I've seen this several times but the last was so many years ago that the memory of the movie is a little blurry. I do wish they'd release it on DVD because, while it's no masterpiece, it's a nifty noir.
Interns are being disappeared at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. (What an ugly place, then and now. Maybe all those missing interns just ran away and became artists in Bora Bora.) The police department insinuates a mole, Richard Conte, as a new guy. He's actually spent a few years in medical school, we're told. He digs into the internal dynamics of Bellevue, running into characters played by the wizened and creepy Tabor and the supernally nubile Grey.
It's a tense, exciting, and interesting flick. What I remember most is Conte, the real-life half-baked medical student, parading around in whites, ordering meds to be administered, giving orders, and looking authoritative.
That's one of the features of this movie that make it interesting. It's relatively EASY to fake being an MD. It's been done dozens of times by sociopaths and is probably being done even now, as we speak. Docs carry around such Aesculapian authority that ordinary mortals make many unspoken assumptions about the role.
I'll give one example. A doc that I know -- a close relative and lifelong friend -- is late for meetings and appointments with the public from time to time, just like the rest of us humans. We all oversleep or forget. When you and I are late, we are castigated for our lack of organization and self discipline. When a doc rushes in late, his audience APOLOGIZES to him for disrupting his busy schedule. The assumption is made that his duties in saving mankind prevented his being on time. Well -- full disclosure: I'm a sociologist.
It's marvelous to see Conte doing such a sociopathic number in the interests of justice and social control. He's rarely challenged, even when his orders are obviously a little screwy. Who's going to question the judgment of a confident young man in a white lab coat who has a stethoscope hanging around his neck and a pen light protruding from his breast pocket? These props are the equivalent of a police uniform and badge.
Forgive these observations. I now step down from the podium and return to the movie. Where was I? Oh, yes. It's a neat thriller and ends, if I remember correctly, with a chase through one of those soulless basements filled with laundries and pipes and fuse boxes and what appear to be steam-producing machines.
It would be nice to see it available on DVD.
Interns are being disappeared at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. (What an ugly place, then and now. Maybe all those missing interns just ran away and became artists in Bora Bora.) The police department insinuates a mole, Richard Conte, as a new guy. He's actually spent a few years in medical school, we're told. He digs into the internal dynamics of Bellevue, running into characters played by the wizened and creepy Tabor and the supernally nubile Grey.
It's a tense, exciting, and interesting flick. What I remember most is Conte, the real-life half-baked medical student, parading around in whites, ordering meds to be administered, giving orders, and looking authoritative.
That's one of the features of this movie that make it interesting. It's relatively EASY to fake being an MD. It's been done dozens of times by sociopaths and is probably being done even now, as we speak. Docs carry around such Aesculapian authority that ordinary mortals make many unspoken assumptions about the role.
I'll give one example. A doc that I know -- a close relative and lifelong friend -- is late for meetings and appointments with the public from time to time, just like the rest of us humans. We all oversleep or forget. When you and I are late, we are castigated for our lack of organization and self discipline. When a doc rushes in late, his audience APOLOGIZES to him for disrupting his busy schedule. The assumption is made that his duties in saving mankind prevented his being on time. Well -- full disclosure: I'm a sociologist.
It's marvelous to see Conte doing such a sociopathic number in the interests of justice and social control. He's rarely challenged, even when his orders are obviously a little screwy. Who's going to question the judgment of a confident young man in a white lab coat who has a stethoscope hanging around his neck and a pen light protruding from his breast pocket? These props are the equivalent of a police uniform and badge.
Forgive these observations. I now step down from the podium and return to the movie. Where was I? Oh, yes. It's a neat thriller and ends, if I remember correctly, with a chase through one of those soulless basements filled with laundries and pipes and fuse boxes and what appear to be steam-producing machines.
It would be nice to see it available on DVD.