Diagonaldi Very well executed

VividSimon Simply Perfect

ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

mrb1980 "Medic" is a top-drawer medical drama that ran from 1954 to 1956. The series took the same anthology approach that was later adopted by "Twilight Zone" and other shows: each episode had established and up-and-coming actors in a different medical drama each week. The steady Richard Boone starred as Dr. Konrad Styner, who narrated each show and acted in several. The show was well-directed, compact, and compelling.Lots of past and future stars appeared, including Claude Akins, Beverly Garland, Hugh Beaumont, Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, and many others. The show was remarkably frank for its period and portrayed medicine in a no-nonsense fashion. The series may appear rather technically crude now, but it's a lot better than most shows today, which include inane and suggestive dialogue, swooshing sound effects, screaming laugh tracks and really childish stories. I highly recommend considering the DVD set for an excellent mid-1950s TV experience.P.S. You sure can tell this was made in the 1950s. After a particularly tricky delivery of a newborn, Dr. Styner and another doctor start smoking cigarettes outside the delivery room!

Joseph Harder James Moser was one of the outstanding writing talents in Television history. Sadly, he is almost forgotten and is, probably, quite unknown. He graduated from a Catholic college in California, then booked ship as a sailor on a tramp steamer headed to Australia. After working a variety of jobs in Australia, including journalism, he returned to the states and started writing for Radio. Jack Webb noticed his talent and hired him to be head writer on Dragnet. Moser wrote a wide range of teleplays in the fifties, including a dramatization of the life of Charles Proteus Steinmitz. Moser came up for the idea of an intelligent, realistic medical drama, that would star Richard Boone as Dr. Conrad Styner. To make sure the show was authentic, Moser worked as an orderly in a Los Angeles hospital for nearly two years. Medic, while critically acclaimed, lagged in the ratings, and was canceled after several years. Moser later came up with an idea for an even better, equally hard-hitting medical show, Ben Casey. Later Moser created another superb show that flopped in the ratings, Slattery's People. In 1965, he was the first person to receive The Gabriel Award from The Catholic Academy of Broadcast Professionalws for creating "shows that uplifted the human spirit." Of Course, NONE of them can be found on DVD.

NewtonFigg Medic had the bad fortune to be scheduled opposite I Love Lucy. Richard Boone, in the character of Dr. Konrad Styner, introduced the stories about doctors' experiences and acted in at least one episode, Flash of Darkness. Had anybody seen it, that episode would have been discussed in every news magazine and on every talk show. In it, Dr. Styner was at his office when he received a call that an atomic bomb had been dropped over the nearby city. He and his staff rushed to an improvised medical center and treated the injured while not knowing if their own families had survived. In 1954, the possibility of an atomic bomb attack by the Soviets was considered very real, and school children practiced marching calmly to the basement (three minute warning) or scrambling under the desk (no warning). Yet, I am not aware that there was any reaction to this show.In another episode, Never Come Sunday, a couple have an autistic daughter. The medical profession can do nothing for the child's condition and the mother desperately seeks out expensive quacks who hold out the promise of a cure. Unfortunately, this show could run today and be as pertinent as it was a half century ago.In the episode, My Brother Joe, a 10 year old boy succumbs to injuries he sustained from being hit by a drunk driver.The show was not exactly escapist fare. It dealt with real issues not often seen on television, and dealt with them realistically and without sensationalism. No wonder it didn't do well.

Robin Cook I'm waiting for the other DVD's, so I've watched four episodes of this series thus far. I remember when I was young when this show came on the air, but was too young to appreciate it or understand it. The episodes I've watched are, My Brother Joe (6); The Wild Intruder (11); Break Through the Bars (20); and General Practitioner (27). These short half hour episodes (B&W) were actually very good even in comparison with the forensic flashiness of CSI's and terminology crazed Bones series. Richard Boone's appearance as only the introductory narrative was disappointing since I was hoping he would be starring in the episodes, but that disappointment was cast aside as I watched each show. Each episode was instructive with various situations of both medical and family topicked issues. These issues were very well addressed to teach the public ... and were not done in in the push-down-your-throat kind of way, which gave this series more class than most of what I've seen today. I must admit I laughed a few times when the camera focused on some old forensic equipment as state of the art, but I did wonder if they did use actual medical equipment for this series.I did not find this series as a nostalgic view, nor did I find it corny or creepily old-fashioned or melodramatic. This show had class of an upper crust that I believe would be good to run re-runs on television today (if they haven't already done so).Naturally, technology has changed since this series aired, but these episodes I have viewed, their content is timeless and still applies to today's perspectives. For example, in Break Through the Bars episode, Lee J. Cobb stars as a man in a bank who suddenly undergoes depression and manic episodes. Social stigma was stronger at the time this episode aired, but I don't believe it has changed that much today for mental illness. In the episode The Wild Intruder, the subject of breast cancer still remains a mystery and one that is hard to treat, plus the personal hardship of having a breast removed ... and, at the end of the episode there is Richard Boone narrating a summarization in a medical scheme of basically informing the public that such is the sacrifice to continue living.This series addresses some very tough issues other than medical. So, if people can get past the black and white versus color mental block, I sincerely believe they'll enjoy watching this good oldie series.