Captain Newman, M.D.

US (1963): Comedy/Drama

Gregory Peck plays a benevolent God-like figure in a white smock as Capt. Josiah Newman, the head of a psych-unit at a Southwestern army base during the waning days of World War II. Newman is a patriarchal protector to his patients, preferring to keep them in his ward, rather than return them to certain death on the battlefield. The matriarchal figure of the ward is Lt. Grace Blodgett (Jane Withers), but Newman is more interested in his assistant Lt. Francie Corum (Angie Dickinson), with whom he is having an affair. Further help is provided by human nature expert, Cpl. Jackson Laibowitz (Tony Curtis), the orderly. And Newman needs all the help he can get. Particularly with three patients: Col. Bliss (Eddie Albert) is suffering from a guilt complex from all the men he has sent to death; Cpl. Tompkins (Bobby Darin, in an Academy Award^®-nominated performance), although decorated for bravery in combat, calls himself a coward for failing to save his pal from a burning plane; and Capt. Winston (Robert Duvall) is guilt-ridden and has lapsed into catatonia because he had hidden for over a year in the basement of a building in Germany. Although Newman wants to cure these men of their psychological problems, he doesn't want to see them returned to the war to be killed. David Miller directs for Universal. (Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide)

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3 nominations