thanks to the Production Code, something is going to happen to give him a chance to redeem himself....
I mentioned The Citadel in the title of this post. If you remember that movie, Robert Donat plays a British doctor who starts off working for coal miners, but moves to a London clinic for the wealthy only to find that it's destroying his soul. So it's not hard to understand why I'm not the only person who found himself comparing Bad for Each Other to The Citadel. Unfortunately, this is a movie where the script really lets Heston and the rest of the cast down. They try, but the resulting mess isn't really their fault.
As always, however, judge for yourself whether the movie is that bad. Thankfully, it's not overlong, so even if you don't like it it's not as if you've wasted too much of your time.
