Kings Row (1942)

Features Ronald Reagan’s best acting though the lead actor is Robert Cummings. Some pretty good stuff by Ann Sheridan as well. Cummings and Reagan play boyhood pals Parris & Drake respectively. Parris becomes a psychiatrist learning in part under the tutelage of another doctor (Claude Rains) who has a reclusive daughter (Betty Field); Drake becomes a playboy. Charles Coburn plays another local doctor a sadistic one who punishes people he deems evil under his care. This includes Drake who had a relationship with the doctor’s daughter before he’d married Sheridan. Judith Anderson plays Coburn’s wife. Maria Ouspenskaya plays Parris’s grandmother. Harry Davenport (among others) also provides support. The film its director Sam Wood (his third and last unrewarded Best Director Oscar nomination) and cinematographer James Wong Howe all received Academy Award nominations. Casey Robinson (Captain Blood (1935)) adapted the best selling novel by Henry Bellamann.

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