Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

jacobs-greenwood Just before Paul Muni got his chance to play the titled doctor in The Story of Louis Pasteur (1935), the role which earned him his Best Actor Academy Award, he played the title role in this crime drama, as Dr. Lee Cardwell. William Dieterle directed both films; their other two collaborations were also titled roles for the actor: in the Oscar winning Best Picture The Life of Emile Zola (1937) and as Juarez (1939).This film's story was written by W.R. Burnett, who'd provided continuity for an earlier Muni title role, Scarface (1932); Mary McCall Jr. adapted it and Robert Lord, who provided the story for Muni's Bordertown (1935), wrote the screenplay.Dr. Cardwell (Muni) now lives in Big Ben, "the biggest small town" in an Ohio county, because as a big city surgeon he'd lost his nerve when he couldn't save his fiancée's life; she'd been critically injured in an automobile accident after a fight with him. Despite the urging of two of his former colleagues (one played by Samuel Hinds), he refuses to return to his practice, instead continuing to "hide out" in a small town community "run" by another gregarious doctor named Ginder (Robert Barrat), making it difficult for moody Cardwell to find patients. Dr. Ginder has dubbed him Dr. Socrates because his nose is always in books written by foreign scholars. Cardwell lives with Ma Ganson (Helen Lowell), who treats him like a son and allows his rent to be overdue.The action really begins when a local boy now big city gangster Red Bastian (Barton MacLane) returns home to hide out, and have Cardwell treat his bullet wound. Though Cardwell refuses payment, Red leaves him a C note ($100) which, because of his desperate financial condition - especially with the grocer, Cardwell deposits. Banker Ben Suggs (Raymond Brown) doesn't particularly like Ginder and befriends Cardwell, who agrees to visit Suggs's hypochondriac daughter Caroline (Grace Stafford) and helps to "cure" her.While Red and his gang are on their way to another job, they pick up a hitchhiker named Josephine 'Jo' Gray (Ann Dvorak), but she escapes during the holdup making some think she was a moll even though Red had shot her in the shoulder after she'd run. Cardwell helps her and takes her to his office to treat her wound against Ginder's protestations. Later, when Jo is cleared by the Sheriff et al, Cardwell asks her to stay because he's formed an affection for her, one which is mutual.When Red's arm that had been shot starts to hurt again per an infection, he has his gang kidnap the doctor and bring him blindfolded to their hideout. Afterwards though, Cardwell sees Bob Catlett (Olin Howland), and vice versa, and figures out where he's been. This is important because Red in turn has Jo kidnapped such that Cardwell decides that he must save her (from the fate of becoming a moll and) for himself. This happens at virtually the same time that G-man Greer (Henry O'Neill) et al have arrived in town to find and apprehend, or kill while trying, Red and his gang.Ma pleads with Greer to wait until 1 AM to rush the Catlett place; meanwhile, Cardwell is inside because he'd convinced Red that the Feds were after him per the C note from Red they'd traced to him. Because Catlett had questioned him about typhoid fever per one of his neighbor's earlier, Cardwell persuades Red and his gang to submit to an injection which is ostensibly a vaccine but will really put them to sleep for 12 hours.Of course there's a last minute raid and gun battle with the G-men. Red is killed in the shootout whereas Jo and Cardwell survive so that they can be together in the end; Ginder and the rest of the town sing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" to Cardwell.Hobart Cavanaugh plays a busybody pharmacist-soda jerk and Mayo Methot plays Red's moll Muggsy; Dick Elliot and Grady Sutton, as a grocery clerk, appear uncredited as does Marc Lawrence, as the gangster named Lefty.

bkoganbing As a film Dr. Socrates is significant in the career of Paul Muni because it is the first time he worked with William Dieterle who directed all of his biographical films at Warner Brothers for which he became best known for. They must have liked working together because Muni would not have had him as a director again, he had that kind of clout and was that demanding of his bosses at Warner Brothers. The film itself is a minor drama with Muni playing the role of a kindly doctor who has settled in an obscure small town to forget the death of his sweetheart. As the town already has a doctor in Robert Barrat, there are some in the town who don't really take to Muni. But enough do so he gets by.Although no one knows it the town is also the center of a vicious gang of robbers, headed by a John Dillinger like hoodlum played in swaggering style by Barton MacLane. The gang's hideout is at Olin Howland's farm, MacLane and the rest are from the area. He's public enemy number one in the parlance of the day.One day MacLane is wounded in a bank holdup and he and the gang stop in at Muni and force him at gunpoint to patch him up. MacLane likes his work and now thinks he can intimidate the soft spoken Muni into being their regular physician.Although Ann Dvorak had to be introduced somehow as a love interest, the script's biggest fault is the fact that she's wounded in a bank robbery at the hometown. She's a hitchhiker, but a lot believe she was in with the gang. Cardinal rule in real life and films, you absolutely don't do any criminal business in or near your sanctuary. Usually people don't steal the show from Paul Muni, but in this case the swaggering, bullying Barton MacLane may have given the best performance of his career. MacLane was a menacing guy in films with that rasping voice of his and it was never put to better advantage than in Dr. Socrates.Three years later the basic plot of Dr. Socrates was used again for King Of The Underworld where Kay Francis is a female doctor and Humphrey Bogart the gangster. Dr. Socrates is a minor effort from Paul Muni, but still an enjoyable film. His next film was The Story Of Louis Pasteur, directed by William Dieterle that would set Muni's Hollywood image for all time.

m_finebesser With Paul Muni in the lead, I was expecting something out of the ordinary. However, Dr. Socrates is ordinary. It is a run-of-the-mill 1930's crime drama with Muni's range wasted in a part better suited to Chester Morris or Ricardo Cortez. Barton MacLane and Mayo Methot, on the other hand, are perfect playing parts similar to what they played throughout their entire careers. It's watchable, but not special.

rollo_tomaso This is the kind of "crime" doctor movie Hollywood churned out by the truckload in the mid-30's. Muni is badly miscast in the lead, but rest of cast more than makes up for it. MacLane steals film as Red, the main gangster. Ann Dvorak and Mayo Methot are excellent as are the redoubtable Henry O'Neill and Owin Howlin. Some good pithy dialogue makes this well-meaning time capsule worth a look.