Gerald Green's novel about a slum doctor in Brooklyn whose sudden positive notoriety has left him with a bitter aftertaste comes to the screen with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Paul Muni (in his final film, for which he was inexplicably Oscar-nominated) plays the stereotypical 'old humbug' practitioner who helps save a young girl's life one night and is hailed in print a local hero; soon, a documentary team wants to turn their cameras on Muni, who finds himself caught between good intentions and insincere sympathy. Too many targets--and too much heavy-handed chatter--cloud this picture's alleged focus on the elderly doctor who only wants to do right by his young patients. Daniel Mann directed, poorly; his actors seem encouraged to be theatrical, while the hysterical pitch of the piece steadily climbs to a ridiculous level. A handful of scenes work (particularly the moments between Muni and troubled youth Billy Dee Williams), yet the doctor's relationships with his eager-beaver nephew and stalwart wife are wholly artificial. ** from ****