Amidst a mishmash of comedy, drama, melodrama and scene chewing in
CAPTAIN NEWMAN, M.D.,
one actor gives a particularly moving performance. It’s not Greg Peck
as the title character who runs the psychiatric unit in a U.S. Military
Hospital during WWII, although he's very good playing a medical version
of lawyer Atticus Finch; and it's not Bobby Darin, who won well-deserved
rave notices and was nominated for an Academy Award but whose
performance I think is hammy. The stand-out is Eddie Albert, who really
did see action in some of the South Pacific war's bloodiest battles.
Albert (yes, Green Acres Albert) is an officer who breaks under the
strain of having sent one too many men off to die. The several intense
encounters between him and Peck are electic. (They were also greatl
together 10 years earlier in ROMAN HOLIDAY). (Trivia note: Even though
the story takes place in 1944, hairstyles, uniforms and clothes are
clearly those of '63.)
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