You'd need degrees in disciplines other than mine to figure out why a natural and gifted surgeon would yearn to throw away his scalpel and spend his days sitting behind a mule and a plough just as he himself could use a degree in Common Sense which may have prevented him making some of the choices he did make. Consider the plot: Karl (Richard Barthelmess) and Stephan (Norman Foster) Brenner enter medical school together. Though they have the same name Karl has been adopted by Martha Brenner (Lucille La Verne) and raised with Stephan and his sister Lotti (Marian Marsh). Karl wants nothing more than to remain on the farm and marry Lotti but enrols in med school anyway. He is clearly a 'born' doctor and a diligent student whereas Stephan prefers a more playboy lifestyle. Shortly before graduation Stephan appears in Karl's rooms and confesses he has operated illegally on a girlfriend who became ill. He begs Karl to sort out the mess. Karl (see what I mean about Common Sense) agrees, does what he can but is too late to save the girl. When a real doctor turns up Karl takes the rap for Stephan, sticks to his story in court, doesn't get to graduate and serves four years hard time in the slammer. Four years pass; Stephan has his shingle on the door of the old homestead but his patients are dropping like flies due to his incompetence and alcoholism. He drinks himself to death shortly before Karl gets out of the slammer. Karl has been back all of five minutes when an automobile wraps itself around a tree in the yard. A young girl is badly injured. Her father sees the shingle and assumes that Karl is Stephan i.e. a licensed physician. Martha and Lotti prevail on Karl to operate against his better judgment (Common Sense anyone). He does so and the girl recovers. The father has meanwhile sent for his own physician, a big cheese in Vienna. The guy arrives, examines the patient, also assumes Karl is Stephan, congratulates him and asks where and with what equipment he operated. Why, right here, replies Karl, I didn't have much in the way of tools but I did have a Swiss Army Knife with a thing for taking stones out of horse's hooves. You're the Man, say the kosher doctor, come with me to Vienna and I'll make you a star. Here we may like to consider that it's only four years since Karl's picture was all over the National Press and soon it is again, this time as Stephan Brenner, when he performs miracle after miracle. Finally he calls time, proposes to Lotti and says he's coming back to the plough; Martha blows the whistle in a letter to the medical Board, changes her mind, is unable to retrieve it and has a stroke. As he is about to operate the Board cancel the surgery. Ya gotta let me save my ma, he cries passionately. They relent, he does, and the last shot is of one happy bunny ploughing the ass out of that bottom land. This was an early talkie and everyone acts accordingly, hamming it up in a way that would put even Jolie to shame. On the other hand it's an early example of Michael Curtiz' work (with uncredited help from Lloyd Bacon) behind the camera and has definite curio value.
Review of Alias the Doctor
