The Girl in 419 Reviews

A big-city general hospital story, the institution filled with disenchanted burnouts hardened to horror, seemingly uncaring, playing pranks and toying with tragedy. Talented surgeon Dunn, alternately womanizing and pontificating, accompanies an ambulance on a call to a hotel where a big-time gambler has been shot to death during a card game (an occurrence resembling the slaying of "Mr. Big," Arnold Rothstein, in 1928). In the hotel suite, he notices lipstick on a cigarette butt: cherchez la femme. He doesn't need to cherchez for very long, however; the sorely beaten Stuart shows up in the hospital, the victim of a vicious attack. By heroic means, Dunn saves her life, then falls in love with her. During her recuperation, mobster Harrigan visits, bearing a bouquet for a policeman who has killed two members of a rival mob. Spotting Stuart, he later sends LaRue, his henchman, to reverse her recovery. Stuart's demise is delayed when young intern Manners interferes, only to be wounded for his pains. Clever villain Harrigan has himself admitted to the hospital with plans to pursue the persecution of the pretty Stuart. Manners, the intern, injects him with poison and then claims that he was dead on arrival, and our heroine's peril is past. Too many subplots make this film difficult to follow.