Thursday, May 23, 2019

By Appointment Only (1933)

A reasonable if ultimately uninteresting film and certainly one that couldn't be made today as it features an older man flirting with a thirteen year old girl!

Dr Travers (Lew Cody) is a suave and cocky doctor who feels guilty after he couldn't save one of his patients who died in his surgery. He makes the young daughter of the deceased woman, Judy (Sally O'Neal) his ward, not that his fiancee (Aileen Pringle) is that impressed...

Judy matures into an attractive young woman by the time she is eighteen (not that the Doctor seemed unattracted to her beforehand, the fact he liked her to call her uncle adds to the slight creepiness). His fiancee by now is really pissed off. Luckily there is a more reasonable suitor who is Judy's own age but we do get a bit of a four sided love triangle.

However all of this sounds far worse in text than it is onscreen, this isn't Lolita by any means. Instead it's a fairly average light hearted romantic drama. It could have been more but it is what it is.