Tue 9 Apr 2019
A Movie Review by Walter Albert: WHILE THE PATIENT SLEPT (1935).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[6] Comments
WHILE THE PATIENT SLEPT. Warner Brothers, 1935. Aline MacMahon (Sarah Keate), Guy Kibbee (Lance O’Leary), Lyle Talbot, Patricia Ellis, Allen Jenkins, Robert Barrat. Based on the novel by MIgnon G. Eberhart. Director: Ray Enright.
Nurse Sarah Keate is brought to a gloomy mansion on a stormy nighth to care for a comatose patient while the family gathers vulture-like for the death-bed wait. A murder, accusation, Guy Kibbee as the amiable detective, and a confusing and not very convincing plot.
Of interest for the pairing of MacMagon and Kibbee on what was probably an attempt to match the chemistry of the successful RKO Edna May Oliver/James Gleason pairing as Hildegarde Withers and Inspector Oscar Piper. MacMahon isn’t given much to do and aside from some arch exchanges between her and Kibbee, the movie doesn’t generate much chemistry.
They were also probably trying to continue the more successful pairing of the two stars in Big-Hearted Hobart and Babbitt, both released in 1934. I saw these two films, or parts of them, recently. They’re light-weight romantic comedy-dramas worth watching for the expert acting of the cast. And Babbitt is as far from Sinclair Lewis as you can get.)
April 9th, 2019 at 9:08 pm
What a coincidence. I just got done watching Aline McMahon in one of my favorite movies “One Way Passage” with William Powell & Kay Francis. Aline plays a grifter going by the name of “Barrel House Betty”.
Reading her Bio on IMDB just now, I see her father was an editor of MUNSEY’s Magazine!!
How’s that for tying in the pulps with films! I’ve never seen this movie though. I’ll have to look for it on TCM if possible.
April 9th, 2019 at 9:52 pm
The movie is on DVD from Warner Archives, but I’m sure I saw it on TCM long before Warner Archives came along. I kind of liked the movie, but I sure wouldn’t want to pay Warner Archive prices for it.
April 9th, 2019 at 9:11 pm
One more thought. I was thinking that if the timing were a few years later, she would have made a good Mortisha Adams!
April 9th, 2019 at 9:58 pm
A lady well ahead of her time!
April 10th, 2019 at 7:53 pm
She’s well cast as Keate, but this one hasn’t got much going for it. I was not a fan of Eberhart’s Keate stories, she did much better when she turned to romantic suspense than in this early period, and the film shows the problem with a rather weak detective story vs her fine hand at suspense.
Didn’t Warner’s remake this with Ann Sheridan as Keate, or am I thinking of another nurse sleuth?
April 10th, 2019 at 8:10 pm
Yes, indeed. She played Nurse Sara Keate in The Patient in Room 18 (1938) also based on an Eberhart novel. A slightly different name but the same character. (This assumes that IMDb is correct on this.)