CRONIN STORY ENDORSED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 August 1940, Page 9

CRONIN STORY ENDORSED

FOR ACCURACY AND HUMAN APPEAL.

While many members of the medical profession in England still look upon A. J. Cronin with disfavour for .his expose of the society medical racket in “The Citadel,” the doctor-author has a staunch supporter in Dr. Albert Hemming, late of Baker Street, London, now of Hollywood. Further, Dr. Hemming believes Cronin's latest novel, “Vigil in the Night," filmed by R.K.O. Radio with Carole Lombard, Brian Aherne and Anne Shirley, will have an even more far-reaching effect in the field of curative medicine and hospitalisation than the first story, which shook the profession to its roots. “While personally I think 'The Citadel’ was not a true picture of the situation as a whole,” Dr. Hemming says, “there was enough basis of fact to cause a tremendous upheaval in the practices of certain groups of medical men. His story was not in any sense typical, although I have no doubt that there was considerable fee-splitting among some doctors. By exposing it. Dr. Cronin did a great good to the profession despite the fact that many of its members regard him as a traitor.”

“Vigil in the Night," dealing as it does with inadequate hospitalisation, is much less controversial in subject than “The Citadel.” Dr. Hemming believes that every doctor and every nurse as well as every humanitarian will heart-

ily endorse it from an ethical standpoint, as well as be entertained by its powerful dramatic story. Dr. Hemming, who served as technical adviser for the picture, had been in Southern California only a few days when the job was offered to him. “I gave up my practice in London because of overwork and poor health.” he says, “and decided to take Mrs Hemming with me to California for a holiday. We paid a routine visit to the British Consul, and I was astounded when he asked me if I wanted a job. George Stevens, producer-director of 'Vigil in the Night,’ had just phoned the Consul asking to be put in touch with a British physician, shortly before I walked in.” Dr. Hemming, a native of London, has done considerable travelling, and did malaria research in India for two years before settling down to serious practice. Mrs Hemming is well known on the London stage as Eve Benson, and is making her debut on the screen in “Vigil in the Night,” playing the role of a nurse.