Steineded How sad is this?

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Michael O'Keefe This ho-hum drama directed by Irving Rapper has a young doctor torn between money and deep down dedication. Dr. Tom Owen(Charlton Heston)is a Korean War veteran that returns to his hometown, a Pennsylvania coal mining community. After meeting a spoiled, rich daddy's girl, Helen Curtis(Lizabeth Scott), Owen will have to decide between treating wealthy women with imaginary ailments; or remain being a small down doc tending the poor and indigent. To make Owen's situation more complex is a pretty, idealistic nurse, Dianne Foster(Joan Lasher). It doesn't take very long to figure where this story leads. Other players include: Ray Collins, Rhys Williams, Arthur Franz, Lester Matthews and Mildred Dunnock.

JohnL-21 This Columbia film is an abbreviated reworking of MGM's THE CITADEL (1938). In THE CITADEL a young doctor treats miners in Wales, but then sells out to treat rich hypochondriacs in London, before rediscovering his ethics in the end. In BAD FOR EACH OTHER, it's miners in Coalville vs. rich women in Pittsburgh. There are many other similarities, although BAD reshuffles the plot elements into a shorter running time. A mine disaster sequence, common to both films, is egregiously duplicated in BAD, including some shots which are near-identical. It's close to plagiarism. THE CITADEL is a great film, while BAD is merely entertaining. Just don't watch them within a month of each other, as I accidentally did.

Robert J. Maxwell Most of the other comments on this tale have been pretty much on the mark. It's a "medical soap opera." And it's a permutation of "Not As a Stranger." After twelve years in the Army, Chuck Heston is a full colonel in the Medical Corps who returns for a visit to his home town of Coalville, Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh. It's a shabby mining town full of poor laborers and the only doctor in Rhys Williams who doesn't earn enough to own a private jet that can fly him to Cancun for a winter tan.Chuck is disgusted by the place. But when he meets a society doctor, Lester Mathews, in Pittsburgh, and especially when he meets the husky-voiced Lizabeth Scott, daughter of the man who owns the mines in Coalville, he's seduced into leaving the Army, working as an associate for Doctor Croesus in Pittsburgh, and becoming engaged to the enormously wealthy but self-indulgent Scott.Soon he has just about everything he wants, including an extremely efficient and highly educated nurse, Dianne Foster, who is given to needling him for becoming Mathews' "ghost surgeon" and for treating adjustment disorders of the rich instead of the suppurating illnesses of the poor minors in Coalville.There's been criticism of the social structure painted in this film -- nothing but the hypochondriacal wealthy who come only to flirt with the glamorous doc, versus the smudged minors and their families who REALLY get sick. And it DOES seem a little like propaganda because, after all, the rich get sick just like the poor. Yet, we should remember that the wealthy can afford to get treatment for less threatening disorders like headaches, while the uninsured poor are liable to lug themselves to a doc only when their bones are broken. Ergo: A disproportionate number of rich patients with minor complaints, with a disproportionate number of poor people with life-threatening disorders. There are a couple of sub-plots involving an idealistic young colleague of Chuck's, Arthur Franz; another about Chuck's brother having been miscreant; and something about a mysterious shadow that shows up on the lungs of miners in Essen, Germany, and Coalville, Pennsylvania. The lung disease business is dropped. The Franz thread leads to a payoff in which Chuck throws away his financial security and goes back to do the work every semi-sophisticated viewer always knew he would do. He gives up the clinging and demanding Liz Scott too, and the last shot is of Chuck and his efficient nurse in his Coalville office, staring starry-eyed at one another. I admired both characters, not because they turned out to be good but because they were both educated at the University of Pennsylvania where I too had some classes.This was written by Horace McCoy, whose novel, "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?", was a study in despair and that was later turned into a decent exploration of human endurance. I've never read the novel but you'd never know McCoy was a good writer if you judged his talent on the basis of this film alone.Chuck's status is in-your-face emphatic. Everybody calls him "Colonel" and then everybody calls him "doctor." Doctors call each other "doctor", even in casual conversation. The doctors call friends by their nicknames and subordinates by their last names. Chuck's nurse is "Lasher", not "Joan." I counted, and the word "doctor" is used exactly eleven-thousand, four-hundred and three times. It recalls the old joke: What's the difference between God and a doctor? God doesn't think he's a doctor. That, in turn, reminds me of another old joke: What's the difference between a vitamin and a hormone? You can make a vitamin. Yes, it's a long road that has no turning. I don't know what that means but it sounds awfully proverbial to me.Now, we return to our movie. What was it again? Yes, that's right. Nurse, hand me a fresh Ostwald viscometer, will you? Lizabeth Scott is urging Chuck to accept a partnership with Mathews. By this time Mathews has been exposed as a kind of suave but incompetent front man and Chuck is treating the long line of society matrons waiting to have a swelling excised from their wallets. Foster is urging him to rediscover his idealism. He plumps for the dough until a mine explosion reeducates and revitalizes him, after which he leaves Liz Scott for sooty Coalville.Chuck seems to have been finding his feet when he made this. Some of his movements seem awkward and strained, though he's a magnetic presence on the screen. Being ten feet tall and sounding like Ezio Pinza helps. Liz Scott delivers a standard Hollywood performance. When she has something Big to import, she stands slightly bent at the waist, her elbows crooked at her side. Her acting is as shallow as her character. Only God, my dear, could love you for yourself alone and not your yellow hair. I've never seen a man adopt such a stance, and women only do it in the movies. Dianne Foster uses it too, so it must be mere convention. I give Foster a pass on it, though, because she's so bright eyed and so supportive of Chuck as he wrestles with these conflicts. Also Foster's voice doesn't sound as if it had been subjected to half a lifetime of being cured by the smoke of Gaulois. It sort of tinkles.At heart, this is a dumb and obvious movie, yet I kind of enjoyed it. There's a lot of talk, true, but the plot is so simple as to fall just short of simple mindedness. You already KNOW what's going to happen. A good man, led astray, will be saved through the sacrifice of another and the love of a good woman. Soothing and palliative, your troubles melt away.

MartinHafer This film finds Charlton Heston a career military doctor. He's a colonel and has come home on leave. However, two things make him reassess whether to continue in this military career--his deceased brother and Lizabeth Scott. As for the brother, he too had grown up in this Pennsylvania coal town but living the high life was so important that he created a lot of debts and died owing a lot of people. Heston felt an obligation to pay off these debts. The other reason was the odd character played by Lizabeth Scott. She plays a very sophisticated but highly controlling woman--twice divorced. Shortly after meeting Heston, she decided to make him into the man she wanted him to be--in a swanky private practice and with his manhood under her firm control! Considering how obviously manipulative and controlling she is, it seems amazing that Heston would be interested in her...though in real life I've seen people make similar insane decisions with who they marry. It seems obvious to everyone EXCEPT Heston that she's just no good--a woman who will crush his spirit and emasculate him. At the same time, Heston's new assistant has a lot going for her--quite the looker and very sweet (Dianne Foster). How he could fall for Scott is sure a puzzler and you're rooting for him to wake up and notice Foster! You just wonder if she'd have him now that he's so focused on monetary success.So does everything work out fine for Charlton? Well, if it did, then there'd be no reason for this film! First, while this other doc was great with schmoozing and putting on an image that the rich folks loved, he was incompetent. Naturally, this had a big impact on Heston--how could he continue a partnership with this man--especially when the guy wasn't at all repentant about his lack of skills. As for Scott, she's everything you assume she is--an albatross around Charlton's neck! But, when Heston is called to the nearby coal mine when there's a cave-in, his moment of decision is at hand.Overall, a very good film though I think they made Scott too obviously selfish and annoying. Had they toned her down just a bit, it would have improved the film and made it not quite so obvious. I also felt a bit annoyed that the film seemed to imply that being a "society doctor" is a bad thing is a bit of an overstatement. They seem to be saying that Heston should "stick with his own social class" as well as promotes the myth that rich folks are all hypochondriacs. Not all rich people are bad and not all poor folks are noble! As for me, I say good for Heston if he's able to make a go of this practice after spending so many years in the service! After all, SOMEBODY needs to treat rich people! Also, I found it interesting that Scott was used in the film as she really did grow up in the region featured in the film! This Scranton-born girl didn't have to stretch very far in the accent department!