Bing Crosby is a selfish, cocky young doctor from the city who goes to small-town Maine to substitute for the crusty old doc (Barry Fitzgerald) who’s finally going to take that long-delayed vacation. Some little boys get sick. The parents are worried. They reach out to highly-qualified outside experts.
The experts, who are effete twits, examine the boys and announce that they suffer from a horrible disease. Everybody panics. Then crusty old Barry Fitzgerald finds half-smoked cigars in the bathroom. That’s the problem! It’s simple! The boys don’t have a horrible disease, he announces with a chuckle; they’ve been smoking cigars. Everybody rejoices, the twits are sent away in shame, and Dr. Bing learns compassion, performs an emergency appendectomy on Dr. Barry, and marries the local sweetheart.
The movie, from 1947, is “Welcome Stranger,” and while it’s nothing special, it says more than it intends to say about contemporary America.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. condemns vaccines. They’d saved countless lives and there is no evidence to suggest they cause autism. But RFK Jr. knows better. Forget the experts. All we need to do is keep kids from smoking cigars.
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