Bad for Each Other (1953)

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

A freshly discharged army doctor passes up practice in blue-collar hometown for big- paying practice among a city elite that includes a cool blonde dilettante.I got this epic as part of a package claiming to be all noir. The only thing noir in this movie are the several night time shots— otherwise, no crime, no hand of fate, and no moody atmosphere. Only blonde seductress Helen (Scott) instead, and she's hardly the standard spider woman. Actually, the movie's more b&w soap opera than anything else.That's not to say there're no redeeming features. I guess I wasn't aware of what a racket doctoring among the wealthy can be. The movie shows what a cushy pandering job it can be, treating headaches with high-priced medicines and smarmy words. And coming from a muckraker like novelist McCoy, e.g. They Shoot Horses Don't They (1969), I take it as factually based.And surprise, surprise, to me, at least—actor Heston is quite animated as the sell-out doctor. I guess this was before he stiffened into a big-screen movie god, but whatever, he's quite persuasive in the role. Still, I thought the script made the doc's transition from honorable soldier to money-grubbing pill pusher much too easy, more like a movie device than a character change. Nonetheless, get a load of the coal mine scenes, quite realistic and well done.But, bottom line, the story follows a familiar pattern with no surprises, suggesting a production serving mainly as a vehicle for Columbia's newest hunk.

Usually my rating comes pretty close to the "group" rating here. But this time I must disagree and give this film a considerably higher "7".I was not expecting much, partially because since Charlton Heston's NRA rants he had fallen out of favor with me, although I still believe his performance in Ben-Hur was one of the great performances in cinematic history. But there have been few other films I really enjoyed him in. But, Heston's performance here is top notchAs one other reviewer here pointed out, it isn't far into the film before we know that the basic plot is that a doctor who is tempted to a rich practice for hypochondriacs will, eventually, return to his true calling. Okay, but then again, we figure out the gist of most movies pretty quickly. What makes a film interesting is the way it gets to a conclusion we've already figured out. On the one hand, some aspects of the story -- such as the coal mining aspect -- are a little different. There are also some aspects of the film that just don't ring true...such as the mother's reluctance to have her son be successful; that is a bit overdone. And, I don't think the screenwriters did Lizabeth Scott's role any favors; she's too callous. But, at least she's interesting here. Dianne Foster as a dedicated nurse was good, and it's always nice to see Mildred Dunnock (here as the mother; too bad the role was not more realistic). Arthur Franz is excellent as a dedicated young doctor. It's always a plus to have veteran character actor Ray Collins in a film, and he is wonderful as ever here. Same for Marjorie Rambeau as a rich, matronly type. Lester Matthews and Rhys Williams do fine as a slick city-type doctor versus a country doctor.So, from my perspective, this is a pretty decent movie. Perhaps not one for the DVD shelf, but definitely worth a watch (or two...as I did).

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.

Before watching this movie, I bethought myself, with Charlton Heston, Liz Scott, and Ray Collins, presented in early '50's beautiful black and white, it can't be all bad. How wrong I was. Bad for Each other was just bad for viewing. The cinematography was gorgeous, all right, and the cast was good, all right, but both were wasted on this movie.I will not waste time on the plot. Too much ink has already been spilled going over its standard "The Citadel" pattern doctor-torn-between-being- noble-helper-of-mankind-and-making-money story line. It has been used over and over again because it works well. In Hollywood when they found a horse that would run, they just went ahead and rode him to death. And that's not so bad. But this was a very poor treatment of the familiar story.The development of the story was incompetent and contrived. The story had so many plot threads, it would have taken a two and a half hour movie to cover them all, but this second feature programmer was only 84 minutes. We were led to expect that the X-rays of the miners' lungs displaying some hard-to-diagnose disease, shown to Dr. Heston by both the old coal mine doctor (Rhys Williams) and his idealistic young assistant (Arthor Franz) would turn out important in the denouement. Likewise the issue of whether Heston's character intended to pay off his late brother's debts. But there was no payoff on either. Both were left hanging at the end. People, including her own father, kept telling Heston how bad spoiled society dame Liz Scott had been for all men and how she would ruin him. But he seemed to be developing all of his bad attitude on his own without her help. Her attempts to manipulate him had little effect. In fact he seemed to dominate her.The characterization in general was very bad. The noble poor -- Heston's mother (Mildred Dunnock), the dedicated nurse (Dianne Foster), and Franz's idealistic young doctor -- all came off like doctrinaire commie stereotypes. All of the rich people were likewise portrayed like socialist models of capitalistic pigs, the exception being Ray Collins' mine owner, who showed a little troubled noblesse oblige. I'm not suggesting it was made from a socialist point of view. I'm not sure the movie even had a point of view. It was just crude. If the commies couldn't do any better than that in the propaganda department, no wonder they lost the Cold War!The cruelest disappoint of all awaited us Liz Scott fans. What a waste of that dynamite figure, that wicked, toothy leer, those vampire eyes, and that awesome ability to be bad,bad, bad! So bad that in another, much better, movie Too Late for Tears she even made Dan Duryea look like a half -decent guy by comparison! She never got to be really bad in this movie, just a bit spoiled and selfish. I kept waiting for her to shoot someone, poison someone, double-cross someone, or just run off with the plumber. Any of the above would have considerably improved this movie. Unfortunately nothing so interesting happened.No, Liz wasn't bad, but Bad for Each Other was.