Episodes The Atheist and the True Believer A Quick Look at Glory A Sort of Falling in Love The Last to Believe in Miracles The Next Thing to Murder Never So Happy
I saw this some years back it is the reason I became fascinated with the fifth season of this classic show. This episode bowled me over. The fact that they took the time to tell their story over 6 parts rather than shoe-horning it into one 60 minute episode was just one of its virtues. I also loved the fact that the story has no 'villains', even though it deals with an emotionally controversial issue, (as I got more into the series, I found that to be the virtue of most of its episodes). I love a story that gets me thinking and keeps me thinking and if I find myself conversing with the characters, then I know it's something really special, and that happened here.
Jack Hawkins plays a lifelong atheist and antagonist of an evangelist played wonderfully well by Bradford Dillman. Diane Baker plays Hawkins' admiring but troubled daughter, who is, if anything even more antagonistic to Dillman than her father is. Then Hawkins has a massive heart attack and "dies" for a few moments before the doctors can bring him back to life. In that time, he proclaims, he encountered God and is now a "true believer". He wants Dillman to be his minister. His daughter is appalled by this development and decides her father must have sustained brain damage, which the doctors acknowledge as a possibility. But he seems "normal", except that he is now more happy and content than he has ever been in his life.
This is where it gets really special. Dillman is a slick, media savvy preacher but an honest one, (which Baker will never believe). He's legitimately concerned that Hawkins may have simply experienced an hallucination and that his judgement may be could. He's also concerned for his health, as Hawkins is determined to appear on Dillman's YV show against doctor's orders. We are left to judge whether he's concerned for his own "business" because it might be bad if Hawkins makes his avowal of faith and then turns out to be brain damaged or dies on the show- or later recants when his mind becomes clearer, or is he really concerned for Hawkins health? (My perception tips toward the latter.) Dillman's portrayal of a somewhat oily CEO of a corporation based on faith but who really seems to believe what he says and feels he is helping people elevates this episode tremendously.
But in the end, the episode is really about Diane Baker's character, who is in the position of being "left behind" by someone close to them who has had a religious conversion and now wishes to organize their life around their new found faith. She wants her father to be the old atheist warrior using his rhetorical sword to slash through the phoniness of religion. This new guy isn't her hero at all. She's had a troubled romantic life, including an affair with a married man and Hawkins feels his refusal to indoctrinate her into some kind of moral code is the reason. He's destroyed belief and left her with nothing. Her anger and contempt for Dlliman forces the viewer to have some empathy for his character and thus to examine it more closely, which allows us to appreciate Dillman's complex performance.
The story neither promotes nor condemns any belief system. It examines the emotions and relationships surrounding them. I consider myself a religious skeptic. I find both religious faith and atheism to exaggerate human ability to understand the cosmos or its purpose. I was thus not rooting for any outcome here. I just consider this six part episode of the final season of Dr. Kildare to be one of the finest dramas I have ever seen on television.
This was the last performance Jack Hawkins ever gave in his natural voice. His gravelly tone is appropriate for the very sick man he plays but it's not just an actor's artifice. Hawkins was a 60 cigarette a day smoker and paid a high price for it. As early as 1959 he was taking cobalt treatments for cancer of the larynx. By the time the first episode of this story was broadcast on 1/3/66, he'd been diagnosed with throat cancer, the treatment for which was to remove his larynx. He'd made so many friends in the business that he was still given acting roles after that but all his lines had to be dubbed. He died in 1973, following an operation to insert an artificial voice box. (Wikipedia) This story was a strong and appropriate way to send the old voice box out.
I saw this some years back it is the reason I became fascinated with the fifth season of this classic show. This episode bowled me over. The fact that they took the time to tell their story over 6 parts rather than shoe-horning it into one 60 minute episode was just one of its virtues. I also loved the fact that the story has no 'villains', even though it deals with an emotionally controversial issue, (as I got more into the series, I found that to be the virtue of most of its episodes). I love a story that gets me thinking and keeps me thinking and if I find myself conversing with the characters, then I know it's something really special, and that happened here.
Jack Hawkins plays a lifelong atheist and antagonist of an evangelist played wonderfully well by Bradford Dillman. Diane Baker plays Hawkins' admiring but troubled daughter, who is, if anything even more antagonistic to Dillman than her father is. Then Hawkins has a massive heart attack and "dies" for a few moments before the doctors can bring him back to life. In that time, he proclaims, he encountered God and is now a "true believer". He wants Dillman to be his minister. His daughter is appalled by this development and decides her father must have sustained brain damage, which the doctors acknowledge as a possibility. But he seems "normal", except that he is now more happy and content than he has ever been in his life.
This is where it gets really special. Dillman is a slick, media savvy preacher but an honest one, (which Baker will never believe). He's legitimately concerned that Hawkins may have simply experienced an hallucination and that his judgement may be could. He's also concerned for his health, as Hawkins is determined to appear on Dillman's YV show against doctor's orders. We are left to judge whether he's concerned for his own "business" because it might be bad if Hawkins makes his avowal of faith and then turns out to be brain damaged or dies on the show- or later recants when his mind becomes clearer, or is he really concerned for Hawkins health? (My perception tips toward the latter.) Dillman's portrayal of a somewhat oily CEO of a corporation based on faith but who really seems to believe what he says and feels he is helping people elevates this episode tremendously.
But in the end, the episode is really about Diane Baker's character, who is in the position of being "left behind" by someone close to them who has had a religious conversion and now wishes to organize their life around their new found faith. She wants her father to be the old atheist warrior using his rhetorical sword to slash through the phoniness of religion. This new guy isn't her hero at all. She's had a troubled romantic life, including an affair with a married man and Hawkins feels his refusal to indoctrinate her into some kind of moral code is the reason. He's destroyed belief and left her with nothing. Her anger and contempt for Dlliman forces the viewer to have some empathy for his character and thus to examine it more closely, which allows us to appreciate Dillman's complex performance.
The story neither promotes nor condemns any belief system. It examines the emotions and relationships surrounding them. I consider myself a religious skeptic. I find both religious faith and atheism to exaggerate human ability to understand the cosmos or its purpose. I was thus not rooting for any outcome here. I just consider this six part episode of the final season of Dr. Kildare to be one of the finest dramas I have ever seen on television.
This was the last performance Jack Hawkins ever gave in his natural voice. His gravelly tone is appropriate for the very sick man he plays but it's not just an actor's artifice. Hawkins was a 60 cigarette a day smoker and paid a high price for it. As early as 1959 he was taking cobalt treatments for cancer of the larynx. By the time the first episode of this story was broadcast on 1/3/66, he'd been diagnosed with throat cancer, the treatment for which was to remove his larynx. He'd made so many friends in the business that he was still given acting roles after that but all his lines had to be dubbed. He died in 1973, following an operation to insert an artificial voice box. (Wikipedia) This story was a strong and appropriate way to send the old voice box out.
