MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

HotToastyRag Even though Gregory Peck is the lead of Captain Newman, M.D., the performance generally remembered from this film is Bobby Darin's. He was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1964, beaten out by Melvyn Douglas in a "sentimental favorite" Oscar. Bobby had taken a couple of dramatic roles prior to this one, but the Academy saw fit to honor this role, in which he plays one of the patients in the psychiatric ward that Gregory Peck oversees.As is typical in movies that take place solely in a hospital, the new doctor arrives at the start of the film. There's a seasoned co-worker to show him the ropes and warn him of a few patients, thereby explaining the situation to the audience as well. Greg plays the doctor, the title character, and Tony Curtis and Angie Dickinson help him adjust to his new life in the short-staffed army hospital. I like these types of movies because the characterization is always very varied, and you'll usually be able to find someone you like.Bobby Darin does an excellent job portraying a shell-shocked soldier, and he's joined by Robert Duvall and Eddie Albert in often overlooked supporting roles. It's a staple of Gregory Peck movies; who doesn't want to see him playing a concerned doctor trying to help people? If you're like me and often watch movies solely to appreciate the acting, this is a great one.

DrMike-2 I recorded this, for some light-hearted relief as it was billed on ITV as a "romantic comedy classic". When I sat down to watch it, I was immediately drawn in by the narrative of the story and great acting from Gregory Peck. Eventually, Tony Curtis turns up and injects a modicum of humour, but it remained very far from comedy and even further from romance. Instead what I found was a poignant, sensitive, accurate portrayal of serious post-war mental illness that was handled delicately and realistically. For me, this was a positive as I'm fed up with the shock, horror, attention seeking treatment of modern Hollywood films. Indeed the whole film was a welcome change from the Too Fast Too Furious shovel-ware that constitutes modern entertainment. This had a story, a meaning and acting in spades, from all involved.If you're looking for romantic comedy, don't watch this! It's like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest on an airbase, without the laughs, so if you liked that you'll like this.

catwoman10301963 I felt the story line portrayed the mental effects of the war. All the actors in this movie gave their best performances. Eddie Albert was very convincing in his role not to mention Bobby Darin. Tony Curtis put a new twist on playing a hospital orderly with compassion and laughter. Gregory Peck And Angie Dickinson poured their hearts out on screen. This is a very believable movie about what soldiers have to cope with inside their minds. B=Larry Storch was a fun and caring hospital orderly trying to help each and every patient. He is a very talented actor that can play serious and humorous roles with great ease on the screen.

inspectors71 If anything positive can be said for 1963's Captain Newman, MD, it's that it is a compassionate film. It is not a coherent one, nor is it ever sure if it's a WWII drama or a stale service-comedy.CNMD boasts a lot of very familiar faces doing and saying ridiculous things: Gregory Peck is not a man for light comedy (and when he's falling-down drunk, you'll want him to just go to bed and sleep it off, not laugh at him as he pratfalls about with Angie Dickinson). Dickinson is embarrassing as Peck's sort of love interest; she's given little to do but look good and look concerned (which erupts into very controlled weeping when the news from the front gets bad). Tony Curtis wears the outfit of street-wise non-com who keeps telling Peck how easy psychiatry is, dog-robbing the top of a Christmas tree, and herding sheep. Robert Duvall reprises his Boo Radley role from To Kill a Mockingbird, Bobby Darin chews, smacks, and gulps the scenery as a B-17 gunner whose got a bad case of survivor's guilt, and Eddie Albert manages to be the only actor who exceeds the bare minimum of acting expectations here. His Army Air Force colonel is suffering from sending too many youngsters to their deaths, and watching him break up and shatter is the only saving grace in this shoddy mess.Yet, the movie is a compassionate one. It's very madness-of-war and stick-it-to-the-man in its treatment of combat-related mental illness. CNMD is full of 11th grade psychology (so that the audience will get it; God help the trained professional who watches this), cutesy characters, and tedious situation drama and comedy. It reminded me of the first three or four years of M*A*S*H on TV (before Alan Alda decided to inject the series with an overdose of deep). Everyone is running about, trying their best to get the message out to you that WAR IS HELL, but it's nuttier still, and the only way to win it is to be cutesy and compassionate.I like my war-movies-with-a-message a bit more sure of themselves. Just watch Tom Hanks pull himself together three quarters of the way through Saving Private Ryan or the movie M*A*S*H wherein Bobby Troupe keeps confronting the idiocies inherent in soldiering by simply hanging his hands over the steering wheel of a jeep and muttering, "Goddamned army!" Leave the head-shrinking to the professionals.